A new study from medical records company Epic (one of the largest holders of electronic medical records in the US) has revealed use of GLP-1 ‘weight loss’ medications such as Wegovy and Ozempic corresponds to a reduction in diagnoses of depression and anxiety.
The report observed the connection in the medical records of over 3 million people with diabetes and nearly 1 million taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss.
‘The results of the report suggest a mental health benefit for this class of drugs beyond diabetes health and weight control’, commented medicalnewstoday.com.
The research found 5 GLP-1 drugs were ‘linked to reduced depression and anxiety in people with diabetes’, compared with people who were not taking GLP-1 medications.
The most well-known GLP-1 drugs Wegovy and Ozempic are based on semaglutide; other GLP-1 agonist compounds tested in the study were liraglutide, dulaglutide and exenatide, as well as tirzepatide that mimics a second intestinal hormone (gastric inhibitory polypeptide or GIP) in addition to GLP-1.
People with diabetes taking tirzepatide were 65% less likely to be diagnosed with depression and 60% less likely to have anxiety, compared to people not taking GLP-1 drugs.
People with diabetes who were taking semaglutide were 45% less likely to be diagnosed with depression, and 44% less likely to have anxiety.
Two of the drugs, semaglutide and liraglutide, were assessed regarding depression and anxiety in people without diabetes; for those patients, only semaglutide was associated with a reduction in depression and anxiety, compared to people who were not on GLP-1 medications; there was no statistically significant improvement for people taking liraglutide.
The study was undertaken by two teams of in-house researchers at Epic Research (an investigative branch of Epic); they analysed anonymised patient records for 3,081,254 people with diabetes and 929,174 without diabetes – and came to the same conclusions.
US general practitioner Dr Kathryn Basford (not involved in the research) told medicalnewstoday.com: ‘The results suggest a potentially new therapeutic benefit of GLP-1 medications beyond their established use for glucose control and weight management.’
