THE FAT SHOT KEEPS ACCIDENTALLY TALKING PEOPLE OUT OF ANOTHER ROUND

Semaglutide, the stuff inside Ozempic, was built to make you stop eating. Researchers keep finding it also makes people stop drinking, which is one hell of a side effect for a drug company to trip over on the way to the bank. The University of Colorado Anschutz version landed in the American Journal of Psychiatry in July. Fifty adults with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder, eight weeks on the pill form or a placebo, and the semaglutide group had fewer heavy drinking days and cut their drinks on the days they did drink. They also reported fewer cravings in daily life, fewer alcohol-related problems and fewer weed days. The drug is out here quietly deleting entire personalities. Here's the part the press writeup glides past. The preregistered primary outcome was lab-measured craving, with people made to hold and sniff their favorite drink, and on that semaglutide did nothing. It also whiffed on drinks per calendar day, one of its two key secondary endpoints. The 2025 JAMA Psychiatry trial of 48 adults went the same way, cutting drinks per drinking day and weekly craving while never moving the number of days people drank. The biggest test is Danish. The Lancet ran 108 people with alcohol use disorder and obesity for 26 weeks, everyone was offered therapy, half got semaglutide. Both groups improved, because therapy works. The semaglutide half finished at roughly five heavy drinking days a month against nine for placebo. None of this is approved for drinking. Anyone taking it for their weight is running the experiment for free.

Why you should give a shit: Alcohol treatment hasn't landed a new hit drug in decades and the leading candidate got found by accident by scientists studying lunch, so enjoy your next round while you still want it.