Can Ozempic Cure Addiction?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Semaglutide, better known by its brand name Ozempic, has been making headlines as a weight loss drug – despite only having FDA approval to treat diabetes. Now, some say it doesn’t just quell cravings for food – it helps quiet cravings for alcohol, drugs, and other compulsive behaviors. For years, researchers have been studying semaglutide's effectiveness as an addiction cure in animals. What have they found? And – does it actually work?
Guest: Sarah Zhang covers health and medicine for The Atlantic
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | GSK believes innovation starts when you stop to listen. That's why GSK and Veeve Health |
| 0:08.1 | Care have partnered with the HIV community for decades and developed medicines that better |
| 0:13.9 | fit the lives of people living with HIV. That's just one example of how GSK unites science, |
| 0:20.7 | technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. Visit gsk.com to learn more. |
| 0:30.1 | When I got Sarah Zangolman line, I asked her to tell me the story of Victoria Rutledge. |
| 0:39.7 | Yeah, so Victoria is someone who has always thought of herself as someone with an addictive |
| 0:44.6 | personality. Sarah covers science and medicine for the Atlantic. You know, the example she gave me is |
| 0:51.5 | that she had been addicted to alcohol when she was younger and she had gotten sober, but sort of |
| 0:57.1 | kind of replaced her addiction to alcohol, with food and shopping. She told me that she would |
| 1:02.8 | spend something like $500 on groceries every two weeks. Victoria would buy so much food that it |
| 1:08.9 | would rot in her fridge. If she went to Target to run an errand, she'd find herself compulsively |
| 1:14.4 | buying one thing after another unable to stop. Just start throwing candles or make up or skincare |
| 1:21.5 | into her car. Even though she didn't really need it, but she just saw it. She just really needed to |
| 1:26.4 | that. Then a few months ago, Victoria started taking semi-glutide for weight loss. That's the |
| 1:32.6 | medication sold under the brand name's ozempic and wigovi. There's also minjaro, which is slightly |
| 1:38.8 | different, but has similar effects. When Victoria went on semi-glutide, she lost weight, but something |
| 1:46.4 | else started to happen. Something she noticed on one of those errand runs. She just walked out of |
| 1:52.3 | Target one day. She told me and she realized, oh hey, my cart, I didn't buy anything. I didn't |
| 1:58.5 | need to. I only got the things I wanted. What's going on? It's almost like a switch had flipped in |
| 2:04.4 | her brain, where she was no longer addicted to shopping. She realized, of course, she hadn't been buying |
| 2:09.3 | all this food either. Just this kind of addictive, compulsive habits that she'd had her entire life |
| 2:16.3 | had kind of gone away. Today on the show, Kudo Zempic and the drugs like it actually help fight |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.