For veterans with type 2 diabetes who use insulin, a new Yale study offers reassurance about a popular class of diabetes drugs.
Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, studied 8,869 veterans who were already taking basal insulin — a long-acting form of insulin that works throughout the day. They wanted to know whether adding a GLP-1 receptor agonist (a drug often sold under brand names like Ozempic or Wegovy) would cause patients to stop using insulin more often than other diabetes medicines.
The answer? No meaningful difference.
Over three years of follow-up, about 16.7% of veterans who started GLP-1 receptor agonists stopped taking insulin. That was nearly identical to the 17.9% who stopped insulin after starting SGLT2 inhibitors (a different class of diabetes pills) and the 17.1% who stopped after starting DPP-4 inhibitors (yet another type of diabetes medication). The differences were so small they could have been due to chance.
"GLP-1 receptor agonists have gotten a lot of attention for helping people lose weight and protecting the heart and kidneys," said Dr. Kasia J. Lipska, the study's lead author and a physician at Yale School of Medicine. "But our findings show that starting this drug alone doesn't push patients to quit insulin any more than other medicines do."
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, used data from veterans who began treatment between 2020 and 2022. The researchers compared three groups of similar patients to see how insulin use changed over time.
For millions of people managing type 2 diabetes, insulin can feel like a heavy responsibility — requiring daily shots and careful monitoring of blood sugar. Some hope that newer drugs might help them eventually stop using it. This study suggests GLP-1 receptor agonists, despite their growing popularity, are not a shortcut to abandoning insulin therapy.
That doesn't mean the drugs lack value. GLP-1 receptor agonists still carry important benefits: they can reduce the risk of heart attacks, slow kidney disease, and help with weight loss. The study's authors emphasize that patients and doctors should weigh these benefits carefully when choosing a treatment plan. The key takeaway is that the decision to start or stop insulin depends on many individual factors — and one drug class alone isn't likely to drive that change.