Wegovy, Ozempic Associated With Lower Risk of Suicidal Thoughts Than Related Drugs

Patients taking semaglutide for obesity or diabetes appear to have a lower risk of suicidal ideation than those who are taking other drugs for these conditions, according to areport inNature Medicine. Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP1R) agonist that was initially approved to treat diabetes (brand name: Ozempic) but was subsequently approved at a higher dose as a weight loss medication (brand name: Wegovy). “Instructions for Wegovy include recommended monitoring for suicidal ideation. However, the association of semaglutide with suicidal ideation compared with non-GLP1R agonist medications has not been investigated,” wrote William Wang of Case Western Reserve University; Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and colleagues.Wang, Volkow, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of electronic health records from the TriNetX Analytics Network, which includes data from more than 100 million patients across the United States. They identified 240,618 patients who were prescribed either semaglutide or a non-GLP1R anti-obesity medication (for example, bupropion) between June 2021 (when Wegovy was approved) and December 2022. They also identified 1,589,855 patients who received semaglutide or a non-GLP1R medication for type 2 diabetes (for example, metformin) between December 2017 (when Ozempic was approved) and May 2021. For both populations, the researchers examined the incidence of either a first or recu...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bupropion diabetes GLP1 Metformin Nature Medicine obesity Ozempic semaglutide suicidal ideation Wegovy Source Type: research