Novo NordiskDr. Johnston’s successful diabetes drug Ozempic can reduce the chance of opioid overdose in certain patients, demonstrating its potential in its place treatment for opioid use disorders, in line with a latest study published on Wednesday.
Ozempic's lively ingredient, semaglutide, is related to a “significantly lower” risk of opioid overdose than other diabetes medications in people diagnosed with each type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder, in line with the article published in JAMA Network Open.
The results suggest that Ozempic could also be a possible tool to combat the continued US. Opioid epidemic, the declared a public health emergency in 2017. There are currently three effective medications to stop overdoses as a result of opioid use disorder, but a brand new alternative is required because some patients simply don't use them, said study lead co-author Dr. Rong XuProfessor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University.
In 2022 only a few quarter of patients with opioid use disorder received the beneficial medications for it, and plenty of discontinued treatment inside six months, in line with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics says opioids are a think about around 72% Overdose deaths within the USA
The study results also provide evidence that a very fashionable class of diabetes and obesity drugs called GLP-1 could have multiple health advantages beyond regulating blood sugar and promoting weight reduction. Novo Nordisk, its competitor Eli Lilly and independent researchers are currently intensively studying the potential of those drugs in patients with chronic conditions starting from kidney disease and sleep apnea to addictive behaviors resembling nicotine and alcohol abuse.
In the study published Wednesday, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the National Institutes of Health analyzed the electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients who were prescribed semaglutide or other diabetes drugs between December 2017 and June 2023. The study was not funded by Novo Nordisk.
About 3,000 people were prescribed semaglutide injections, while the remainder received treatments starting from insulins to older GLP-1 diabetes drugs, including dulaglutide, the lively ingredient in Eli Lilly's drug Trulicity, and liraglutide, the lively ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Victoza.
Researchers monitored what number of cases of opioid overdoses occurred in patients inside a yr after they stopped treatment with semaglutide or other drugs. For example, there have been 42 cases of opioid overdoses in a bunch of patients receiving semaglutide, compared with 97 cases in one other group receiving insulin, the study said.
This reflects a 58 percent lower risk of opioid overdose in patients taking semaglutide, Xu said.
However, Xu identified that the study has limitations since it is predicated on data from electronic health records.
To confirm the extent to which Ozempic and other GLP-1 preparations may also help patients with opioid use disorder, further research is required, particularly clinical trials during which patients are randomly assigned to receive semaglutide or other treatments, in line with the study authors. These randomized trials may help determine whether treatments are useful for the overall population with opioid use disorder or just for certain patients with the disorder.
“The extent to which GLP-1 medications can help treat opioid use disorder and prevent overdoses is unclear,” Dr. Nora Volkow, senior co-author of the study and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse on the National Institutes of Health, said in an announcement to CNBC. “The preliminary results of this study suggest that GLP-1 medications may be helpful in preventing opioid overdoses.”
Xu added that researchers plan to check semaglutide in patients with opioid use disorder and obesity.
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