Angle down icon An icon within the form of an angle pointing down. Sufferers with NAION haven’t got sufficient blood flowing to their optic nerve. Anastassiya Bezhekeneva/Getty Photographs A brand new examine suggests folks on Ozempic or Wegovy could also be extra more likely to abruptly go blind.The situation, known as NAION, continues to be exceedingly uncommon. It is also painless and untreatable.Blood-sugar points can have an effect on our imaginative and prescient. Eye docs in Boston have began to note a small however worrisome uptick in instances of a uncommon kind of sudden blindness amongst sufferers taking semaglutide.They’re elevating questions on whether or not taking Ozempic or Wegovy is likely to be resulting in extra instances of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, a uncommon situation the place blood stops flowing to the optic nerve, disturbing the connection between the attention and the mind. The difficulty sometimes surfaces abruptly, with out ache, and ends in folks waking up within the morning unable to see out of 1 eye.The brand new investigation, printed Wednesday in JAMA Ophthalmology, discovered that individuals taking semaglutide appeared barely extra more likely to develop NAION than different sufferers with weight problems or diabetes. (Semaglutide is the lively ingredient in two Novo Nordisk medicine: Ozempic for kind 2 diabetes and Wegovy for weight problems.)Uncommon, and notableThe variety of sufferers on semaglutide who developed NAION was tiny: Out of greater than 16,000 eye sufferers in Massachusetts included on this six-year retrospective investigation, solely 37 folks on semaglutide developed NAION. However that was nonetheless greater than 4 occasions as many eye issues as these skilled by related sufferers who weren’t on the medicine over the identical time interval. Solely 9 folks with diabetes or weight problems who weren’t on semaglutide developed NAION, the researchers stated. “That is info 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’s preexisting important visible loss from different causes,” Dr. Joseph Rizzo, the examine’s lead creator, the director of the neuro-ophthalmology service at Mass Eye and Ear, and a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical Faculty, stated in a information launch.”Using these medicine has exploded all through industrialized international locations they usually have supplied very important advantages in some ways, however future discussions between a affected person and their doctor ought to embody NAION as a possible threat,” he added.Pushback from Novo NordiskIn a press release despatched to Enterprise Insider, the semaglutide maker Novo Nordisk stated: “Affected person security is a prime precedence for Novo Nordisk, and we take all reviews about adversarial occasions from the usage of our medicines very severely.”However the drugmaker raised issues in regards to the methods this examine was performed, saying there have been too few instances within the trial to attract significant conclusions and that one of these backward-looking examine might by no means reply questions on a causal hyperlink between semaglutide and NAION. “NAION isn’t an adversarial drug response for the marketed formulations of semaglutide,” the corporate stated.Sufferers with diabetes and hypertension have at all times been at an elevated threat of creating eyesight points. For instance, having chronically excessive blood sugar can distort your eye lenses, contributing to blurry imaginative and prescient. (Novo Nordisk is engaged on one other, separate examine, testing whether or not semaglutide is likely to be helpful in treating diabetic retinopathy.) NAION is often everlasting, and there’s no therapy for it.