Weight Loss Injections And Drugs Can Cause Rare Form Of Blindness: Study
People who consume popular weight loss and diabetes medications like Ozempic or Wegovy are over four times more likely to develop a rare form of eye condition that can lead to blindness, revealed a recent study. For overweight or obese patients, the risk is seven times higher with semaglutide use.
Published in JAMA Ophthalmology and conducted by researchers at Harvard University, the study found a link between prescription semaglutide, popularly known as Ozempic, for weight loss and diabetes and an increased risk of non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), or a sudden but painless loss of vision.
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NAION is a disorder wherein the arteries supplying blood to the optic nerve in the eye become blocked. When the optic nerve is deprived of oxygen, it will be damaged, leading to a loss of eyesight. The condition, which affects 10 out of 100,000 people, has no known treatment yet.
The research looked at data from 16,827 patients who received treatment for more than six years at the Mass Eye and Ear Harvard teaching hospital. Of these, 710 were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and 194 of these patients were prescribed semaglutide. 17 NAION events were observed out of the 194 patients, compared to the six who were on other diabetes drugs.
The research found that over the span of three years, 8.9 percent of patients on semaglutide had NAION when compared with the 1.8 percent of patients on other drugs. Similarly, 6.7 percent of overweight or obese patients on semaglutide had NAION, compared to 0.8 percent of patients on other weight-loss drugs.
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The US manufacturer of the lone semaglutide medications in the country, Novo Nordisk, highlighted that the data in the study is not enough to establish a causal association between the use of semaglutide medications and NAION.
