Semaglutide and Antidepressants: Is It Safe? Label, Studies
No antidepressant interaction is listed; ask your pharmacist about your specific medicine.
- Verdict
- Ask your prescriber first
- Label names it
- 0 of 3
- General caution
- Pills absorbed more slowly
Check a GLP-1 interaction
Wegovy in brief
Its half-life is about 1 week: after 7 d half is gone, and after five half-lives (35 d) about 3% is left.
STEP 1 covered 68 weeks: 14.9% of body weight, versus 2.4% for placebo.
For each month, price points in US dollars cover both the list price and self-pay offers, taken from the maker's price page.
Sources: FDA label (DailyMed), healthsystemtracker.org, prnewswire.com 1 2.
Semaglutide and antidepressants: the verdict
Ask your prescriber first
Word for word from the drug interactions section of the Ozempic label:
“OZEMPIC causes a delay of gastric emptying, and thereby has the potential to impact the absorption of concomitantly administered oral medications. In clinical pharmacology trials,”
Source: FDA label on DailyMed.
Semaglutide label: what it states
Antidepressants are not named in the Ozempic label. These statements still apply to it.
| Named in the label | The risk | What the label tells doctors |
|---|---|---|
| Oral medicines | Pills absorbed differently | Stomach emptying slows down, so other pills may be absorbed in a different way. |
Source: Ozempic label (DailyMed).
What the studies show
- Drug Interactions section label section
- oral medicines label interaction
Source: FDA label on DailyMed.
The practical rule
- Keep taking your antidepressant, and tell your prescriber if your mood changes or if your side effects get worse.
- Tell the person who prescribes your GLP-1 about every pill you take, including this one.
- Ask your pharmacist if any of the pills you take need a steady level in your blood. For those pills, a check may be needed when you first start, or when the dose goes up.
Source: FDA label on DailyMed.
Antidepressants with other GLP-1s
None of the 10 GLP-1 labels name Antidepressants in the drug interaction section. All of them give the same general caution about pills you swallow, so the answer does not change across the class.
This question applies equally to Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound.
Source: FDA label on DailyMed.