Wormwood and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1): The Ozempic and Wegovy Hormone

Table of Contents

1. At a Glance
2. What Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Does
3. How Ozempic and Wegovy Use the Same Hormone
4. The Italian Wormwood Biscuit Study
5. How a Bitter Herb Could Reach the Same Hormone
6. What Human Bitter-Compound Studies Show
7. Wormwood and Semaglutide Side by Side
8. Same Herb, Opposite Appetite Claims
9. Related Artemisia Research
10. Safety: Thujone, Pregnancy and Liver Disease
11. Key Research Papers
12. Connections
13. Featured Videos

At a Glance

• The hormone: glucagon-like peptide-1 is made by cells in the intestine after a meal. It raises insulin, lowers glucagon, slows the gut and appears to help regulate appetite and food intake.
• The medicines: Ozempic and Wegovy are brand names for semaglutide, a man-made version of the hormone with 94% of the same structure. It activates the same receptor, lasts about a week in the body, and is injected once a week.
• The wormwood idea: researchers at the University of Eastern Piedmont hid an encapsulated wormwood extract inside a dark chocolate biscuit and measured hunger, ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide-1 in healthy volunteers (trial NCT05528874, 13 people enrolled).
• The reported result: press coverage of their talk at the 2025 European Congress on Obesity in Málaga, Spain, said that 11 healthy people felt less hungry and showed higher satiety hormones after the wormwood biscuit than after a plain cocoa biscuit. At the time of writing, the trial registry shows no posted results and no peer-reviewed paper with these results appears on PubMed.
• The key difference: the body's own glucagon-like peptide-1 is broken down within minutes, much of it before it even leaves the gut. Semaglutide is built to resist that breakdown. A food that releases a little more natural hormone is a very different thing from a weekly drug.
• The wider evidence: a 2023 systematic review of 16 human studies of bitter compounds found no significant effect on glucagon-like peptide-1 in the studies that measured it, although single trials of hop extract and of quinine delivered to the small intestine did raise it.
• The bottom line in the research: no study has shown that wormwood causes weight loss.

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What Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Does

Glucagon-like peptide-1 is a hormone 30 amino acids long. A 2007 review of its physiology by Holst, of the University of Copenhagen, describes it as being made by the L-cells lining the intestine and released in response to eating. Its main actions are:

• Insulin: it stimulates the pancreas to release insulin after a meal — the "incretin" effect.
• Glucagon: it holds back glucagon, the hormone that pushes blood sugar up. Together these two actions limit the rise in blood sugar after eating.
• The gut: it slows the movement and secretions of the digestive tract, part of the so-called "ileal brake".
• Appetite: the review describes it as appearing to be a physiological regulator of appetite and food intake.

The same review stresses one fact that matters for everything else on this page: natural glucagon-like peptide-1 is extremely rapidly broken down by an enzyme called dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4), "even before the hormone has left the gut". A 1995 study led by Deacon measured this directly: thirty minutes after an injection of the hormone under the skin, most of what could be detected in the blood was already the inactive, shortened form — 78.4% of the rise in healthy volunteers and 88.5% in people with type 2 diabetes.

Ghrelin, the other hormone in the wormwood study, works in the opposite direction: it is often called the hunger hormone, and the bitter-compound studies described below measured it as a marker of the drive to eat. The interactive appetite, leptin and ghrelin animation shows how these signals fit together.

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How Ozempic and Wegovy Use the Same Hormone

Ozempic and Wegovy are two brand names for the same medicine, semaglutide, sold under different brand names for different approved uses. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prescribing information:

• What it is: the Ozempic label describes semaglutide as a glucagon-like peptide-1 analogue with 94% sequence homology to the human hormone, which "selectively binds to and activates" the same receptor that the body's own glucagon-like peptide-1 uses.
• Why it lasts: semaglutide binds to albumin, a blood protein, which slows its removal by the kidneys and protects it from breakdown; it is also stabilised against the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 enzyme that destroys the natural hormone within minutes.
• How long: the label gives an elimination half-life of about one week, so the drug is still in the circulation about five weeks after the last dose. Both medicines are injected once a week.
• Ozempic's approved uses include improving blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes (alongside diet and exercise), and reducing the risk of major cardiovascular events and of kidney decline in adults with type 2 diabetes and heart or kidney disease.
• Wegovy's approved uses include reducing excess body weight and keeping it off long term in adults and children aged 12 and older with obesity, and reducing the risk of major cardiovascular events in adults with heart disease and obesity or overweight — in each case together with a reduced-calorie diet and more physical activity.

