Dhruv Khullar

It was first discovered many years ago.

And glucagon-like peptide 1, which is a naturally occurring hormone, I mean, that was discovered nearly half a century ago now.

And it was always thought to have effects for diabetes and then later weight loss.

But the idea that it could modulate the way that people were experiencing the rewards of drugs and other types of behaviors, that is a much more recent phenomenon.

And so this kind of came about because there were just so many stories of people saying that they wanted to drink alcohol less.

They didn't want to smoke as much.

People who had been taking opioids weren't having the same types of cravings that they had in the past.

And, you know, some of that you take as anecdotal evidence.

You're not sure exactly what to make of it.

But over the past year or two, there has been a good amount of trial work that has shown and is increasingly showing that there are pretty substantial effects here.

Here, GLP-1s, they seem to be acting across these different types of addictions, which is quite novel information.

And interesting, the prior thinking had been that they are modulating mostly our desire for food and creating a sense of satiety.

And now the thinking is that maybe these effects are much broader than we previously thought.

Things like alcohol or nicotine or cocaine, even social media, they seem to increase dopamine release in the pathway.

And at least the theory is, and there's some animal work to support this, is that sometimes

the spikes of dopamine are being blunted by GLP-1s, but the kind of baseline levels of dopamine are being drained fully.

And so it may be that this class of medications will be an important adjunct to people who are struggling with addiction.

Well, dopamine is involved in all sorts of processes in the brain.

So I think, you know, today in modern parlance has become kind of synonymous with this idea of addiction, whether it's to social media or to a drug or other substance.

But dopamine is involved in all sorts of things from motor function.