Ozempic and Wegovy might help slow how fast you get drunk, new research finds

Weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy can not help drop the pounds, now researchers say it can help curtail alcohol intoxication.

The drugs can slow down the rate at which alcohol enters the bloodstream, which affects the brain, Virginia Tech academics explained.

A standard serving of either has 0.6 ounces of alcohol, but the shot brings a rapid increase in blood-alcohol content. It feels different because of the way the body handles alcohol over time.

“People who drink know there’s a difference between nursing a glass of wine and downing a shot of whiskey,” Alex DiFeliceantonio, an assistant professor at the school, said in a statement.

“Why would this matter? Faster-acting drugs have a higher abuse potential,” DiFeliceantonio said. “They have a different impact on the brain. So if GLP-1s slow alcohol entering the bloodstream, they could reduce the effects of alcohol and help people drink less.”

The findings build on years of previous research looking into whether the drugs can treat addictions such as alcohol use disorder, with one study published in February showing the drugs helped reduce the amount of alcohol patients drank and the frequency of days they drank heavily.

Most studies have found that the drugs fight the urge to drink more in the same way that they help slash food cravings.

"I ordered a beer, took a sip, and I couldn't finish it," 73-year-old Oklahoman J. Paul Grayson previously told NPR. "You know how sometimes you taste a beer, and it's like, 'Oh my God, this tastes so good that I want to guzzle it.' Well, I didn't feel like guzzling. I just really felt like sipping it."

The small new pilot study came to similar conclusions.

The researchers found that despite consuming the amount of alcohol necessary to raise breath alcohol levels to approximately 0.08 percent — the legal driving limit — people taking semaglutide, tirzepatide or liraglutide weight loss drugs saw their levels increase more slowly and said they felt less intoxicated.

Semaglutide is the active ingredient for Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 class drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

The Virginia Tech researchers reached these conclusions by giving 20 obese participants from the Roanake, Virginia, area an alcoholic beverage that had to be consumed within 10 minutes. Then, they measured their breath alcohol level and asked them questions about how they felt.

This was repeated three times over the course of an hour and they continued to measure their breath alcohol level every 30 minutes, as well as their blood sugar.

“Other medications designed to help reduce alcohol intake” — naltrexone and acamprosate — “act on the central nervous system,” DiFeliceantonio said. “Our preliminary data suggest that GLP-1s suppress intake through a different mechanism.”

The findings are promising for the nearly 49 million Americans who struggle with alcohol use disorder.

More than half of U.S. adults drink alcohol, although University of Southern California researchers — the authors of the February study — also pointed out that the drugs currently approved to treat alcohol use disorder aren’t widely used.

Chronic alcohol use is associated with cancer, liver and heart disease.

About 178,000 people die from excessive drinking each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.