Ozempic, Wegovy use may be linked to ‘eye stroke’ and blindness, study finds
Global News
The use of semaglutide drugs, like Wegovy and Ozempic, may have an increased risk of sudden and irreversible vision loss and blindness, the study found.
People taking weight-loss and diabetes injection drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may have an increased risk of sudden and irreversible vision loss and blindness, a new study has found.
However, doctors say there’s no reason for patients who take the uber popular drugs to panic or discontinue taking their prescriptions.
The study, conducted by Harvard researchers and published Wednesday in JAMA Ophthalmology, analyzed data from 16,827 patients over a six-year period at the Mass Eye and Ear Harvard teaching hospital.
Of those, 710 had type 2 diabetes, with 194 being prescribed semaglutide medications, marketed under brandnames like Wegovy and Ozempic, that belong to a class of medications known as GLP-1 receptor agonists.
Another 975 patients in the study were overweight or living with obesity, 361 of them being prescribed semaglutide.
Among those prescribed semaglutide, an eye problem known as nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, was eventually diagnosed in a small percentage of patients. None of the more than 16,000 patients were initially diagnosed with NAION.
After taking patients’ other risk factors for the condition into account, such as high blood pressure and obstructive sleep apnea, use of semaglutide was associated with a more than four times higher risk of NAION in those receiving it for diabetes and a more than seven times higher risk in patients taking it for weight issues.
