Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy linked to eye condition causing vision loss

Interesting @Nnyck777

I know its anecdote, but I had a patient with the most terrible run of pancreatitis as a side effect of Ozempic. And the next patient singing its praises about how it had helped her shed 30kg and she no longer needed weight loss surgery and it was a miracle!

Its going to be fascinating to see how this plays out.

C

@Nnyck777 From my laymans perspective, its really great to get your take on the situation from the coal face.

The idea that, at scale, a drug is the route to weight loss jars with me.

Then there is the side effects, known and unknown....

@neke86_ tying myself in knots reading these numbers in the dark before my kids get up but 8.9% was the number I took away over 36 months. The break down is by those treated for obesity and those treated for DM but the effect is consistent over both groups… if this is real it’s going to be absolutely massive… reminds me of the concerns around clotting with astra zeneca vaccine early days when we weren’t sure if it was real or not… share price of novo pretty much shrugged but I would be very concerned if I held.

The difference between this and the AZ vaccine is that was a double blind study that showed a strong causal link, this is a retrospective study that shows no causality only an association. If 10% of obese people with type 2 diabetes were going blind after starting a course of Ozempic I don't think we'd be waiting to read about it in a JAMA paper.

I'm not saying there isn't a causal link, quite frankly I have no idea either way, but for it to be meaningful they will need to use the results of a study that is powered to prove causality.

I tend to agree with @UlladullaDave , as a RMD shareholder of course i would love for the drugs to have problems, but its only a hope i think. having said that dropping weight from 130kg to 80 kg in a few months, eg, i think would cause massive strains on your body and there will be cases of crash and burn, unfortunately. dont feel that it is enough to kill the base case that weight loss will eventually become ubiquitous.

Early days @UlladullaDave there was absolutely doubt about causation with AZ. Cerebral sinus thrombosis is incredibly uncommon in the population but was also pretty rare with AZ and took some time to establish particularly when complicated by the presence of corona virus itself, a greater risk for thrombosis. I do agree however that the current evidence is not strong for causation, if it did turn that way though… as for reading about it in the papers not in JAMA there is plenty of precedent for unexpected problems taking some time to recognise. Again this is a tricky group to study with lots of potential confounders. Give it time. Also agree no idea if it’s real. Yet…