ArticleDiabetes, obesity & metabolism2025
Risk of suicidal ideation and suicidality among adults prescribed semaglutide for weight management: A population-based cohort study.
Article in Diabetes, obesity & metabolism, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Association Between Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists and Suicidality: A Systematic Review.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Pooled it
- Neuropsychiatric Outcomes Associated with GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in Adults with Overweight or Obesity: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Risk of Psychiatric Worsening With GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Use in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Treated Depression.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Comparative pharmacovigilance analysis of suicidality-related adverse events among GLP-1 and non-GLP-1 anti-obesity drugs in the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2026Article
- Engineered nutrient-stimulated hormonal multi-agonists for precision targeting of obesity and metabolic disorders.Clinical and molecular hepatology · 2026Review
- Glucagon-like peptide-1 medicines in neurological and psychiatric disorders.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsTo evaluate the risk of incident suicidal ideation (SI) and suicidality (SI, suicide attempt or intentional self-harm) among overweight or obese adults who were prescribed semaglutide for weight management compared with active comparators (weight management drugs: bupropion/naltrexone, orlistat, phentermine or phentermine/topiramate). MATERIALS AND
methodsUsing the Merative® MarketScan Databases, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults initiating semaglutide or an active comparator between 01 June 2021, and 31 December 2022. Patients were required to have ≥1 year of continuous health and pharmacy plan coverage, a diagnosis of overweight or obesity, no prior suicidality or type 2 diabetes, and new users of semaglutide or active comparators for inclusion. SI and suicidality were identified using diagnosis codes within 183 days of drug initiation. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate risks, risk differences (RDs), and risk ratios (RRs), controlling for confounding with standardized mortality ratio weights.
resultsAmong 16 822 semaglutide and 11 986 active comparator new users, the adjusted risk of incident SI was 0.08% (13.0 events) for semaglutide and 0.05% (8.9 events) for active comparators, and for incident suicidality was 0.08% (14.0 events) for semaglutide and 0.07% (11.0 events) for active comparators. Adjusted RDs were 0.02% (95% CI: [-0.02%, 0.07%]) for SI and 0.02% (-0.03%, 0.07%) for suicidality, with corresponding RRs of 1.36 (0.62, 6.14) and 1.18 (0.57, 3.63).
conclusionAmong patients initiating semaglutide for weight management, semaglutide did not appear to increase the risk of suicide-related outcomes. However, the CIs of the RDs are compatible with a 0.07% increase in 6-month risk and the true RD could be larger due to the potentially low sensitivity of ICD-10 diagnosis codes for and underreporting of suicide-related outcomes. Additional studies are critical to confirm these findings and obtain more precise estimates of any potential benefits or harms of semaglutide.
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