It’s become a running joke at this point that GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) can help with almost everything under the Sun, not just weight loss. A study out today now suggests GLP-1s might even have the potential to curb people’s violent tendencies.
Scientists at Rutgers University examined nationally representative survey data that compared former and current GLP-1 users. In people currently taking GLP-1s, they found, the link between being impulsive and being more prone to violence was noticeably weaker. Though the team’s findings are far from certain proof that GLP-1s can reduce violent behavior, they do warrant follow-up research, the authors say.
“We view this study as a first step, not a final answer,” lead author Daniel Semenza, director of research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at the Rutgers School of Public Health, told Gizmodo.
GLP-1s and behavior
GLP-1s, by virtue of treating weight loss, can treat or reduce the risk of many health conditions closely tied to obesity, such as heart disease or knee pain. Some research, however, has also indicated these drugs have behavioral effects that go beyond simply reducing a person’s appetite. Numerous studies have found evidence that GLP-1s can tamp down people’s harmful cravings for alcohol or other recreational drugs, for instance.
These potential benefits in reducing addiction likely stem from how the drugs can affect people’s sense of impulse control and reward processing—something that sparked Semenza and his team’s curiosity.
“As criminologists and violence researchers, that caught our attention because impulsivity and alcohol use are among the most established behavioral risk factors for violence,” he said. “We wanted to explore whether GLP-1 use might be associated with changes in the relationship between those risk factors and violent behavior. To our knowledge, no previous study had examined that question directly.”
To do so, the team turned to data collected last summer from a nationally representative survey of 7,521 U.S. adults. They specifically looked at 821 people who reported ever having taken a GLP-1, including 597 people currently on one. People were asked questions about their alcohol use and level of impulsivity, such as whether they would enjoy being in a high-speed chase or a fistfight. They were also asked (with a guarantee of confidentiality) if they had taken part in various violent crimes sometime in the past year.
Sure enough, the researchers noticed a sizeable difference between people taking a GLP-1 and people who used GLP-1s in the past but are no longer taking them.
“Among former users, people with higher levels of impulsivity and alcohol use reported much higher levels of violent behavior, which is consistent with decades of prior research. Among current users, those relationships were much less pronounced,” Semenza explained.
Overall, the link between impulsivity and violence was about 62% weaker in current GLP-1 users, while the link between alcohol use and violence was 52% weaker. That said, after conducting further analysis, there was less clear evidence of GLP-1s specifically affecting the relationship between alcohol use and violent behavior. The team’s findings were published in the journal Criminology.
“GLP-1 receptor agonists appear to affect reward processing, craving, stress regulation, and behavioral control,” Semenza said. “One interpretation of our findings is that these medications may weaken the extent to which impulsive tendencies or alcohol-related risk translate into violent behavior.”
What this means
The authors caution that this study is observational and cross-sectional, meaning it can’t show a cause-and-effect link between GLP-1 use and reduced violent behavior. They’re also not saying that GLP-1s can directly eliminate violence or prevent crime.
“What we found is a pattern that suggests GLP-1 medications may influence behavioral pathways that are relevant to violence risk,” Semenza said.
It will take more work to confirm the team’s findings and to tease out exactly how GLP-1s are shaping these pathways—work that the researchers are actively pursuing.
“An important next step is examining these questions using large-scale longitudinal and administrative datasets that allow researchers to better address causality and timing,” Semenza said. “We are particularly interested in whether similar patterns emerge in data that track medication use and criminal legal system involvement over time.”
Broadly speaking, he adds, scientists still have a lot to learn about how these increasingly popular drugs could affect behavior in general.
“The scientific community is only beginning to understand the broader behavioral effects of these medications,” he said. “Our study suggests violence-related outcomes may be part of that conversation, but much more research is needed before drawing firm conclusions.”
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