On June 23, 2025, the international leading academic journal Nature reported on its official website a small clinical trial showing that the GLP-1 class weight loss drug Liraglutide could potentially treat a new condition - migraine, reducing the monthly frequency of migraine attacks by nearly half for obese patients suffering from migraines.
Liraglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk, is a GLP-1 receptor agonist administered once daily. The company's once-weekly GLP-1 receptor agonist semaglutide is currently the best-selling weight loss drug. Currently, GLP-1 receptor agonists have been used to treat obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and sleep apnea syndrome. Moreover, they are also being used in clinical trials for various other conditions, including arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, and addiction.
In this clinical study, the research team administered Liraglutide to 31 individuals with chronic migraines who were obese (BMI > 30 kg/m2). Before participating in this study, each patient had tried at least two preventive medications for migraines without any benefit.
After 12 weeks of treatment with Liraglutide, participants reported that the average number of days with headaches per month decreased from nearly 20 days to less than 11 days. Of the 31 participants, 15 had a monthly headache frequency reduced by at least 50%, with 7 experiencing a reduction of 75% or more, and 1 person had their headaches completely disappear. However, 4 participants had no response to the treatment. Many of these participants indicated that Liraglutide improved their quality of life.
The research team stated that participants did not experience significant weight loss during the treatment period, therefore, the relief of their headaches may not be due to weight loss, which also suggests to us that Liraglutide may act more on pain pathways.
The research team speculated that a slight increase in intracranial pressure may be one of the potential mechanisms for the onset of migraines. GLP-1 class drugs have been shown in animal experiments to lower intracranial pressure in rats and have demonstrated relief effects in patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension in a small clinical study. Therefore, the research team believes this may be the reason why Liraglutide shows migrainous relief effects.
Currently, this is still just a hypothesis, and the team is planning to conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial to verify this hypothesis. In addition to administering GLP-1 class drugs to migraine patients, the research team will also measure the patients' intracranial pressure to see if the alleviation of headaches is related to changes in intracranial pressure.
Post time: 2025-09-12