Weight-loss drugs find a new purpose: Fighting addiction

The useful part

On the 43-acre campus of EnterHealth Ranch in Van Alstyne, thousands of people have found sobriety through a mix of medication, counseling, functional wellness, nutrition and even brain stimulation therapy. "When we started EnterHealth over 20 years ago, our goal was to bring the latest science into a service of helping the patients with alcohol and drug addiction and mental health disease," said Dr. Urschel said that mission is what's driving the center to bring GLP-1s into its program now.

How it works

• "We found that the data now is overwhelming that we're gonna bring it in on top of people that are just coming in on it.
• He points to what's different about how these drugs work compared to existing addiction medications like naltrexone.
• When EnterHealth opened, most addiction treatment leaned almost entirely on 12-step programs.
• We're now gonna be using it, and I'm very excited about that," Urschel said.
• Umar Latif, EnterHealth's Chief Medical Officer, says the same receptors that regulate insulin and appetite also sit inside the brain's reward system, the same circuitry involved in addiction.

What to take from it

Latif said patients who started GLP-1s for diabetes or weight loss, with no intention of treating an addiction, have told him their cravings eased on their own.

Details worth keeping

GLP-1s, he said, are the latest addition to that toolbox.