Priya Alexander

But some people say to me, Priya, I'm actually consuming less alcohol and I've given up cigarette smoking.

I don't vape anymore.

So there appears to be, and we've talked about it, these anti-addictive properties.

But there's a study that's been published in the British Medical Journal using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs that's actually looked to see a bit more closely whether these GLP-1 medications do reduce the risk of substance use disorders.

I think it's important we've got to set this up because it's a slightly more complicated study.

But everyone in this study that they've looked at did have a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

They've looked at people with no previous history of a substance use disorder.

And we should be clear that they've looked at multiple substances, cannabis, cocaine, opioids, nicotine.

So they've looked at multiple substances.

So in one arm, they had people with no history.

And in the other arm, they did have people with a history of a substance use disorder.

They've compared these GLP-1 medications to another diabetes medication, so what we call an SGLT2 inhibitor, which works on the kidneys to reduce the amount of glucose that gets reabsorbed into the bloodstream.

And the long and the short of it is that in the people in both arms who had either no history of a substance use disorder or they did have a history of it, the people on GLP-1s tended to do better because

And so basically what was found is that if you took the GLP-1 as opposed to the SGLT2 inhibitor, you actually had a reduced risk of developing a substance use disorder if you had no history.

In the arm who had a history,

The people who used the GLP-1 receptor agonist had a reduced risk of what we call adverse events.

They were less likely to go to the emergency department, be admitted to hospital, and they had less suicidal ideation or suicide attempts.

Yes, and I don't think we're there now.

I would solely prescribe it for that reason, but it adds to the clinical picture in someone.

And again, these were all people with type 2 diabetes, but it's just something to consider if it's indicated anyway and someone has a history or is higher risk.