Legacy neuropsychiatric benefit after semaglutide is linked to maximum achieved dose and independent of the maximum weight lost

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Authors: Karthik Murugadoss, A J Venkatakrishnan, Venky Soundararajan
Cited by: 1
References: 38

Abstract

Abstract GLP-1 receptor agonists have reshaped obesity therapeutics, but their impact on neuropsychiatric outcomes remains poorly characterized. From 29 million patients in a large federated data platform across the USA, including 489,785 semaglutide treated patients, we conducted an observational study integrating longitudinal neuropsychiatric outcomes. From this population, we assembled a cohort of 63,215 patients with baseline neuropsychiatric conditions before treatment initiation and evaluated 24 incident neuropsychiatric outcomes. In propensity-matched comparator analyses, during the 2 year time-period from treatment initiation, semaglutide was associated with broadly lower neuropsychiatric event risk than metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, and DPP-4 inhibitors. Within the semaglutide-treated cohort, higher attained dose during the first two years after the first prescription (“pre-landmark period”) was associated with significantly lower incidence during the following two years (“post-landmark period”) of diagnostic codes associated with substance-related disorders (P

Fields of Study & Subjects

Diabetes Treatment and Management Bariatric Surgery and Outcomes Pharmacology and Obesity Treatment

Publication details

Journal / source
medRxiv
Publisher
openRxiv
Publication date
23 April 2026
Document type
Preprint