Ozempic… for your Brain?

Highest quality data yet suggests dramatic off-target brain effects of drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro

It’s quite a thing that we live in an era with the biggest blockbuster weight loss drugs in history, and I can look at you, straight-faced and say — yeah, but honestly that’s not the most interesting thing about the GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic.

Beyond their clear utility in weight loss, we have good data that demonstrate the drugs lead to improvements in rates of heart disease, liver disease, and even all-cause mortality, and intriguing reports of strange off-target effects: a reduction in gambling, drinking, drug use, smoking, and compulsive shopping. It’s honestly hard to find an organ system or self-destructive behavior that GLP-1 drugs don’t seem to improve somehow. It’s almost strange. It’s as if the statins came out and everyone was excited about the cholesterol going down and then we discovered that they reversed hair loss or took three strokes off your golf game. How does one drug do so many things?

I think the behavioral changes are the clue. The fact that people may drink or smoke less on these drugs should tell you that something is happening in their brain. And if these drugs are acting on the brain, you might well wonder if they can reduce the risk of brain disease…