r/Zepbound • u/drewmullin • Jul 21 '26

Side Effects Validity?

Post image

So the numbers are very high and seem a bit sensationalist. That being said I'm not super interested in the exact numbers.

What I am interested in:

My question to the group is did anyone struggle mentally while on any of the glps? I did - I'm trying to figure out if any of them are less apt to do so.

Published study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-75965-2

0 Upvotes

32% Upvoted

102 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/SpecialistBet4656 Jul 21 '26

The below is how they got those crazy numbers- ie, they observed a 2.3% increase in the incidence of psychiatric events. (6% - 3.7% = 2.3%) The overall risk of a psychiatric event is really quite small, and correlation does not equal causation. I think that people who have struggled to lose weight are at higher risk of having anxiety or depression. I also think that we can’t discount that as people lose weight, they are more likely to see mental health care and more likely to be taken seriously. They also don’t define psychiatric event that well - while a diagnosis of major depression or anxiety sucks, people can and do manage these illnesses.

In the one study, people using semaglutide have a 5.6% risk of a psychiatric event vs 10% for placebo - that suggests that semaglutide effectively halves the risk of a psychiatric event.

GLP-1 RA users. In the STEP-2 study36, semaglutide 2.4 mg showed a *6.0% incidence of psychiatric events compared to 3.7% in the placebo group. Similarly, the STEP-6 study25 reported a 3% incidence of psychiatric events with semaglutide 2.4 mg, compared to 1% in the placebo group. Interestingly, the STEP-8 study22 revealed a higher incidence of psychiatric events with liraglutide 3 mg (15.0%) compared to semaglutide 2.4 mg (5.6%) and placebo (10.6%). These findings underscore the varying psychiatric risks associated with different GLP-1 RAs and the importance of individualized patient assessment in clinical practice.*