New research suggests semaglutide drugs may be linked with an unexpected change in rates of depression and anxiety.
Semaglutide medications were first approved to help manage diabetes.
They work by affecting the way the pancreas regulates insulin, and they’re also known to curb appetite by helping people feel full sooner during meals.
As a result, when used alongside dietary changes and exercise, semaglutide treatments have also been used to support weight loss.
Now, researchers say there may be another potential association worth noting.
A study published in the medical journal The Lancet reported a surprising connection involving mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety.
The paper found that the GLP-1 receptor agonists semaglutide and liraglutide were associated with a lower risk of deteriorating mental health compared with people who were not taking this class of medication.
To investigate this, an international team analyzed Swedish health records, focusing on around 95,000 people diagnosed with anxiety or depression who were also prescribed various diabetes drugs between 2009 and 2022.
The researchers compared different time periods for the same individuals—looking at outcomes during stretches when patients were using GLP-1 medications and contrasting them with periods when they were taking other diabetes treatments instead.
To gauge whether a person’s mental health had worsened, the study reviewed several indicators, including psychiatric hospital admissions, sick leave taken due to mental health issues, hospitalizations related to self-harm, and deaths by suicide.
Overall, the researchers reported that people taking semaglutide showed a lower rate of worsening mental health than those not using it.
The study conluded: “For anxiety and depression that co-occur with diabetes and obesity, semaglutide and, to a lesser extent, liraglutide might be useful dually effective therapeutic options.”
Even so, the results don’t prove the medication itself is directly responsible, as other influences could also explain the pattern.
Dr Markku Lähteenvuo is a research director at the University of Eastern Finland, and said in The Guardian: “It is possible that, in addition to factors such as reduced alcohol consumption, weight loss-related improvements in body image, or relief associated with better glycaemic control in diabetes, there may also be direct neurobiological mechanisms involved, for example, through changes in the functioning of the brain’s reward system.”
Other specialists have also advised interpreting the findings carefully, including Prof David Nutt, head of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at Imperial College London.
He said: “It is well established that better mental health tends to follow from better physical health and since the 1880s we have known that diabetes is associated with depression, although I think it’s unlikely that using GLP-1R agonists alone as treatments for depression or anxiety will work.”