Health
Weight-loss medications may also benefit common medical problem, study finds
Weight-loss medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists, which have gained popularity for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity, have been shown to have the surprising secondary benefit of reducing alcohol intake.
A team of international researchers from Ireland and Saudi Arabia followed 262 adult patients with obesity who started taking two GLP-1 medications: liraglutide or semaglutide.
Among the regular drinkers, weekly alcohol intake decreased by 68%, from approximately 23 units of alcohol to around 8 units.
WEIGHT LOSS, DIABETES DRUGS CAN CAUSE MOOD CHANGES: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BEHAVIORAL SIDE EFFECTS
The findings were recently published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism and were also presented last week at the European Congress on Obesity in Spain.
GLP-1 agonists mimic a hormone called GLP-1, which is released from the gastrointestinal system after eating, according to study co-author Carel Le Roux, a professor at University College Dublin.
Weight-loss medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists have been shown to have the surprising secondary benefit of reducing alcohol intake. (iStock)
These medications activate GLP-1 receptors in the brain, decreasing the sense of “reward” people feel after eating or drinking, eventually leading to reduced cravings for both food and alcohol, he told Fox News Digital.
“It is this commonality of function that suggests the GLP-1 receptors in the brain may be a therapeutic target for not just the disease of obesity, but also for alcohol use disorder,” the professor said.
Study findings
Before the participants started the weight-loss drugs, they self-reported their weekly alcohol intake, then were categorized as non-drinkers, rare drinkers or regular drinkers.
Approximately 72% had at least two follow-up visits and 68% reported regular alcohol consumption.
WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS’ IMPACT ON CANCER RISK REVEALED IN NEW STUDY
After starting the weight-loss medications, the participants’ weekly average alcohol intake decreased by almost two-thirds overall — from approximately 11 units of alcohol to four units after four months of treatment with the GLP-1 agonists.
The reduction in alcohol use was comparable to the decrease that can be achieved by nalmefene, a drug that decreases the “buzz” feeling in people with alcohol use disorder in Europe, according to the researchers.
Among the regular drinkers, weekly alcohol intake decreased by 68%, from approximately 23 units of alcohol to around 8 units. (iStock)
For the 188 patients who were followed over an average of four months, none had increased their alcohol intake after starting the weight-loss medications.
Patients reported that after an evening meal, they were too full to have their usual drink — and when they did drink, they reported becoming full extremely quickly and drinking at a slower pace, Le Roux noted.
“The findings in this study suggest that we may have just found a therapeutic target for alcohol use disorder.”
This suggests that the experience was less enjoyable, partly due to the reduced rate of alcohol absorption.
Some patients also reported that they didn’t enjoy the flavor of the alcoholic beverages as much, and also that hangovers were much worse.
All of these experiences showed that the weight-loss medications create “guard rails” that prevent most patients from drinking excessively, giving them a degree of control over their alcohol intake, according to Le Roux.
After starting the weight-loss medications, the participants’ weekly average alcohol intake decreased by almost two-thirds overall. (iStock)
“The findings in this study suggest that we may have just found a therapeutic target for alcohol use disorder — the GLP-1 receptor,” the professor told Fox News Digital.
“This finding potentially opens the possibility of an entirely new pharmacological treatment paradigm, which could be used in conjunction with conventional methods, such as behavior therapy and group support.”
Potential limitations
The study was limited by its relatively small number of patients, the researchers acknowledged.
Also, the researchers were not able to verify the participants’ self-reported alcohol intake, and roughly one-third of them were not available for follow-up.
SEMAGLUTIDE FOUND TO HAVE SHOCKING BENEFIT FOR LIVER DISEASE PATIENTS IN NEW STUDY
There was also no control group, which means the researchers couldn’t prove that taking weight-loss medication reduces alcohol intake.
The main advantage of GLP-1 agonists is that they only need to be taken once a week and continue to work for the entire week. (iStock)
“Randomized, controlled trials with diverse patient populations — including patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder — are needed to provide the quality and quantity of data that could be used to support an application for licensing the medication for the treatment of alcohol use disorder,” Le Roux said.
(One such trial is currently underway in Denmark.)
