Taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic along with antidepressants may increase the risk of suicide, a major study suggests.
Researchers in New York, Switzerland and Italy reviewed a World Health Organization database for reports of suicidal thoughts among people taking the drugs in more than 140 countries.
The team then narrowed their search to reports of suicidal thoughts or attempts from patients taking an antidepressant and semaglutide or liraglutide (the active ingredients in Ozempic and Victoza, respectively).
They found 107 cases of suicidal or self-harming thoughts or actions among those taking semaglutide and 162 among those taking liraglutide, suggesting a harmful interaction between weight-loss drugs and antidepressants.
Researchers from three countries have suggested that taking antidepressants and drugs such as Ozempic could lead to suicidal thoughts or actions based on drug interactions.
Sharon Osbourne shared that she lost so much weight taking Ozempic that she couldn’t afford to lose any more. She also shocked fans with her gaunt appearance at a Taylor Swift concert this week.
However, experts criticized the study for its “weak evidence” and “important limitations” based on “spontaneous reports” of interactions between GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and antidepressants.
They also cautioned that the proportion of reports linked to both drugs was too small to determine an association.
The findings come after Sharon Osbourne alarmed fans this week with her gaunt appearance at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show in London. Osbourne also admitted she “lost too much weight” with Ozempic.
The researchers conducted the study using VigiBase, a database of adverse drug and vaccine reports from the WHO International Drug Monitoring Programme, which includes 36 million reports from more than 140 countries.
The team collected reports of suicide and self-harm in people who were also taking semaglutide or liraglutide between November 2000 and August 2023. All patients who made reports were also taking antidepressants.
The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open107 reports of patients taking semaglutide between 2011 and 2023 and 162 reports of patients taking liraglutide between 2000 and 2023 were found.
About a third of patients who used both drugs did so without a prescription, that is, without a doctor’s prescription. In addition, one in four took them to control weight and another in four to control diabetes.
Of those who reported suicidal effects from semaglutide, 88 percent had suicidal ideation, 6.5 percent attempted an overdose, and 6.5 percent attempted suicide. In the liraglutide group, 72 percent thought about suicide, 12 percent committed suicide, and 10 percent attempted suicide.
In both the semaglutide and liraglutide groups, suicidal ideation stopped after the drug was stopped 62 percent of the time.
“Given the risk of suicidal ideation in people taking semaglutide off-label, authorities should consider issuing a warning to inform about this risk,” the team wrote.
Scott reportedly started using Ozempic after gaining weight and is now hoping to control it (pictured, August 2022). Weeks later in early March, the 40-year-old father of three sparked fears for his health when he was photographed looking gaunt as he left Catch Steak in Los Angeles (pictured).
However, the team noted that “the results of this study should be interpreted in light of several limitations.”
These included the small number of patients who reported these effects while taking antidepressants and GLP-1 medications, as well as not taking into account other factors that lead to suicidal ideation, such as life circumstances and alcohol or drug use.
Dr Stephen Evans, emeritus professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, warned that the data is based on reports sent by doctors to health agencies only and is subject to bias.
“In my view, this is not a significant or noteworthy article and has significant limitations,” he said.
“The evidence that a real effect occurred in this case is extremely weak. We cannot conclude from the study that semaglutide itself is responsible for the suicidality.”
Dr Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University in England, said: “(The authors) note that there is no way to tell from the data they used that this disproportionately high rate of mentions of suicidal ideation for semaglutide is actually caused by patients’ use of semaglutide.”
‘This is for a number of reasons: partly because there will be many differences between patients who took semaglutide and patients who took other medicines, apart from whether they took semaglutide, and the high rate of mentions could be due to one or more of these other differences rather than the medicine.’
“It’s possible that not all of those other reasons are in the database, and there’s no information there about people who haven’t had any reported adverse reactions.”
A recent Gallup poll found that one in 15 American adults (six percent) has used injectable diabetes medications, such as Ozempic.