As weight-loss medication have skyrocketed in recognition over the previous couple years, information tales about potential uncomfortable side effects and issues have additionally unfold broadly. Except for the well-documented gastrointestinal points brought on by semaglutide medication—together with Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic, the latter of which is a diabetes remedy prescribed off-label for weight reduction—there have been studies of rarer abdomen situations, and even behavioral adjustments. Now, a brand new research has decided that medication like Wegovy and Ozempic might doubtlessly spike the danger of a uncommon eye situation that may result in blindness.
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Researchers from Mass Basic Brigham revealed a research on July 3 in JAMA Ophthalmolgy that appeared on the threat of non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) for sufferers taking semaglutide drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic.
NAION is “doubtlessly debilitating situation that happens from an absence of enough blood circulation to the optic nerve,” in response to Penn Ophthalmology. It usually results in imaginative and prescient loss in a single eye, however also can trigger whole blindness—analysis has discovered that those that develop NAION in a single eye have a 15 p.c likelihood of it occurring to the opposite eye inside a 12 months.
“It’s, in impact, a stroke of the optic nerve,” senior research writer Joseph Rizzo, MD, director of neuro-ophthalmology at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston, instructed NBC Information.
Based on a information launch, Rizzo and different Mass Eye and Ear neuro-ophthalmologists determined to conduct their research after noticing that three sufferers of their observe who had been taking semaglutide drugs had all been recognized with imaginative and prescient loss from this “unusual optic nerve illness” in the identical week.
“NAION is comparatively uncommon, occurring as much as 10 out of 100,000 folks within the basic inhabitants,” the researchers famous within the launch. “NAION is the second-leading reason behind optic nerve blindness (second solely to glaucoma) and it’s the commonest reason behind sudden optic nerve blindness.”
For the research, researchers appeared on the data of greater than 17,000 Mass Eye and Ear sufferers who had been handled by the well being group within the six years since Ozempic’s launch.
Their evaluation discovered that individuals who had diabetes and had been prescribed semaglutide had been over 4 occasions extra prone to be recognized with NAION. In addition they found that those that had been chubby or had weight problems and had been prescribed this remedy had been greater than seven occasions extra prone to be recognized with NAION.
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“The usage of these medication has exploded all through industrialized nations they usually have offered very vital advantages in some ways, however future discussions between a affected person and their doctor ought to embody NAION as a possible threat,” Rizzo mentioned in a press release. “It is very important admire, nonetheless, that the elevated threat pertains to a dysfunction that’s comparatively unusual.”
The researchers additionally famous that there have been a number of limitations to their research and emphasised that the outcomes don’t show causality.
“Our findings ought to be considered as being vital however tentative, as future research are wanted to look at these questions in a a lot bigger and extra various inhabitants,” Rizzo defined. “That is data we didn’t have earlier than and it ought to be included in discussions between sufferers and their docs, particularly if sufferers produce other recognized optic nerve issues like glaucoma or if there may be preexisting vital visible loss from different causes.”ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb
When Finest Life reached out to Novo Nordisk, the maker of each Wegovy and Ozempic, about this new research, a spokesperson for the corporate identified that there have been “key methodological limitations” within the analysis.
“This can be a single centre, retrospective cohort research with a excessive threat of choice bias. This research just isn’t designed to evaluate any potential causal relationship between NAION and semaglutide publicity,” the Novo Nordisk spokesperson mentioned in a press release.
They added, “Affected person security is a high precedence for Novo Nordisk, and we take all studies about hostile occasions from use of our medicines very significantly. NAION just isn’t an hostile drug response for the marketed formulations of semaglutide (Ozempic and Rybelsus for kind 2 diabetes and Wegovy for weight problems) as per the accredited labels.”
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