The scale of the drug effect is known from large trials. In the 2021 STEP 1 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 1,961 adults with obesity or overweight and no diabetes received weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg or placebo, plus lifestyle support, for 68 weeks. Average body weight fell by 14.9% on semaglutide and by 2.4% on placebo. More on these medicines, including their side effects, is on the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists page.

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The Italian Wormwood Biscuit Study

The wormwood work comes from Novara, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, where researchers at the University of Eastern Piedmont (Università del Piemonte Orientale) have published on wormwood's bitter compound absinthin since at least 2019. Their project ran in three steps.

1. Hiding the bitterness

Wormwood is one of the bitterest plants known, which makes it hard to eat. A 2026 paper in the journal Gels (Candiani and colleagues) describes how the group made an ethanol extract of wormwood rich in its main bitter compound, absinthin, and sealed it inside tiny alginate beads. The beads were baked into biscuits. In a tasting panel of 50 volunteers, the wormwood biscuits were rated about as acceptable overall as plain ones. The authors concluded that the bitterness had been masked successfully, and wrote that the biological effects — "hormonal responses, feelings of hunger, etc." — still needed to be investigated.

2. The registered trial (NUTRACORE)

The human study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT05528874 ("NUTRACORE, Glycaemic Index and Appetite") by the Maggiore della Carità University Hospital in Novara. According to the registry:

• Who: healthy volunteers; 13 were enrolled. The study started in April 2022 and was completed in September 2023.
• Design: after a first phase measuring the glycemic index of several biscuit recipes, participants ate two chocolate biscuits on separate days in random order, with neither the volunteers nor the investigators knowing which one contained the encapsulated wormwood extract (a triple-blind crossover).
• What was measured: blood sugar, appetite ratings on the Control of Eating Questionnaire (before breakfast, lunch and dinner), and blood levels of ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide-1, sampled for up to 180 minutes after eating. Insulin, C-peptide and leptin were secondary measures.
• Why encapsulated: the registry explains that the discovery of bitter receptors outside the mouth led the researchers to test bitter foods "without the potential confounding effect of oral ingestion" — the wormwood was meant to reach the gut without being tasted.
• The plant: the registry states that the extract came from a thujone-free chemotype of wormwood (a strain lacking the nerve-active compound thujone).

3. The conference report

The group presented preliminary findings at the European Congress on Obesity in Málaga, Spain, in May 2025. Press reports of that presentation said that 11 healthy people ate either a plain cocoa biscuit or one enriched with 16 per cent wormwood extract, and that after the wormwood biscuit they felt less hungry and showed an increase in satiety hormones. The researchers linked the effect to ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide-1, and the coverage pointed out that glucagon-like peptide-1 is the hormone targeted by Wegovy and Ozempic.

What this does and does not show

• It is a small, short study in healthy people: one biscuit at a time, with hunger and hormones followed for hours, not weeks.
• It did not measure body weight or how much people ate over days.
• The figures above come from a conference presentation and press coverage. At the time of writing, the ClinicalTrials.gov record shows no posted results, and a PubMed search finds no peer-reviewed paper reporting the hunger and hormone results, so the size of the effects cannot yet be checked.

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How a Bitter Herb Could Reach the Same Hormone

Bitter taste is detected by a family of bitter taste receptors, known by the gene name TAS2R. These receptors are not only on the tongue: they are also found in the stomach and intestine, as described on the wormwood and digestion page.

