OZEMPIC and Mounjaro are the celebrity drugs of choice for rapid weight loss, used by Oprah Winfrey, James Corden, Stephen Fry, Amy Schumer and Sharon Osbourne to name only a few. A-list endorsements are a gift to manufacturers as famous faces sell more product, and many have shared their success stories. Now, the horror stories are beginning to emerge, and blindness could be the latest in a long series of side effects.
Researchers found nine US patients whose sight was affected. In a study published in JAMA Opthalmologyin January, one man who had been taking tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for a year suffered bleeding in his left eye. He kept taking the drug as doctors did not link his condition to the weight loss injection.
A woman woke up blind in her left eye after just one injection of semaglutide (the ingredient in Ozempic), taken for her diabetes. She stopped using the shots for two months but was forced to restart them to control her diabetes. Two weeks later, she lost the vision in her right eye.
Another woman, also taking semaglutide, woke one morning with a ‘painless shadow’ over her left eye. She had been taking the shots for a year. Blood vessels in her retina had become damaged, leading to blindness.
So the active ingredients in Ozempic and Mounjaro are both implicated in temporary and sometimes permanent loss of vision. Researchers think the injections cause inflammation and block blood flow to the eye.
They added: ‘Although a causal link between these drugs and observed complications cannot be established, these findings cannot rule out the possibility that rapid correction of hyperglycaemia may be associated with the results reported.’
The journal Naturesaid the weight loss drugs might raise a person’s likelihood of developing conditions such as arthritis. Thyroid cancer is also listed as a side effect by the manufacturers. In a study of more than 350,000 patients, American doctors discovered the injections put users at ‘significantly higher’ risk of developing thyroid cancer, compared with three other common diabetes drugs.
The money-spinning weight loss drugs were developed to help people control their diabetes, but those wanting to lose weight quickly found them and doctors now prescribe them for weight loss. Serious adverse reactions can occur in all groups.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said that a small group of patients have been hospitalised with hypoglycaemic shock and coma, linked to very low blood sugar. Lottie Moss, 26, the model sister of Kate Moss, bought Ozempic ‘with a friend’s help’, and was hospitalised after suffering seizures, bowel obstruction and pancreatitis. ‘It was the worst decision I ever made,’ she said.
Post-Christmas it was revealed that in the UK the numbers of people hospitalised with complications had risen by 46 per cent in a month – nearly 400 patients needed treatment.
Some users developed life-threatening complications from the drugs that include the brands Wegovy and Saxenda. Experts blame patients buying the drugs online and using them without the supervision of their doctor – which will be the case for some. But serious adverse events were recorded in clinical trials and listed in the manufacturers’ patient-information leaflet, which says common reactions include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach pain and constipation. Less common reactions include hypoglycaemia, pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, kidney damage, and eye problems including diabetic retinopathy. Rare but serious side effects are listed as intestinal obstruction, lung aspiration (food or liquid getting into the lungs) and serious allergic reactions. Ozempic also carries a warning for the risk of thyroid C-cell tumours – thyroid cancer.
Regardless, use of the drugs is mushrooming. In 2023, nearly 2 per cent of the US population had weight loss drug prescriptions, that is around seven million people, with children as young as six being prescribed. Over half of Americans are considered obese – 41.9 per cent of adults, and 19.7 per cent of children aged two to 19 years.
The drugs are licensed to treat people with a BMI over at least 30 – a healthy range is between 18.5 and 24.9, depending on your height. They have been in circulation for six years and around 500,000 in the UK are thought to be using them. Only 5 per cent are being prescribed through the NHS which means the majority are buying them privately from doctors, online pharmacies and social media. This raises the question of whether the rise in hospitalisations is due to overdosing or misuse.
People desperate to lose weight will do anything to drop a few pounds, including risking their health, users say. There have been tragic fatalities and last year, Susan McGowan, 58, a nurse from North Lanarkshire, died after taking two low-dose injections of Mounjaro bought from an online pharmacy.
Paige Roberts, 24, a healthcare assistant from North Wales, almost died after buying the injections from a social media seller. A polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) sufferer, her dress size was 14 to 16. Her GP advised her that her symptoms would ease if she lost weight. After her first dose of semaglutide, she felt dizzy and says, ‘I felt like I was dying. It was like the worst flu – my body couldn’t stop shaking, I had hot and cold sweats and couldn’t stop being sick. I couldn’t eat or drink.’
A&E doctors told her many people were suffering the same symptoms after buying the drugs online and some seemed to contain amphetamines, rather than semaglutide. Laboratory analysis of her syringes confirmed that they contained high doses of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy.
Reality TV star Dolores Catania, 53, from the series Real Housewives of New Jersey took Mounjaro for health issues and for weight loss. She lost 30lb in two years and said: ‘I’m going through menopause, have a thyroid issue and inflammation, so weight is hard to take off.’ She admitted to the nausea side effect but said: ‘You take a pill for that.’
Correcting her diet which she said was ‘carb heavy’ would have achieved the same results. She said: ‘I was a Doritos, chips, and onion dip person.’
Ozempic, Saxenda, and Wegovy are essentially diabetes drugs of different strengths. Saxenda and Wegovy are approved for weight loss, but Ozempic is not and prescribed off-label. All three are manufactured by Novo Nordisk which has made $14billion from Ozempic alone. The company, based in Denmark, has become the most valuable in Europe, entirely based on expectation of profits in the United States. Novo Nordisk is investing £3.2billion ($4billion) in its US manufacturing operation as demand booms.
Eli Lilly manufacture Mounjaro, which was approved for diabetics in 2022, but despite no approval is also used off-label for weight loss. In 2023, their type 2 diabetes drug Zepbound was also approved for weight loss.
They all mimic the body’s hormone, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), that is produced by the gut when we eat, particularly carbohydrates. GLP-1 is crucial in regulating glucose metabolism, stimulating insulin secretion, slowing the digestion process allowing for a gradual absorption of nutrients, and crucially, increasing feelings of fullness.
Professor of pathophysiology and biomedical scientist Dr Benjamin Bikman from Brigham Young University, Utah, the author of Why We Get Sick, How Not To Get Sick, and the website Insulin IQ, says three-quarters of users choose to quit the drugs because of side effects and a significant proportion of weight loss is not excess fat but nearly half is from muscle and bone.
He said: ‘There’s a report in the UK that shows that 70 per cent choose to get off the drug on their own. Their clinician is not deprescribing it, individuals are choosing to get off the drug because they’re feeling so sick.
‘About 40 per cent of the weight people lose is coming from lean mass. Some of that is water, but it also a substantial reduction in muscle and bone mass. For every 10kg people lose, 4kg is coming from muscle and bone. In desperation, some people might say “I’m going to take that”, but keep in mind that two years in the majority choose to come off the drug because of nausea. And now, they gain all the weight back. The fat comes back very easily, but the muscle and bone mass are lost and gone for ever. So now people are fatter than before.’
