Adding to growing evidence of its benefits beyond glucose control and weight loss, Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic could also potentially help diabetics quit smoking, according to new research.
Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic (semaglutide) might be able to help diabetes patients quit smoking, according to a new study.
Results, published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show that patients taking semaglutide were significantly less likely to seek medical help for tobacco use disorder (TUD) versus other antidiabetic medications. Compared with insulin, semaglutide cut the risk of TUD by 32%.
This effect was slightly attenuated—but remained statistically significant—when semaglutide was compared against other GLP-1 receptor agonists. Relative to other drugs in this class, Novo’s molecule lowered the likelihood of TUD by 12%.
Patients treated with semaglutide were significantly less likely to need smoking cessation medications and counselling. Semaglutide also cut the risk of TUD in the subgroup of diabetes patients with or without obesity.
In most cases, semaglutide’s benefit on smoking arose within 30 days of starting treatment, according to the study.
Tuesday’s findings come from an emulation target trial using a nationwide database of electronic health records. In total, the researchers retrieved the records of 222,942 patients who had comorbid type 2 diabetes and TUD. Of these, 5,967 were treated with semaglutide while the remaining participants were on other anti-diabetic therapies, such as metformin, insulin, SGLT2 inhibitors and other GLP-1 analogs.
Patient records were followed for 12 months and were assessed for TUD-related healthcare measures, such as medical encounters for TUD diagnosis, prescriptions for cessation drugs and appointments for cessation counselling.
Importantly, the researchers did not conduct a well-controlled trial and their conclusions do not immediately support the clinical use of semaglutide for smoking cessation. Instead, the study’s findings provide a promising signal for the use of the drug to address the prevalence of cigarette use.
“These findings suggest the need for clinical trials to evaluate semaglutide’s potential for TUD treatment,” the researchers wrote, noting that their study has several methodological shortcomings, including potential documentation bias, missing data and residual founding.
The results add to the growing body of evidence backing the potential of semaglutide—and GLP-1 receptor agonists more broadly—in neuropsychiatric conditions, particularly those related to addictive behaviors. Earlier this month, new research published in eClinicalMedicine showed that semaglutide was associated with significantly lower risk of dementia and nicotine misuse versus other diabetes therapies, such as sitagliptin and glipizide.
In an August 2023 interview with BioSpace, Michael Glickman said that in his experience patients who were on GLP-1 medicines reported a weaker desire to smoke or drink after initiation. According to Glickman, GLP-1s could be “blunting that pleasure response across the board.”
