About a year and a half ago, I started taking a GLP-1 drug.
I dropped about 50 pounds — basically all the weight I’d put on during the pandemic and then some. I’ve kept most of it off. Yes, it’s changed my life in ways that go well beyond the scale.
I coach my daughter’s soccer team, and I play on the field as a defender during scrimmages.
I skied constantly last winter (well, constantly by my standards; there’s always some other guy you meet talking about how he did 50 or 75 days). Honestly, it would have been a different and less enjoyable experience at my previous weight if it were even possible.
I’ve become a four-to-five-times-a-week gym regular for the first time in decades.
Has it helped my mental health? Absolutely.
But in truth, I can’t tell you how much of that is the drug directly and how much is everything that followed from losing the weight — feeling better, moving more, doing a lot of things that were frankly getting a bit more difficult.
The second-order effects are unmistakable, but the first-order mechanism? That I can’t fully untangle.
As it turns out, that’s almost exactly the question a major new study is wrestling with.
Nearly 100,000 people
Published in The Lancet Psychiatry, the study tracked nearly 100,000 people with depression or anxiety in Swedish national health registers from 2009 to 2022.
About 22,000 of them used GLP-1 drugs.
Rather than comparing GLP-1 users to non-users, the researchers compared each person’s own periods on the medication versus off it — a within-individual approach that controls for a lot of the variables that usually muddy this kind of research.
During periods of semaglutide use, psychiatric hospital care and sick leave dropped 42% overall. Depression risk dropped 44%. Anxiety dropped 38%. Substance use disorders dropped 47%.
The mechanism nobody fully understands
GLP-1 receptors exist not just in the gut and pancreas but in the brain.
Some researchers think these drugs may be doing something directly neurological — dampening reward-seeking behavior, reducing impulsivity, affecting dopamine pathways.
That would help explain the substance use finding, which is hard to attribute purely to weight loss or improved self-image, but it could also be almost entirely downstream.
If you lose significant weight, feel better in your body, start moving again, sleep better, and do things you couldn’t do before, your mental health can improve for reasons that have nothing to do with the drug’s direct action on the brain.
A few things worth knowing before you forward this to everyone you know. First, all the participants in the study already had depression or anxiety, plus diabetes or obesity. So, it’s possible the findings may not translate to people without those conditions.
Three of the authors disclosed receiving research funding from a pharmaceutical company, though the study itself was funded by Finnish government and foundation sources.
Also, this is observational research — the within-individual design is methodologically strong, but it still can’t prove the drug caused the mental health improvements.
Tens of millions of people are now taking GLP-1 drugs, or thinking about it, or have someone close to them who is.
Most of the conversation has centered on weight, cardiovascular risk, and side effects.
This study suggests there may be a mental health dimension to the conversation that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention.
I can’t tell you whether the improvements I’ve felt came from the drug, the weight loss, the skiing, the scrimmages, or some combination of all of it.
Probably the last one, but whatever the mechanism, I’ll take it.
Anyone want to play soccer?
Other things worth knowing …
NYT: Inside the secret deal to drop Trump’s $10 billion suit against the IRS.
CNBC: Financial pressures pushed more savers to tap their retirement accounts in the first part of 2026, new data shows — potentially locking in losses during the early weeks of the Iran war. The average 401(k) balance fell by 4% to $141,000.
NYT: Iceland, rattled by Trump, weighs joining the E.U. The country has long stood apart from the rest of Europe, but President Trump’s threats to Greenland have provoked a reconsideration.
WSJ: Vladimir Putin’s $26 billion quest for longevity: from mini-pigs and organ printing to cryotherapy and genetics, Russia’s president has turned antiaging research into a Kremlin priority.
The Telegraph: A lack of sleep could be fueling a surge in cancer among the under-50s, according to the largest study of its kind. Insomniacs are up to three times more likely to develop some forms of the disease than those without diagnosed sleep problems.
WSJ: A famous math problem stumped humans for 80 years. AI just cracked it.
NY Post: Escort demand surges ahead of NYC and NJ World Cup matches — as a $10,000-per-day sex worker reveals what it’s like.
Thanks for reading. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
Does the drug make you feel better or is it that losing weight makes you feel more positive a out life. I doubt they will ever figure that out out. And does losing weight using a drug versus losing weight through diet and exercise provide more positive feedback. Sometimes defeating the struggle is the real win.
I really like that you made a point to write the following:
"A few things worth knowing before you forward this to everyone you know. First, all the participants in the study already had depression or anxiety, plus diabetes or obesity. So, it’s possible the findings may not translate to people without those conditions.
Three of the authors disclosed receiving research funding from a pharmaceutical company, though the study itself was funded by Finnish government and foundation sources.
Also, this is observational research — the within-individual design is methodologically strong, but it still can’t prove the drug caused the mental health improvements."
There's so much declarative BS online. Your ethics shine with these three paragraphs.