No Suicide Risk Associated With GLP-1 Drugs

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic/Wegovy don’t increase a person’s risk of suicidal actions or thoughts, a new study has concluded.

Earlier research had potentially linked these drugs — which are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity — with suicidal thoughts and self-harm, researchers added.

But the new study found no such association after following more than 68,000 diabetics prescribed GLP-1 drugs for a year or more, according to a report in The BMJ.

“GLP-1 receptor agonist use was not associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation, self-harm, or suicide” compared against two other classes of diabetes medications, wrote the research team led by senior researcher Laurent Azoulay, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University in Montreal.

“These findings should provide some reassurance with respect to the psychiatric safety of these drugs,” researchers concluded.

GLP-1 drugs have become wildly popular as weight-loss medications, but with their increased use has come concern over the long-term safety of this class of drugs.

For the study, researchers analyzed U.K. data on people with type 2 diabetes who had been prescribed medications for their condition.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which helps control insulin and blood sugar levels, decreases appetite and slows digestion of food.

The most prominent of these drugs is semaglutide, which is sold under the name Ozempic for diabetes management and under the name Wegovy for weight loss.

In one arm of the study, researchers compared more than 36,000 people prescribed a GLP-1 drug against more than 234,000 patients taking DPP-4 inhibitors for their diabetes between 2007 and 2020.

In the second arm, the team compared more than 32,000 GLP-1 patients against more than 96,000 patients taking SGLT-2 inhibitors between 2013 and 2020.

All groups were monitored for suicidality — suicidal thoughts, self-harm or death by suicide.

Use of GLP-1 drugs was not associated with an increased risk of suicidality compared to either DPP-4 inhibitors or SGLT-2 inhibitors, results show.

“We did not observe associations even among patients with a history of psychiatric disorders, such as self-harm, suicidal ideation, and depression,” the team concluded.

Researchers noted that because this was an observational study, it can’t completely rule out a link between GLP-1 drugs and suicide. However, they argued that they controlled for many potential sources of bias.

These results also mirror those from GLP-1 clinical trials, which found no additional risk of suicide, researchers noted.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on the potential side effects of GLP-1 drugs.

SOURCE: BMJ, news release, Feb. 26, 2025; BMJ, Feb. 26, 2025

Source: HealthDay