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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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 29, 2993–2995 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02634-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02634-8