The worry about GLP-1 drugs and mental health lands hardest in teenagers, because adolescent obesity already carries higher rates of depression and suicidal thinking. A new chart review of teens put on these drugs found no sign that treatment made either one worse. The depression scores actually fell. The catch is how few patients that finding rests on.
The study is a retrospective chart review ↗ published September 14 in the Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism. Researchers at a single academic center pulled records for adolescents aged 12 to 21 with obesity who started liraglutide ↗ or semaglutide ↗ between June 2022 and December 2024. Forty-four patients met the inclusion criteria. The team compared depression and suicide-risk screens taken before treatment and at follow-up.
What the screens showed
Among the fifteen patients who had matching depression screens before and after, the median score on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 fell from 6 to 1. That questionnaire runs 0 to 27, where a higher number means heavier symptoms, so a 6 is mild and a 1 is close to nothing. The drop cleared statistical significance (p equals 0.003) and held up independent of how much weight the patients lost, which argues against the score simply following the number on the scale down.
On the suicide side, twenty-three patients had matching Ask Suicide-Screening Questions results, a four-item screen for suicide risk. None of them showed a rise in suicidality or a new case of suicidal thinking over the treatment window.
Why a null-for-harm result matters here
The reason a small reassurance study is worth reporting is the question sitting behind it. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have combed through reports of suicidal thoughts in adults taking GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight and diabetes, and large database reviews have not found a clear causal link. Teenagers are the population where that question is sharpest and the data thinnest, because the drugs are newer in pediatric use and the baseline risk is higher. A finding of no harm in exactly that group fills a real gap.
It fills it only a little. Fifteen paired depression screens cannot establish that the drug lifts mood, and a single-center chart review with no comparison group cannot rule out that the patients who stayed on treatment and came back for follow-up were the ones already doing better. The authors call it small and exploratory and ask for larger prospective case-control studies. The useful takeaway is narrow and worth stating plainly: in the teens this clinic followed, starting a GLP-1 drug did not push depression or suicidality up, and the depression scores moved down.