GLP-1 drugs could act upon impulsive behavior that leads to violence and criminal acts, research suggests.
The study adds to evidence suggesting that these drugs could have benefits outside their widely used action on diabetes and obesity.
Specifically, it suggests that GLP-1 drugs could act upon impulse control and stress-reward systems in the brain relating to substance and alcohol misuse.
The findings appear in the journal Criminology.
“As GLP-1 medications become increasingly widespread, understanding their broader behavioral effects becomes an important public health and criminological question that requires careful study,” said researcher Daniel Semenza, PhD, from Rutgers University.
Recent research has suggested that GLP-1 receptor agonists (RAs) such as exenatide, liraglutide, semaglutide, and dulaglutide have benefits beyond glycemic control and weight loss.
These include reducing the risk of multiple psychiatric and neurocognitive conditions and improving impulse control.
Semenza and Christopher Thomas, also from Rutgers, examined the relationship between the use of GLP-1 drugs and violent behavior using recent survey data from 821 U.S. adults in a 2025 nationally representative survey who had used these medications at some point in their lives. Of these, 597 were current users and 224 were former users.
Given established connections between aggression, alcohol use, and impulsivity, they also investigated whether current GLP-1 use was associated with a lower risk of violence by moderating the associations of impulsivity and alcohol use with violent crime.
The team found that impulsivity and alcohol use were strongly associated with committing violent crime. Each standard deviation increase in impulsivity was associated with a 1.9-fold increase in violence, and each unit increase in an alcohol use index was associated with a 1.8-fold increase.
However, current GLP-1 receptor agonist use was associated with significantly weaker associations between either impulsivity or alcohol use and violent crime compared with former GLP-1 drug use, attenuating these by approximately 62% and 52%, respectively.
This meant that even when users of GLP-1 receptor agonists drank alcohol or acted impulsively, it would be less likely to lead to violent crime.
The relationship was particularly strong relating to impulsivity and less so with alcohol use.
“Understanding the neurobiological mechanisms by which GLP-1 receptor signaling may moderate impulsivity-related risk pathways represents an important research opportunity,” the researchers concluded.
“Given the rapidly expanding use of GLP-1 receptor agonists throughout the United States and the rest of the world, this pattern of reduced violence risk warrants ongoing attention from both researchers and policymakers.”
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