• Wormwood's receptor: researchers in Novara, including an author of the biscuit paper, have described absinthin as a highly specific activator of one human bitter receptor, TAS2R46 (Talmon and colleagues, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2019, in airway muscle cells).
• In gut tissue: in a 2025 laboratory study, absinthin acting on TAS2R46 made human intestinal smooth muscle cells contract faster, suggesting a role in moving food through the gut (Camillo and colleagues). These were cells in a dish, not people.
• The hormone link: a 2026 review in Nutrition Reviews (Komarnytsky and colleagues) summarises evidence that bitter plant compounds acting on gut bitter receptors can stimulate the release of gut hormones including glucagon-like peptide-1 and cholecystokinin, the pathways involved in appetite and blood sugar.
• The missing step: a PubMed search found no published study that measured glucagon-like peptide-1 release from gut cells exposed to absinthin or to wormwood extract. The chain from wormwood to glucagon-like peptide-1 is therefore a reasonable hypothesis built from separate pieces, not yet a demonstrated pathway.

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What Human Bitter-Compound Studies Show

Wormwood itself has not yet been tested this way in a published trial, but other bitter substances have been delivered into the human stomach and small intestine — often through a tube or a special capsule, so that taste plays no part.

• The overall picture (systematic review, 2023): Hassan and colleagues, writing in Appetite, pooled 16 human studies. Four of 12 found less food eaten and eight did not; seven of 14 found a change in at least one appetite rating. Of the nine that measured gut hormones, none found a significant effect on glucagon-like peptide-1, cholecystokinin or peptide YY; ghrelin and motilin were the hormones that responded. The authors found "limited consistent conclusive evidence" that bitter compounds change food intake, appetite or hormones.
• Hop extract (2022): in a randomized crossover trial in healthy-weight men published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 500 mg of bitter hop extract in capsules released in the stomach or small intestine reduced the energy eaten at lunch and an afternoon snack (4,473 kJ with the stomach-release capsule and 4,439 kJ with the intestine-release capsule, versus 5,383 kJ on placebo) and increased cholecystokinin, glucagon-like peptide-1 and peptide YY after the meal — but it also increased ghrelin before lunch. The men's hunger ratings did not change, and the extract caused small increases in nausea, bloating and abdominal discomfort.
• Quinine into the small intestine (2022): in 28 healthy men and women, 600 mg of quinine delivered straight into the small intestine suppressed ghrelin and raised glucagon-like peptide-1, cholecystokinin, peptide YY and insulin more than the same dose delivered into the stomach (Rezaie and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism), consistent with the small intestine being where these bitter receptors matter most.
• Quinine into the stomach: in 15 healthy women, intragastric quinine lowered ghrelin and motilin and reduced how much they ate for pleasure (Iven and colleagues, 2019); in 10 healthy women it suppressed the rise of ghrelin and motilin during fasting (Deloose and colleagues, 2018).
• Hunger without eating less (2021): in 32 healthy volunteers, quinine tasted by mouth or delivered into the stomach reduced the desire to eat and hunger ratings, but did not change how much they ate at the next meal (Klaassen and colleagues, British Journal of Nutrition).

Taken together, these trials show that bitter compounds in the gut can shift hunger hormones, sometimes including glucagon-like peptide-1, but the effects were measured over hours, are inconsistent from study to study, and have not been shown to produce weight loss.

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Wormwood and Semaglutide Side by Side

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Same Herb, Opposite Appetite Claims

The biscuit research tests wormwood as a way to reduce hunger. Traditional medicine has long used it for the opposite purpose.

• The European Union monograph on wormwood, adopted by the European Medicines Agency's Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products, lists it as a traditional herbal medicine for temporary loss of appetite (taken 30 minutes before meals) and for mild digestive complaints — uses based "exclusively upon long-standing use", not on clinical trials.
• Iranian traditional medicine also regards wormwood as an appetite stimulant. When this was tested in rats in 2015, a wormwood extract given for seven days at three doses produced no significant change in how much the animals ate.

