Many people are concerned about their weight and take weight loss medications. A popular choice are medicines that were developed to treat diabetes, and were found to also help with weight loss.
It is known that certain adverse intestinal disorders are more common in diabetics. Researchers wanted to know if these adverse events were also increased in non-diabetic people taking these medications for weight loss.
The medications are semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy) and liraglutide (Victoza, Saxenda). In this research, non-diabetic people taking one of these medications for weight loss were reviewed for these adverse intestinal events.
The frequency of intestinal adverse events in people on semaglutide or liraglutide were compared with the frequency in people on a different weight loss medication, bupropion-naltrexone (Contrave). It works differently from semaglutide and liraglutide.
The intestinal adverse events are: pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), bowel obstruction (blockage in intestine), gastroparesis (stomach empties much more slowly than normal), and biliary diseases such as gallstones.
All of these adverse disorders were seen in patients taking any of these weight loss medications, but only three were more common with semaglutide or liraglutide than with bupropion-naltrexone.
They were: pancreatitis, bowel obstruction, and gastroparesis. Although these were more common compared to people on bupropion-naltrexone, all of these adverse events are rare.
The researchers concluded that, even though these adverse events are rare, people taking these medications should be aware of the increased risk.
The research was published by Sodhi and colleagues in JAMA online, October 5, 2023. For anyone wishing to read the article, it can be accessed online at: doi:10.1001/jama.2023.19574
Peter M. Hartmann, MD
Family Medicine & Psychiatry
