Ozempic isn't just for weight loss and diabetes. Here are all the conditions it could one day treat — from cancer to addiction.

Ozempic is usually injected into the belly, but a lot of what it's doing is in the brain.Getty Images

• Ozempic, a form of the drug semaglutide, was originally approved for type 2 diabetes in 2017.
• People quickly realized it's also good for weight loss, largely because of how it works on the brain.

Since 2017, the injectable prescription drug Ozempic has been used by type 2 diabetics across the US to help manage their blood sugar. But right from the start, it became apparent that the medicine — generically called semaglutide — was doing more than controlling diabetes.

That's because this drug mimics a hunger-regulating hormone called GLP-1 that our bodies produce naturally – and that hormone doesn't just regulate blood sugar. It also tells our brains to be satisfied with less food, slows down digestion, and can even change what specific foods a person likes.

As a result of these attributes, people quickly started taking Ozempic off-label for weight loss, and soon a higher-dose version of semaglutide, Wegovy, was approved by the FDA for weight loss in overweight and obese patients.

But scientists have recently started to realize that semaglutide might do even more than regulate hunger and blood sugar.