Scientists have come out to explain how Ozempic, the now popular weight loss drug is affecting people’s personalities by making them have anxiety, depression and prone to suicidal acts.
A growing number of patients claim that the GLP-1 medication and others like it have caused anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, even as they lose weight
Ozempic, and other popular treatments like Wegovy, have an impact on dopamine levels, which are responsible for a range of functions.
Along with impacting our emotional and physical drive for food, the brain chemical impacts feelings of reward, pleasure, motivation and movement.
Scientists now believe that these changing levels in dopamine could explain why some users have even claimed the drugs have also reduced their cravings for drugs, alcohol and sex.
Dr Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, says both addictive substances and food activate the same dopamine signals and reward-learning regions in the brain.
“Cravings for addictive drugs are also amplified by hunger.” He told Daily Mail.
“When researchers are trying to get animals to learn to self-administer cocaine, they often will keep them hungry for a little while, as this helps them learn,” Dr. Berridge explained.
“Hunger is specifically for food but it’s more general than that, it activates craving for a lot of things. If you’re hungry, the motivational value of things, even that are not food, seems to increase.”
Because these drugs help patients to feel satiated for longer, experts believe they then also lessen cravings for things other than food as well, such as drugs, sex and alcohol.
“Satiety may be not only reducing the craving for food but potentially for other things,” Dr Berridge said.
GLP-1 drugs appear to alter the motivational dopamine systems, dampening but not eliminating desires. For example, patients have found that they don’t lose their appetites but eat less while on these medications which experts believe could translate to other vices.
“That would be a possibility — taking the [edge off certain cravings], and those are the ones that are problematic if you’re trying to lose weight or if a person is trying to stop taking drugs,” Dr Berridge said.
He also shared that a decreased libido while on GLP-1 drugs is “conceivable.”
Dr Berridge explained that because sex is a pleasurable natural desire, suppressing the reward pathway could lead to a reduced sex drive.
“If you’re suppressing [dopamine activation] a little bit and cutting down those mountain peaks, sexual desire is a natural peak, so that would be plausible,” the medical expert said.
The US Food and Drug Administration’s adverse event reporting system received 606 reports of psychiatric disorders connected to Ozempic, along with 324 reports connected to Saxenda and 190 to Wegovy in 2023.
The FDA requires that medications for weight management that work on the central nervous system, including Saxenda and Wegovy, carry a warning about suicidal thoughts.
Ozempic, which is only FDA-approved to treat diabetes, does not come with the FDA warning.
Lead study author Dr. Alexis Conason, a licensed psychologist in NYC, said;
“People put so much emotion and hope into weight loss, and are sold this fantasy that if they just lose weight everything’s gonna be okay and all the good things that they want in life will come when they lose weight,” Conason previously told The Post.
