Molecular psychiatryApr 18, 2026

Use of GLP-1 receptor drugs and risk of suicide or suicide attempts in a nationwide study

GLP-1 Therapies Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Apr 19, 2026

Abstract

In a cohort of 83,464 new users, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) were not linked to an increased risk of suicide or suicide attempts.

Users of GLP-1 RAs had similar hazard ratios for suicide or suicide attempts compared to those using sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors.
GLP-1 RA users showed a lower risk of suicide or suicide attempts compared to users of dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors.
In a self-controlled case series, GLP-1 RA treatment was associated with a significantly lower incidence of suicide or suicide attempts one year after starting treatment.
The incidence rate ratio for suicide or suicide attempts was observed to be lower at 13-24 months post-treatment compared to pre-treatment levels.
The findings suggest that GLP-1 RAs may not be linked to an increased incidence of suicide or suicide attempts.

Simplified

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have raised concerns about a potential link between glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) and suicide or suicide attempts. We conducted two new-user, active comparator cohort studies. The GLP1-RAs vs sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors cohort included new users of GLP-1 RAs (n = 83,464) or SGLT-2 inhibitors (n = 78,366), and the GLP1-RAs vs dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors cohort included new users of GLP-1 RAs (n = 108,322) or DPP-4 inhibitors (n = 55,411). We also employed a self-controlled case series design to compare suicide, or suicide attempts before and after GLP-1 RA treatment initiation across three time periods. In the cohort analyses patients who initiated GLP-1 RAs did not differ in the hazard ratio (HR) for suicide or suicide attempts from SGLT-2 inhibitor users (HR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.57-1.52), and GLP-1 RA users had a lower risk of suicide or suicide attempts compared with DPP-4 inhibitor users (HR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.37-0.91). In the self-controlled case series design, use of GLP-1 RAs was associated with a lower incidence rate ratio (IRR) of suicide or suicide attempts one year after treatment initiation (IRR: 0.45; 95% CI: 0.10-0.50) and 13-24 months after treatment initiation compared with pretreatment. This study showed that use of GLP-1 RAs was not associated with increased incidence of suicide or suicide attempts in either the active comparator new-user design or in the self-controlled case series design.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View Full Text ↗

Funding

Competing interests

Competing interests: MV has within the last three years, served as consultant for Lundbeck, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interests. Ethics: The Regional Data Protection Agency approved the study (p-2020-88). Informed consent was not required since the data only included register data. Data was stored at the research environment hosted by Statistics Denmark and accessed through a secure log-on process. Data is pseudonymized and microdata cannot be reported, thereby protecting the information of individuals. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

PubMed

Use of GLP-1 receptor drugs and risk of suicide or suicide attempts in a nationwide study

Abstract

Full Text

Funding

Competing interests

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

What Lands in Your Inbox Each Week:

Recent issues from the glp-1 therapies brief