One proposed explanation is that the dose and the route decide the direction: a tiny, tasted dose before a meal acts first through the mouth and the anticipatory "cephalic" reflex, while a larger dose that reaches the intestine engages the gut-hormone pathways that slow the stomach and signal fullness. The appetite paradox is explored further on the digestion page. Neither direction has yet been demonstrated for wormwood in a published human trial.

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Related Artemisia Research

Wormwood belongs to the large Artemisia genus, and a culinary cousin has been tested on blood sugar in people:

• Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus): a 2016 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial from the University of Guadalajara (registered as NCT02330341) gave 24 people with impaired glucose tolerance either 1,000 mg of tarragon extract or placebo twice a day for 90 days. In the tarragon group, systolic blood pressure, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c, from 5.8% to 5.6%), the insulin response to a glucose drink and total insulin secretion fell, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol rose; the placebo group showed no significant changes. The trial did not measure glucagon-like peptide-1, and its results apply to tarragon, not wormwood.
• Sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) is a different species, the source of the malaria drug artemisinin; it is covered on its own page.

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Safety: Thujone, Pregnancy and Liver Disease

The European Union wormwood monograph sets out the following for traditional wormwood preparations:

• Thujone: "Thujone is reported to be neurotoxic", and the monograph states that strains low in thujone should be preferred. The Novara study used a thujone-free strain. The details are on the thujone, absinthe and safety page.
• Who it is contraindicated for: people allergic to wormwood or other plants of the daisy family (Asteraceae), and people with obstruction of the bile duct, cholangitis or liver disease.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: there are no or limited data, and the monograph states that use is not recommended. A reproductive study in pregnant rats found fewer implantation sites and fewer pups born, and thujone is known to stimulate the uterus.
• Children and teenagers: use under 18 years of age has not been established because of a lack of adequate data.
• Interactions: none are reported in the monograph.

Semaglutide carries its own warnings and side effects, which are listed in its prescribing information and summarised on the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists page. Wormwood is not a substitute for a prescribed medicine, and decisions about medicines and supplements belong with a clinician.

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Key Research Papers

1. Holst JJ (2007). The physiology of glucagon-like peptide 1. Physiological Reviews — PubMed PMID: 17928588
2. Deacon CF, Nauck MA, Toft-Nielsen M, et al. (1995). Both subcutaneously and intravenously administered glucagon-like peptide I are rapidly degraded from the NH2-terminus in type II diabetic patients and in healthy subjects. Diabetes — PubMed PMID: 7657039
3. Wilding JPH, Batterham RL, Calanna S, et al. (2021). Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. The New England Journal of Medicine — PubMed PMID: 33567185
4. Candiani A, Diana G, Disca V, et al. (2026). Alginate-Based Beads Containing Artemisia absinthium L. Extract as Innovative Ingredients for Baked Products. Gels (Basel, Switzerland) — PubMed PMID: 41590070
5. Talmon M, Rossi S, Lim D, et al. (2019). Absinthin, an agonist of the bitter taste receptor hTAS2R46, uncovers an ER-to-mitochondria Ca(2+)-shuttling event. The Journal of Biological Chemistry — PubMed PMID: 31248983
6. Camillo L, Pollastro F, Talmon M, et al. (2025). Bitter Taste Receptors 38 and 46 Regulate Intestinal Peristalsis. International Journal of Molecular Sciences — PubMed PMID: 40076714
7. Komarnytsky S, Mhawish R, Wagner C (2026). Activation of Extraoral Bitter Taste Receptors by Herbs and Spices in the Regulation of Incretin Signaling and Glucose Metabolism. Nutrition Reviews — PubMed PMID: 42186283
8. Hassan L, Newman L, Keast R, et al. (2023). The effect of gastrointestinal bitter sensing on appetite regulation and energy intake: A systematic review. Appetite — PubMed PMID: 36216215
9. Walker EG, Lo KR, Pahl MC, et al. (2022). An extract of hops (Humulus lupulus L.) modulates gut peptide hormone secretion and reduces energy intake in healthy-weight men: a randomized, crossover clinical trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition — PubMed PMID: 35102364
10. Rezaie P, Bitarafan V, Rose BD, et al. (2022). Quinine Effects on Gut and Pancreatic Hormones and Antropyloroduodenal Pressures in Humans-Role of Delivery Site and Sex. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism — PubMed PMID: 35325161
11. Iven J, Biesiekierski JR, Zhao D, et al. (2019). Intragastric quinine administration decreases hedonic eating in healthy women through peptide-mediated gut-brain signaling mechanisms. Nutritional Neuroscience — PubMed PMID: 29607741
12. Deloose E, Corsetti M, Van Oudenhove L, et al. (2018). Intragastric infusion of the bitter tastant quinine suppresses hormone release and antral motility during the fasting state in healthy female volunteers. Neurogastroenterology and Motility — PubMed PMID: 28776826
13. Klaassen T, Keszthelyi D, Alleleyn AME, et al. (2021). Effect of oral or intragastric delivery of the bitter tastant quinine on food intake and appetite sensations: a randomised crossover trial. The British Journal of Nutrition — PubMed PMID: 32660667
14. Baghban Taraghdari S, Nematy M, Mazidi M, et al. (2015). The effect of hydro-alcoholic extract of Artemisia absinthium on appetite in male rats. Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine — PubMed PMID: 25949948
15. Méndez-Del Villar M, Puebla-Pérez AM, Sánchez-Peña MJ, et al. (2016). Effect of Artemisia dracunculus Administration on Glycemic Control, Insulin Sensitivity, and Insulin Secretion in Patients with Impaired Glucose Tolerance. Journal of Medicinal Food — PubMed PMID: 27097076

