As weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro grow in popularity, people who have taken such medications reported 1.9 times higher rates of depression than those who have not, a study found. The risk of suicidal thoughts was more than four times higher among those who regained weight despite taking the drugs.
A research team led by Sohn Ki-young, a professor of family medicine at Asan Medical Center, reached the findings by analyzing data from 27,741 adults — 10,908 men and 16,833 women — who took part in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2013 and 2022, the medical community said on the 23rd.
The team divided the group into 846 people who had taken weight-loss medication prescribed by a doctor over the past year and 26,895 who had not. Users of weight-loss drugs showed higher rates of mental health problems than non-users. Among users, 22.1% reported feeling depressed for two or more consecutive weeks, far exceeding the 11.4% among non-users.
Over the past year, 8.4% of users had sought counseling for mental health issues, compared with 3.4% of non-users. Suicidal thoughts were reported by 9.9% of users versus 4.5% of non-users, plans to attempt suicide by 2.2% versus 1.4%, and suicide attempts by 1.7% versus 0.6%.
Compared with non-users, weight-loss drug users were 1.9 times more likely to report depression, 2.0 times more likely to seek mental health counseling, 2.7 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts, 1.9 times more likely to plan a suicide attempt, and 1.7 times more likely to attempt suicide.
Among those who gained weight despite taking the drugs, the likelihood of mental health problems was even higher — 1.9 times for depression, 1.8 times for counseling and 4.2 times for suicidal thoughts, compared with non-users.
"The tendency for depression and suicidal-thought indicators to rise as weight increased again after using weight-loss drugs may reflect not only the neurological and psychiatric effects of the drugs themselves, but also a combination of psychological and social factors related to failure in weight control," the team said.
The findings were published under the title "Association Between Weight-Loss Drug Use, Weight Change, and Depression and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors" in a recent issue of the Korean Journal of Family Practice (KJFP).
Meanwhile, as South Korea's market for obesity treatments grows rapidly, prescriptions of Mounjaro, a GLP-1 class drug, surpassed 1.5 million within 10 months of its launch. According to Drug Utilization Review (DUR) data submitted to Rep. Han Ji-ah of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, Mounjaro — launched in South Korea last August — was prescribed a total of 1,501,161 times over the 10 months through this May.
Because Mounjaro and Wegovy are not covered by insurance, official prescription volumes are difficult to compile. Records checked by medical institutions through the DUR system are therefore used as a key gauge of actual prescription trends.
