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GLP-1 receptor agonists are promising but unproven treatments for alcohol and substance use disorders

Preclinical and initial human studies suggest that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists may be promising treatments for alcohol use disorder, but existing approved treatments should be used until safety and efficacy is demonstrated in clinical trials.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the following funding sources: NIDA and NIAAA Intramural Research Programs (L.L. and M.F.); NIAAA grant R21AA026931 and NIDA grant R21DA047663 (C.H.); the Research Fund of the Mental Health Services – Capital Region of Denmark (M.K.K.), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (M.K.K. and A.F.J.), NIAAA grants R01AA027765, R01AA026859, and R21 AA031146 (J.P.S.); the Hardesty Family Foundation (W.K.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section, Translational Addiction Medicine Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Lorenzo Leggio & Mehdi Farokhnia

  2. Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies and Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Christian S. Hendershot

  3. Psychiatric Centre Copenhagen, Mental Health Services in the Capitol Region of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anders Fink-Jensen & Mette Kruse Klausen

  4. Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anders Fink-Jensen

  5. Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO, USA

    Joseph P. Schacht

  6. Department of Pharmacology & Physiology, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK, USA

    W. Kyle Simmons

  7. OSU Biomedical Imaging Center, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK, USA

    W. Kyle Simmons

Authors

  1. Lorenzo Leggio
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  2. Christian S. Hendershot
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  3. Mehdi Farokhnia
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  4. Anders Fink-Jensen
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  5. Mette Kruse Klausen
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  6. Joseph P. Schacht
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  7. W. Kyle Simmons
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to
Lorenzo Leggio.

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Competing interests

L.L. reports, outside his federal employment, honoraria from the UK Medical Council on Alcohol (editor-in-chief for Alcohol and Alcoholism) and book royalties from Routledge (as editor of a textbook). A.F.J. has received two unrestricted research grants from Novo Nordisk A/S for two clinical studies investigating the effects of GLP-1RAs in antipsychotic-treated prediabetic patients with schizophrenia. J.P.S. has received study medication from Bausch Health. The other authors report no competing interests.

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Leggio, L., Hendershot, C.S., Farokhnia, M. et al. GLP-1 receptor agonists are promising but unproven treatments for alcohol and substance use disorders.
Nat Med (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02634-8

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  • Published: 24 November 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02634-8

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