Does Ozempic actually raise suicide risk? Here's what the data says

What did @drreza_t actually say?

The creator claims a new study found Ozempic "increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors by 45%" and that the risk jumps "over 400%" for people already on antidepressants. He concludes this means Ozempic isn't worth taking and suggests a personal trainer and nutritionist are better alternatives. He frames this as a well-controlled study that accounted for baseline depression linked to obesity.

To his credit, he does tell viewers to talk to a qualified health professional before making changes. But the headline numbers he leads with, and the certainty with which he delivers them, are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The 45% and 400% figures need serious context before anyone should panic or stop a prescribed medication.

Does the science back this up?

Not cleanly. The study most likely being referenced is a 2023 pharmacovigilance analysis using the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), which flagged a disproportionate signal for suicidal ideation with semaglutide. But FAERS data is not designed to establish causation, and the signal has been contested.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) reviewed GLP-1 receptor agonist safety data in 2023 and 2024 and concluded there was no confirmed causal link between semaglutide and suicidal ideation. Larger observational studies, including work by Gorfinkel et al. (2024, JAMA Internal Medicine), found no statistically significant increase in suicidal events among GLP-1 users compared to matched controls. The FDA added a warning to monitor for depression and suicidal ideation, but a warning is not a confirmed causal association. The creator presents a preliminary signal as settled science, and that's a meaningful distortion.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

The creator got a few things partially right. GLP-1 receptors are expressed in brain regions involved in mood regulation, so a biological mechanism isn't implausible. The FDA has flagged this for monitoring. And he's correct that controlling for baseline depression linked to obesity matters in these analyses.

But the 45% relative risk figure, presented without mentioning the absolute risk, the data source, or the study's limitations, is misleading. A 45% increase in a rare event can represent a very small absolute difference. The 400% figure for antidepressant users is the kind of subgroup statistic that requires extreme caution. Subgroup analyses in pharmacovigilance databases are prone to confounding. People on antidepressants already have elevated baseline psychiatric risk. The creator says the study "did a really good job" controlling for confounders, but it's not clear which study he's referencing, and no citation is provided. Presenting unverified relative risk numbers as a reason to avoid a medication that has demonstrated cardiovascular and metabolic benefits in large randomized trials is irresponsible framing.

What should you actually know?

The honest answer is that the psychiatric safety of GLP-1 receptor agonists is still being studied, and that uncertainty is real and worth taking seriously. What isn't warranted is treating a pharmacovigilance signal as a confirmed finding.

The SELECT trial (Lincoff et al., 2023, New England Journal of Medicine), a large randomized controlled trial of semaglutide in people with obesity and cardiovascular disease, did not show a significant increase in psychiatric adverse events. The FDA's 2024 review of GLP-1 safety data, specifically examining suicidality, did not find sufficient evidence to require a boxed warning. If you're on semaglutide and experiencing mood changes, that absolutely warrants a conversation with your prescriber. But stopping a prescribed medication because of a TikTok video citing an unspecified study is not the right move. The creator's broader point about lifestyle being important is fair. But framing GLP-1 medications as shortcuts versus the "natural" way is a false choice for many patients with obesity-related metabolic disease.