Study implications
With the current medications available to treat alcohol use disorder, the “major problem” is compliance, Le Roux said — “because the cravings for alcohol tend to come in waves.”
“This means a patient might be fully committed to treatment at one point in the week, but then stop taking the medication later in the week when a craving comes,” the professor added.
“This research suggests a promising ancillary benefit of GLP-1 analogs, potentially influencing cravings for alcohol and offering a new avenue for managing alcohol use disorder,” a physician said. (iStock)
There are currently three FDA-approved medications to treat alcohol use disorder: naltrexone (which helps decrease cravings by reducing the “buzz” feeling that comes with drinking alcohol); disulfiram (which helps some people avoid alcohol by making them feel sick when they drink), and acamprosate (which restores the balance of hormones in the brain to reduce cravings), according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
But less than 10% of people with alcohol use disorder get the proper treatment, with many resuming use within the first year of treatment, past research shows.
The main advantage of the GLP-1 agonists is that they only need to be taken once a week and continue to work for the entire week.
For the 188 patients who were followed over an average of four months, none had increased their alcohol intake after starting the weight-loss medications. (iStock)
Outside experts say the study’s findings highlight the potential of weight-loss medications to help treat alcohol use disorder.
“This research suggests a promising ancillary benefit of GLP-1 analogs, potentially influencing cravings for alcohol and offering a new avenue for managing alcohol use disorder,” Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who was not part of the study, told Fox News Digital.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
“While the exact mechanisms are still being explored, the findings contribute to our understanding of the broader benefits of GLP-1 analogs beyond obesity treatment,” Stanford added.
Over the two and a half years following the 2022 rollout of the 988 national suicide prevention hotline, the rate of suicides among young people in the United States dropped 11 percent below projections, decreasing most sharply in states with a higher volume of answered 988 calls, a new study has found.
The findings, published today as a research letter in JAMA, compared suicide deaths from July 2022 to December 2024 with sophisticated mathematical projections that were based on historical trends. This yielded good news, with 4,372 fewer suicides of adolescents and young adults, ages 15 to 34, than had been projected.
To ensure that the decline was related to the use of the hotline, researchers at Harvard Medical School teased out the trends in states with high and low usage of the hotline. The findings were striking: The 10 states with the largest increases in 988 calls experienced an 18.2 percent reduction in observed suicides compared with expected suicides; in the 10 states with the lowest uptake, the reduction was smaller, 10.6 percent.
The results suggest that the government’s investment in the 988 rollout has translated into “a measurable reduction of deaths,” said Dr. Vishal Patel, a resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and one of the authors of the study.
“What our study has added,” he said, “is evidence for the deeper benefit of the program, and that is, that at the population level, among young people at least, suicide mortality is lower than it would have been without the program.”
Tips for Parents to Help Their Struggling Teens
Are you concerned for your teen? If you worry that your teen might be experiencing depression or suicidal thoughts, there are a few things you can do to help. Dr. Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suggests these steps:
He added, “The implication of that is that sustained funding for this program matters.”
The United States rolled out the three-digit hotline with bipartisan support in July 2022, replacing a 10-digit hotline number, and augmented it with a $1.5 billion investment in crisis center capacity. Since its inception, the service has fielded more than 25 million contacts, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency has asked Congress for $534.6 million to fund the program for 2027.
Last summer, the Trump administration terminated one element of the hotline, the Press 3 option for L.G.B.T.Q.+ callers. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said that the Press 3 option was being discontinued because it had exhausted its funding from Congress and that the hotline would “focus on serving all help seekers.”
But advocacy groups and policymakers protested the decision, and in testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said his agency was planning to restore the Press 3 option.
Dr. Patel said his group had become curious about measuring the program’s effectiveness after Press 3 was eliminated. While call volume and satisfaction surveys suggested that 988 was succeeding, he said, the harder question was, “Did the creation of this 988 program, the transition from the old hotline to this hotline, actually move the needle on suicide mortality?”
Experts said it was difficult to tease out the beneficial effect of 988 from other things that changed in 2022, the year that the new hotline was created. Around that time, suicide prevention programs were being introduced in schools, in faith communities and on social media, but more important, the pandemic was ending.
