Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults With Alcohol Use Disorder
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Importance: Preclinical, observational, and pharmacoepidemiology evidence indicates that glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) may reduce alcohol intake. Randomized trials are needed to determine the clinical significance of these findings. Objective: To evaluate the effects of once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide on alcohol consumption and craving in adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Design, Setting, and Participants: This was a phase 2, double-blind, randomized, parallel-arm trial involving 9 weeks of outpatient treatment. Enrollment occurred at an academic medical center in the US from September 2022 to February 2024. Of 504 potential participants assessed, 48 non-treatment-seeking participants with AUD were randomized. Intervention: Participants received semaglutide (0.25 mg/week for 4 weeks, 0.5 mg/week for 4 weeks, and 1.0 mg for 1 week) or placebo at weekly clinic visits. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was laboratory alcohol self-administration, measured at pretreatment and posttreatment (0.5 mg/week). Secondary and exploratory outcomes, including prospective changes in alcohol consumption and craving, were assessed at outpatient visits. Results: Forty-eight participants (34 [71%] female; mean [SD] age, 39.9 [10.6] years) were randomized. Low-dose semaglutide reduced the amount of alcohol consumed during a posttreatment laboratory self-administration task, with evidence of medium to large effect sizes for grams of alcohol consumed (β, -0.48; 95% CI, -0.85 to -0.11; P = .01) and peak breath alcohol concentration (β, -0.46; 95% CI, -0.87 to -0.06; P = .03). Semaglutide treatment did not affect average drinks per calendar day or number of drinking days, but significantly reduced drinks per drinking day (β, -0.41; 95% CI, -0.73 to -0.09; P = .04) and weekly alcohol craving (β, -0.39; 95% CI, -0.73 to -0.06; P = .01), also predicting greater reductions in heavy drinking over time relative to placebo (β, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.71 to 0.99; P = .04). A significant treatment-by-time interaction indicated that semaglutide treatment predicted greater relative reductions in cigarettes per day in a subsample of individuals with current cigarette use (β, -0.10; 95% CI, -0.16 to -0.03; P = .005). Conclusions and Relevance: These findings provide initial prospective evidence that low-dose semaglutide can reduce craving and some drinking outcomes, justifying larger clinical trials to evaluate GLP-1RAs for alcohol use disorder. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05520775.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".