An interventional study of GLP-1 in Obesity, Depression and GLP-1, sponsored by University of California, San Diego. Completed at 1 site in United States. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-01-27.
Sponsored by University of California, San Diego · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
Key question: Is the use of GLP-1 weight loss medicines - semaglutide and tirzepatide - associated with improvements in mental health and health-related quality of life?
Key finding: Across six- months of GLP-1 treatment, participants reported statistically significant improvements in mental health, eating disorder symptoms, and health-related quality of life domains such as pain interference and sleep quality.
Message for readers: Although GLP-1 medicines are prescribed primarily for weight loss and metabolic health benefits, growing evidence suggests that these medicines may also facilitate meaningful improvements in mental health and quality of life.
In a sample of veterans with obesity and established metabolic disease receiving supervised GLP-1 treatment for weight loss, we observed a consistent pattern of improved psychiatric health, eating disorder behaviors, and health-related quality of life. In addition to observing statistically significant changes across all the latter dimensions using validated psychometric measures, effect size magnitudes were also large enough to suggest potentially clinically meaningful improvements. Importantly, we observed robust evidence of decreases in depressive symptoms - averaging 30% declines in symptom severity - with no signs of increased suicidal ideation symptoms in the sample. The smaller size of this sample necessarily warrants additional research to validate these findings across the broader veteran population and among non-veteran samples.
6,297 studies on the registry are indexed under Obesity; 1,693 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 90 is above the median of 78 across 4,879 interventional studies indexed under Obesity.
Browse Obesity studies →University of California, San Diego is the lead sponsor of 958 studies on the registry; 191 are open to participants now.
Of its 110 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 70 (64%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
GLP-1 treatment
Drug: GLP-1
Wegovy or Zepbound
Beck Depression Inventory-2
Changes in BDI-2 scores
Time frame: Six months
Plan to share: No — Data belong to VA San Diego and are not mine to share.
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
This study is completed, as verified in Jan 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of California, San Diego