Brian Laird on WNYC, OZempec, Wagovi, Mungaro. By now we've all heard of GLP-1

medications and the stunning impact they have on type 2 diabetes and obesity,

maybe you're on one. But researchers are looking into another possible use for this class of

drugs now, addiction treatment. While it's known that addiction is a medical disorder,

societally, it's often treated more like an indicator of one's morals or strength of will,

right? Untreated addiction often causes antisocial behavior, and when medical interventions fail,

compassion often runs dry. So could a medication revolutionize, not just how he treat addiction,

but also how he think about it. With me now to talk

about his latest piece in The New Yorker, Cano Zempecure Addiction, is Dr. Drew Kula, a practicing physician,

Associate Professor of Health Policy and Economics at Wilde Cornell Medical College, and contributing

writer at the New Yorker. Dr. Kularo is great to talk to you.

Welcome back to WNYC.

Thanks so much for having me.

There are a lot of names for this class of medications. We have the product names,

Ozampic Mujara, Mungara, etc. or the drug names, semaglutide, terzapeatide.

I'm sure I said that wrong. But they're all GLP-1s.

What is a, what is, what is, what is, what does GLP stand for?

Let's do that much of, you know, 101 and how it functions in the body.

Sure.

So, GLP-1s stand for glucagon-like peptide 1, and this has historically been associated with digestion.

And so we think about these medications or this molecule really, GLP-1, as attaching to receptors in the pancreas, in the stomach, in the brain.

And we've been thinking about it as something that, you know, helps release insulin and slows the

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