(CTN News) – Recent investigations have revealed a correlation between the popular Diabetes and weight-reduction medications Ozempic and Wegovy and an increased likelihood of developing gastric paralysis.
Food can remain in the primary digestive organ for extended periods of time due to stomach paralysis, which is frequently referred to as gastroparesis, which effects the muscles of the stomach.
Wegovy has been authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the purpose of weight management, while Ozempic has been approved to help individuals with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.
Diabetes Ozempic is occasionally administered for weight loss.
the fact that it lacks FDA sanction for this purpose. Wegovy and Ozempic are injectables that contain semaglutide, a protein that is analogous to the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).
It is one of the primary functions of GLP-1 in the body to promote the synthesis of insulin. As a result of eating, it is released into the body.
Recent research has shown that these anti-diabetic and weight-loss drugs, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists or GLP-1 analogues, are also causing less common side effects, such as acute pancreatitis, ileus, and stomach paralysis (gastroparesis), in addition to gastrointestinal (GI) side effects such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
The research was presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2024 conference, which was held in Washington, DC, from May 18–21, 2024.
According to researchers from the University of Kansas, 1.85 lakh obese or diabetic patients were administered GLP-1 analogs in one of these investigations between December 1, 2021, and November 30, 2022.
The research team predicted that the likelihood of developing gastroparesis had increased by 66%. The illness was discovered to have affected approximately 0.53 percent of the patients.
Cholecystitis, Diabetes or gallbladder inflammation,
It was observed in 0.55% of the patients and predicted to be 28% more likely to develop in the future.
The study’s authors also found that 0.04 percent of patients who were prescribed GLP-1 analogs experienced drug-induced pancreatitis. They calculated that the probability of developing the illness increased by over 350 percent.
Furthermore, they found that 7.5% of the patients had a higher incidence of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition in which the contents of the stomach travel up the oesophagus, and 9% of the patients had a substantially higher incidence of nausea and vomiting.
The authors of the study, which is currently available as an abstract, concluded that the use of GLP-1 agonists in patients with diabetes mellitus and obesity is associated with GI side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, gastroparesis, GERD, esophagitis, drug-induced pancreatitis, cholecystitis, and the necessity of upper-endoscopy.
The risk of gastroparesis was assessed in the second trial, which involved patients with type 2 diabetes who were taking GLP-1 receptor agonists (RA). More than 3.36 lakh patients were included in both cohorts—one of which was administered the drug and the other was not.
“GP was more prevalent in patients with T2D who were taking GLP-1 RAs at 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months.” The study’s abstract, which was authored by the authors, which included researchers from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, indicates that the odds ratio for gastroparesis increased significantly after six to twenty-four months, after adjusting for various risk variables. Both investigations employed data from the multi-institutional database TriNetX.
Mayo Clinic Minnesota Diabetes researchers assessed the impact of GLP-1 RA on gastrointestinal symptoms in the third study. The Mayo Clinic Platform was utilized to extract data from approximately 80,000 individuals who received prescriptions for this investigation.
According to the researchers’ findings, approximately 14,660 patients, or 18% of the total, experienced at least one new gastrointestinal symptom that was indicative of gastroparesis. Out of 14,660 individuals, approximately 700 underwent gastric emptying scintigraphy (GES), a test that assesses the stomach’s ability to evacuate.
The researchers found that gastroparesis Diabetes impacted approximately one-third of the cohort.
In the abstract of the study, the scientists asserted that “these real-world data suggest that GI symptoms are prevalent in those treated with GLP-1 RA.”
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