Trial Registrations, Drug Labels and Regulatory Documents

• ClinicalTrials.gov. NUTRACORE, Glycaemic Index and Appetite (Glycemic Index Analysis of Functional Bakery Products on a Group of Healthy Volunteers). Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità, Novara — NCT05528874
• ClinicalTrials.gov. Effect of Artemisia Dracunculus on Glucose Intolerance, Insulin Sensitivity and Insulin Secretion. University of Guadalajara — NCT02330341
• U.S. National Library of Medicine, DailyMed. Ozempic (semaglutide) injection, prescribing information — DailyMed label
• U.S. National Library of Medicine, DailyMed. Wegovy (semaglutide) injection, prescribing information — DailyMed label
• European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (2020). European Union herbal monograph on Artemisia absinthium L., herba (EMA/HMPC/751490/2016 Corr.) — EMA monograph (PDF)

PubMed Topic Searches

• PubMed: bitter taste receptors and glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion
• PubMed: absinthin and the TAS2R46 bitter receptor
• PubMed: wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and appetite

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Connections

• All Herbs
• Wormwood — the main overview page.
• Wormwood Benefits Hub — all the deep dives.
• Wormwood for Digestion and the Bitter Reflex — bitter receptors and the appetite paradox.
• Thujone, Absinthe and Safety — why the strain matters.
• Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists — semaglutide, tirzepatide and related medicines.
• Weight-Loss Studies of These Medicines — the large trials.
• Semaglutide Heart-Risk Indication (Food and Drug Administration, 2024) — the cardiovascular approval.
• Obesity — causes, risks and treatments.
• The Science of Satiety — how fullness is signalled.
• Appetite, Leptin and Ghrelin (animation) — the hunger hormones in motion.
• Blood Sugar and Insulin (animation) — the incretin effect in context.
• Dark Chocolate — the biscuit's base.
• Bitter Melon — another bitter studied for blood sugar.
• Artemisia annua (Sweet Wormwood) — the different species people confuse with this one.

Educational information only, not medical advice. Wormwood has not been shown to cause weight loss and is not approved for it; semaglutide is a prescription medicine. The wormwood biscuit results described here come from a conference presentation and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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