For the study, scientists combed through the electronic health records of more than 100 million Americans to identify approximately 65,000 adults with type 2 diabetes who were prescribed either semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic — or one of three other diabetes drugs: Januvia (sitagliptin), Jardiance (empagliflozin), or Glucotrol (glipizide). Researchers then compared participants’ risk of developing 22 different psychiatric and neurological conditions while taking these medicines.
After one year of treatment, the study found no increased risk of psychiatric conditions such as anxiety or depression. And in fact researchers found the risk of cognitive deficits was 28 percent lower with Ozempic than with either Januvia or Glucotrol. Ozempic was also associated with a lower dementia risk than either one of these drugs, but the difference was too small for researchers to say it wasn’t due to chance.
In addition, the risk of nicotine dependence with Ozempic was 28 percent lower than with Glucotrol and 23 percent lower than with Jardiance.
“Our results suggest that semaglutide use could extend beyond managing diabetes, potentially offering unexpected benefits in the treatment and prevention of cognitive decline and substance misuse,” says the lead author of the study, Riccardo De Giorgi, MD, DPhil, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a clinical lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Oxford in England.
The study participants were typically in their mid-fifties and had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the month before they started treatment with Ozempic or one of the other medications. People were excluded from the study if they had previously been treated with the drugs being compared in the analysis.
Scientists then looked at how often people on Ozempic and the other diabetes medicines developed a wide range of neurological and psychological issues during their first year of taking these drugs. They found no significant differences between Ozempic and alternative drugs when it came to swelling in the brain, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and seizure disorders, insomnia, nerve disorders, muscle diseases, bleeding in the brain, stroke, psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, suicidality, or misuse of alcohol, opioids, cannabis, or stimulants.
The study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how Ozempic might directly prevent specific psychological or neurological disorders. It’s also possible that too few participants experienced certain psychological or neurological conditions during the yearlong study to identify statistically meaningful differences in outcomes based on which diabetes medicine they took.
And, because everyone in the study had type 2 diabetes, it’s unclear whether the results would apply to people without this condition. “We do not know its possible effects on people taking semaglutide for other indications,” says Dr. De Giorgi.
While more research is needed to verify the results of the new study before anyone takes these medicines specifically for psychological or neurological benefits, semaglutide might promote brain health at the same time that it helps manage type 2 diabetes, says Barbara Bendlin, PhD, a professor of geriatrics at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
For one thing, semaglutide makes it easier for the body to produce and use the hormone insulin to control blood sugar levels, says Dr. Bendlin, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“Abnormalities in blood sugar levels and insulin levels have been associated with poorer brain and cognitive outcomes,” Bendlin says. “We have previously found that even among people without diagnosed type 2 diabetes, abnormal blood and insulin levels are associated with worse cognition, more brain atrophy, and reduced blood flow.”
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