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Ozempic and Wegovy Linked to Rare Blindness Risk, Study Finds

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By Ed Cara

 

New research released on Wednesday suggests that Ozempic and similar medications may have unexpected side effects. Doctors in Massachusetts have found a link between the drug’s active ingredient semaglutide and a higher risk of a rare condition that can cause blindness called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION).

The findings do not prove a causal connection between the two, however, and more research is needed to know for certain, the researchers say.

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The study was conducted by ophthalmologists at Harvard Medical School and Mass Eye and Ear, a specialty hospital focused on eye issues affiliated with Harvard. The team was inspired to look into the potential link after they had come across three patients who began to lose their vision from NAION within a week’s time. This would already be strange since NAION isn’t very common (estimates suggest that about 6,000 new cases in the U.S. occur annually), but all three patients were also taking semaglutide.

The researchers decided to do a deep dive into their existing data. They analyzed the medical records of about 17,000 Mass Eye and Ear patients dating back to 2017, when the first semaglutide-based medication Ozempic was approved for use as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Nowadays, Ozempic is also used as an off-label medication for weight loss along with Wegovy, a higher-dose version of semaglutide approved for obesity. Semaglutide and similar drugs have proven to be much more effective at helping people lose weight than diet and exercise alone.

They focused on nearly 1,700 patients who were diagnosed with diabetes or with being overweight/obese but who had no prior history of NAION. Then they tracked NAION diagnoses between similarly matched groups of patients who were prescribed semaglutide or who were prescribed other diabetes or obesity medications.

The patients were tracked for about three years. During that time, 46 NAION cases were diagnosed among the matched groups of patients. However, those prescribed semaglutide were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with NAION, the researchers found. This pattern was seen across both groups of patients, though the risk appeared higher for those prescribed the drug for weight loss. Compared to people taking other obesity medications, the risk of NAION was over seven times higher for those prescribed semaglutide.

“This study’s findings suggest an association between semaglutide and NAION,” the doctors wrote in their paper, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.

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