“We were finally out of this crazy time, and there was a sense of optimism and hope,” said Jonathan B. Singer, a professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago and a co-author of “Suicide in Schools.” He called the downward trend in youth suicides “encouraging, but it is tempered by the fact that we don’t have a good explanation as to why.”
The authors acknowledged that their findings could not account for the influence of social and economic changes, changes in mental health services or public awareness about services.
But they did make comparisons to exclude other possible explanations. The authors looked for similar effects among American adults over 65, who are less likely to use the hotline. In that group, there was a reduction in suicides that exceeded expectations, but it was smaller, at just 4.5 percent.
To ensure the decline in suicides did not reflect a general improvement in young-adult mortality, the researchers tracked cancer deaths, and found there was no change. They also looked at the rates of suicide among young people in England, where no change had been made to the national crisis line in that time period; they found no reduction in youth suicides there.
Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she was persuaded that the hotline had contributed to the improvement in suicide rates, in part because it did not appear among English youths or in older Americans.
“To me, that really helps hone in that this might really be the differentiator,” she said. “We are seeing potentially a pretty significant decline in suicides among young people. For public policy, this is strong evidence to double down on that we are doing.”
Emily Hilliard, a senior press secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, said H.H.S. and SAMHSA are “committed to ensuring that all Americans have access” the 988 line, which she said “clearly provides lifesaving support, helping millions of people every year.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A highly contagious digestive virus is surging across the U.S., experts warn.
Rotavirus, a double-stranded RNA virus, causes acute gastroenteritis — inflammation of the stomach and intestines — which can lead to severe diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach pain.
The virus primarily affects infants and young children, but there have also been outbreaks in elderly populations, such as nursing homes.
AT LEAST 46 CHILDREN DEAD AMID MEASLES OUTBREAK AS VIRUS SPREADS GLOBALLY
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that in the week ending April 4, out of 2,329 rotavirus tests, 7.3% were positive for the infection. Last year’s highest infection rate was 6.77% as of the week ending April 19.
Rotavirus, a double-stranded RNA virus, causes acute gastroenteritis — inflammation of the stomach and intestines — which can lead to severe diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach pain. (iStock)
“We’re seeing a lot of rotavirus in the wastewater right now,” Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, confirmed to Fox News Digital. “Testing for rotavirus is way down, but the percentage of positive tests is up.”
While the virus typically peaks in the spring, it is not currently slowing down, he noted.
Why cases may be rising
Patricia Pinto-Garcia, M.D., a medical editor at GoodRx who is based in California, said there are several possible reasons for the rotavirus spike.
“Vaccine rates are down overall among young children, as they decreased during COVID,” she told Fox News Digital. “This means there’s a growing number of infants and young children who are vulnerable to infection.”
The rotavirus vaccine series must be completed by the time a child is 8 months old, she noted.
HEALTH ALERT ISSUED FOR DENGUE OUTBREAKS SPREADING IN TRAVEL HOTSPOTS
As a result of the declining vaccinations, herd immunity isn’t protecting vulnerable children, according to Pinto-Garcia. “Children who haven’t finished the vaccine series yet, are too young to get vaccinated, or can’t get the vaccine due to medical illness are more likely to get exposed to the illness because other children aren’t vaccinated,” she said.
Siegel noted that before the vaccine became available, rotavirus resulted in 55,000 to 70,000 in the U.S. per year.
“Vaccine rates are down overall among young children, as they decreased during COVID,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. “This means there’s a growing number of infants and young children who are vulnerable to infection.” (iStock)
“I am concerned that the vaccination rate has been declining over the past seven years and is continuing to decline in the current climate of vaccine skepticism,” he said.
Surveillance methods are also much better than they used to be, Pinto-Garcia noted, which means public health experts are able to pick up and track cases better than ever before.
HOW LONG YOU’RE CONTAGIOUS WITH THE FLU — AND WHEN IT’S SAFE TO GO OUT
“But we see that rotavirus-related healthcare visits are also up, so improved detection is not the only reason we are seeing this spike,” she said.
The COVID pandemic also disrupted the pattern of infections, according to Pinto-Garcia, so it’s “tricky” to compare the current levels against older cycles.
