The European Union is investigating the reports of suicidal thoughts associated with the use of weight loss drugs Ozempic® (semaglutide) and Saxenda® (liraglutide).
The U.S. FDA has received 60 reports of suicidal ideation for patients on semaglutide and 70 on liraglutide.
Yet, Boris Johnson called semaglutide a “wonder drug” in his first Mail article as a columnist that he hoped would stop his fridge raids. Not a jot about the harm, though.
However, we previously showed in a systematic review that of 25 weight loss drugs approved by regulatory agencies between 1994 and 2003, all were subsequently withdrawn, mainly because of psychiatric or cardiovascular adverse drug reactions. Deaths were reportedly associated with seven products.
The obsession with blockbuster weight loss drugs subsequently resulted in the development and approval of different groups of centrally acting drugs: the combination medications (naltrexone-bupropion and phentermine-topiramate) and lorcaserin.
But not much changed: again, we showed that the benefit-harm profile of these new drugs was no different from previously withdrawn medications with similar mechanisms of action. More participants who took the anti-obesity drugs achieved over 5% reduction in body weight. However, the products increased the risk of adverse events – one reported harm for every 11 people on the drug. A lot of folks also discontinued the medications because of these adverse events.
We later wrote in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine that locaserin had minimal benefits and ill-defined harms. We weren’t the only ones – medical journal Prescrire had also warned of the unacceptable risks of the drug. It, therefore, wasn’t that surprising when lorcaserin was subsequently withdrawn from the market within a year of our publication because of an increased cancer risk.
We now find ourselves moving on to the next group of drugs – the approval of GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight loss agents – including Ozempic® and Saxenda®. While the evidence suggests that these drugs may promote weight loss, the potential harms of using such products are not extensively reported or investigated. There are hardly any post-marketing trials investigating their possible disadvantages.
While Johnson believed semaglutide could change the lives of millions, we’re not sure whether that is more likely to be through the small weight losses achieved or because of the harm to come. On average, we found that withdrawal of an obesity drug from the market takes about two years following the first report of an adverse reaction.
We’re waiting to see what happens next, but don’t have much faith in our regulatory system as it is woeful for assessing harms. Most likely the drug will come with a safety warning, but history tells us what comes next is all too predictable.
Igho Onakpoya is a clinician and researcher with expertise in evaluating the benefits and harms of healthcare interventions. Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine. This article was first published on Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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Ozempic look up side effects, 43 in all including possible thyroid cancer, chest pain, dizziness, seizuresand many, many more.
bought to you viathe FDA the CDCand no doubt our own MHRA.
Kerching, Kerching,
But at least you can look forward to being nice and thin while you’re having your seizure…
Good article by Zoe Harcombe on these weight loss drugs from February
https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2023/02/a-story-about-weight-loss/
Fat Pig Dictator taking drugs and couldn’t lose the weight….in between coke lines, wine bottles, pizza boxes, burger cartons and bowls of chocolate. How surprising.
Newsflash for Herr Piggy – putting drugs into your bloodstream with ingredients you know nothing about and can’t pronounce is unlikely to do anything except harm or maybe kill you. There you go Pig man. Science. Maybe eat better and exercise more.
Reminds of the safely effective mRNA stabbinations, foisted on you by your loving caring government and their bosses, Pharma.
What a surprise that the politician mentioned believed in that. His reputation for promoting things like that should be well known by now – not least joining in with the “lockdown” experiment, and related products.
https://www.technocracy.news/gates-who-cdc-see-peel-stick-vaccine-patches-mailed-directly-to-peoples-homes/
Peel and Stick “vaccine” patches for the illnesses you didn’t know you would be receiving. Isn’t Billy kind?
Well this gets round ‘informed consent’ for sure.
There’s been declines of childhood vaccination rates in more than 100 countries since the ‘pandemic’. I wonder why that would be.
Ultimately, there’s no easy way around these things: good diet and exercise are the only way. Not only does it improve your body, but it focuses the mind. Why else would far left activists be claiming that physical fitness is ‘far right’ ideology. They want you weak, unfit, ill-disciplined and malleable.
