Ozempic’s Addiction-Fighting Power Is Being Ignored: Lisa Jarvis

The anecdotes are increasingly impossible to ignore: Many people taking the new obesity drugs, whether Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy or Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound, aren’t just eating less, they’re drinking and smoking less, too.

Now data is rolling in, giving shape to the role these drugs could play in treating addiction. The need is gargantuan. About 1 in 6 people in the US are addicted to either alcohol or illicit drugs, according to the most recent survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Heavy drinking contributes to more than 178,000 deaths a year in the US, while ...