Semaglutide was associated with a lower risk of medical care related to tobacco use disorder in smokers with type 2 diabetes.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- Reduced Tobacco Use Disorder Risk: The study found that smokers with type 2 diabetes using semaglutide had a lower risk of medical care related to tobacco use disorder compared to those using seven other anti-diabetes medications.
- Potential for Smoking Cessation: Semaglutide users were less likely to have medical encounters involving a diagnosis of tobacco use disorder, prescribing of smoking cessation medication, or smoking cessation counseling, indicating a potential benefit for smoking cessation.
- Need for Clinical Trials: Despite promising findings, the authors stress the need for clinical trials to further evaluate semaglutide’s effectiveness for smoking cessation, as current study limitations do not justify off-label use for this purpose.
New use of semaglutide was associated with a lower risk for medical care related to tobacco use disorder in smokers with type 2 diabetes compared with seven other anti-diabetes medications.
Those who used semaglutide were less likely to have a medical encounter that included a diagnosis of tobacco use disorder, prescribing of smoking cessation medication, or smoking cessation counseling during the study timeframe.
These findings suggest the need for clinical trials to evaluate semaglutide’s potential for use in smoking cessation. The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Reduced Desire to Smoke
Previous reports of reduced desire to smoke in patients treated with semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) medication for type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity, have raised interest about its potential benefit for tobacco use disorders.
Researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine used a target trial emulation framework to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of the new use of semaglutide versus the new use of seven other anti-diabetes medications, including other GLP-1RAs, on tobacco use disorder-related health care measures in three study populations: patients with comorbid type 2 diabetes and tobacco use disorder, patients with comorbid type 2 diabetes and tobacco use disorder who had a diagnosis of obesity, and those who did not have a diagnosis of obesity.
Findings
The researchers found that semaglutide was associated with a lower risk for smoking-related health care utilization—including use that would indicate smoking cessation efforts. Similar effects were observed in subpopulations without and with a diagnosis of obesity and results were seen primarily within 30 days of prescription.
While the findings were consistent with the hypothesis that semaglutide might be beneficial for smoking cessation, the authors say study limitations preclude firm conclusions and should not be interpreted to justify clinicians’ use of semaglutide off-label for smoking cessation.
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