Yes you’re right, but a Holy Grail for weight loss is something of a pipe dream that many still fall for time and again. Who doesn’t want a quick fix or magic bullet? There was one ( was it called ‘Ali’ or something? ) that was associated with ‘Disaster Pants’ episodes, I seem to recall, which seems benign compared to the above drugs. I used to enjoy watching that Fat Fighters series on UK telly years ago, also Secret Eaters was another one. I think a lot of people need to work on the psychology of why they eat the wrong stuff, binge, guzzle fizzy pop etc because, at the end of the day, everybody knows what’s healthy and what’s not.
As a person who used to have a disordered relationship with food myself I definitely recommend focusing on the ”why” instead of the ”what” to begin with or you’re just relying on self-control and motivation being a constant and you’ll invariably end up back at square one ( like a game of Snakes and Ladders ) if you don’t get a handle on it. Regular exercise, quitting alcohol and focusing on unprocessed, low carb foods stopped all cravings and energy slumps for me, but we’re all different.
Now, now Mogs – quitting alcohol?
Friday wouldn’t be Friday without a gallon.
I don’t know what the world is coming to
I agree with you about low carb and unprocessed foods. Eating a low carb diet has changed my life for the good in so many ways – weight loss just being one of them. Boris would have done much better trying that rather than drugs – he could still have eaten cheese and chorizo!
But but but … they said these were “Safe and Effective©” and taking these would also protect others from gaining weight.
Or am I thinking of something else?
A wise comment! It reminded me of the occasion when J got trapped on a zip wire when he was Mayor of London – e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8c4MjKnlbU Plenty of other related reports available online!
I remember almost getting a complaint made against me because I wouldn’t prescribe whatever was the newest slimming drug around 20 years ago. The angry subject was a London journalist, who bawled me out for tewnty five minutes or so, so I was a bit lucky it wasn’t Boris and that he didn’t write a hit piece about selfish GPs obsessed with saving money… probably because the drug was withdrawn not long afterwards. I never got an apology from the newsman though.
I used to do bank shifts on a colorectal ward when I was nursing and therefore used to look after a lot of bariatric patients. Out of all the patients I looked after over the years I think I can only remember one or two who were male. There’d be whole lists of patients when the colorectal surgeons were working and all the patients were women. I can’t believe I never actually found out why that was but, speaking to many a patient on the ward, emotional/disordered eating, along with wonky hormones in some cases, was a common denominator amongst patients.
I think there is a big psychological element with women, which in my observations, results in men typically being way more successful at dieting and getting ( and staying ) to a healthy weight, whereas women are the ones who will resort to drastic gastric bands and bariatric surgery because they’ve ”tried everything and nothing worked.” No diet will ”work” if your head’s not in the right place, but there’s a definite difference between the sexes on this issue. How many couples do you see walking down the street where the man is slim ( possibly a bit of beer belly ) but the woman is noticeably overweight? I see it regularly.
“possibly a bit of beer belly”
No such thing Mogs – it is a ‘hobby induced side effect.’
It was a running gag at work that if a bloke lost weight he’d be asked if his wife was on a diet again.
Not a new problem… this from the 1920s
Both are seriously fat because of a shared love for sofas, TV and fast food seems as common to me.
It used to be as simple as speed….
Here’s the perfect wonder drug to stop 11:30pm fridge raids for cheddar and chorizo:
These used to mounted on the GDR-part of the iron curtain in order to kill or wound people trying to cross the border.
Add these to the list of drugs whose risks may outweigh the benefits including statins, certain unnamed “vaccines”, antidepressants. Could it be that all the useful drugs were discovered/ invented in the last century? I’m talking penicillin, aspirin, B-blockers, antipsychotics and a few others. Now it’s just Big Pharma inventing diseases to go with their highly expensive new and dangerous cures.
Excellent. Thanks.
The best drugs for weight loss are:
1. a decent diet and
2. exercise
But they require willpower and won’t make a shed-load of money for Big Pharma.
Better to invest £100 or so in Hypnotherapy to boost your willpower, than start taking the pills.