Some people who take drugs like Ozempic have noticed a surprising but welcome side effect: They drink less.

A paper published February 12 offers the strongest evidence yet that this is more than just anecdote, or a placebo effect: It found that semaglutide, the substance in Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy, could in fact help curb alcohol cravings. It is the first randomized controlled trial on semaglutide and alcohol consumption.

There has been so much research on drugs like semaglutide and alcohol, "you can't even keep up," said W. Kyle Simmons, a professor of pharmacology and physiology at Oklahoma State University ....

One such paper, published last month ... found that those who took a drug in the same class of medicines as Ozempic had a lower risk of developing substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder, than people who took other diabetes drugs.

And last May, a study examining a large database of medical records found that people with both alcohol use disorder and either obesity or Type 2 diabetes who took semaglutide were less likely to relapse.