“It’s possible that what we are seeing is still some post-pandemic rebound, but it’s unlikely that this year’s pattern is fully explained by just this factor,” she added.
Transmission and risk
Dr. Zachary Hoy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Pediatrix Medical Group based in Nashville, Tennessee, often sees young patients with rotavirus.
“Rotavirus is spread via the fecal-oral route, meaning that a person comes into contact with virus droplets from contact with other children or adults, or from contact with objects such as toys that have been contaminated with the virus from someone who is sick,” he told Fox News Digital. “This can lead to outbreaks, especially at schools where many young children share the same toys.”
“It’s possible that what we are seeing is still some post-pandemic rebound, but it’s unlikely that this year’s pattern is fully explained by just this factor.”
Rotavirus is associated with many dehydration cases in the hospital due to the degree of diarrhea, according to Hoy.
In some severe cases, the virus can lead to seizures due to electrolyte imbalances from dehydration and loss of electrolytes in the stool.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“Younger children do not have the reserves that older children and adults have, so they can become more dehydrated quicker and develop more severe electrolyte imbalances, leading to more severe infections,” Hoy said.
“Patients with problems with their immune systems or on medications that can decrease their immune systems can have more severe and prolonged infections, too.”
Treatment and care
Because rotavirus is a viral infection, antibiotics are not effective against it. There is no specific antiviral treatment for the condition, with doctors typically recommending supportive care.
“The mainstay of treatment is hospitalization for rehydration via intravenous (IV) fluids,” Hoy told Fox News Digital. “Sometimes it can take up to two to three days of IV fluids to help get patients rehydrated.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
Blood draws are often necessary to evaluate patients’ electrolyte levels, such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, according to the doctor.
“If these electrolyte levels are significantly low, sometimes patients need special IV solutions or individual electrolyte medications,” he added.
“The mainstay of treatment is hospitalization for rehydration via intravenous (IV) fluids,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
Dr. Daniel Park, medical director of the Pediatric Emergency Department at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, noted that most children recover with supportive care, but parents should seek medical attention if a child shows signs of dehydration. Those include decreased urination, lethargy or inability to keep fluids down.
“While rare, rotavirus can be life-threatening in vulnerable populations, especially very young infants or children with underlying medical conditions,” Park told Fox News Digital.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
Prevention strategies
Given the lack of antiviral medications for rotavirus, doctors emphasize the importance of prevention, primarily the vaccine.
There are two rotavirus vaccines – Rotateq (a three-dose series) and Rotarix (a two-dose series). They are given starting at age 2 months as oral drops, not injections, according to Hoy.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
“It’s important to get the rotavirus vaccines on schedule, because these younger infants are at greatest risk if they get rotavirus,” he advised.
Other recommended prevention methods include handwashing with soap and water.
Every day we’re faced with a zillion small choices: Go to sleep early, or watch one more episode of that Netflix drama. Call an old friend to catch up, or cruise social media. Of course, no single action will guarantee a long, healthy life or doom you to an early grave. But those little daily decisions do add up, and over the long term they can make a difference when it comes to both your longevity and your health span, the amount of life spent in relatively good health.
Scroll through this theoretical “day in the life” and select the option that best fits your typical day. Not every situation will apply perfectly, but think about which choice you’d be most likely to make. This isn’t a formal scientific assessment. The goal here isn’t to assign you a “good” or “bad” score, but to help you understand the central factors that shape the way we age and how long we live.
-
Finance2 minutes agoAuto Finance Capital Summit | Insights | Mayer Brown
-
Fitness8 minutes agoAt 50, Hrithik Roshan’s ex-wife Sussanne sets fitness goals with challenging Pilates exercise
-
Movie Reviews20 minutes ago‘Madhuvidhu’ movie review: A light-hearted film that squanders a promising conflict
-
World32 minutes agoGoogle puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push
-
News38 minutes agoSenate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS
-
Politics44 minutes agoU.S. Seizes Second Tanker Carrying Iranian Oil
-
Business50 minutes agoHow We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
-
Science56 minutes agoRFK Jr. Says His Department Advises All Children to Get Measles Vaccine