From online forums to the clinic, people have reported that diabetes and weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy can dramatically quell their compulsive behaviors—including cravings for alcohol and nicotine. The swell of anecdotes has spurred a wave of preliminary trials and one-off studies that have mostly investigated specific substance use disorders individually. But researchers haven’t grasped how broad the effects might be.

Now a large epidemiological study published today in the BMJ suggests that glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) medications—as these drugs are called—reduce the risk of all kinds of substance use disorders, including those involving alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, opioids and cocaine. Not only did GLP-1 drugs appear to prevent people from developing these addictions, but they also decreased rates of life-threatening events, including drug-related overdoses and deaths.

The analysis followed more than 600,000 people with type 2 diabetes in the U.S. VA health care system for three years. Participants who took GLP-1 medications for diabetes were compared with those on another diabetes treatment that has not been linked to decreasing addiction. In veterans with no history of a substance use disorder, GLP-1 drugs were associated with a 14 percent reduced risk across all substance use conditions, with the largest drop—25 percent—seen in opioid use disorders.