Doctors are warning of a little-known deadly side effect linked to weight-loss injections after treating a patient with liver failure.
The 24-year-old teacher had been taking a high dose of Mounjaro for weight loss, which works in a similar way to Ozempic.
Seven months after starting the medication, she began experiencing extreme vomiting, nausea and stomach pain, prompting her to rush to the emergency room.
Tests showed the unnamed patient had “alarming” liver damage that could have killed her within days if not reversed.
A woman in Kuwait suffered liver damage after taking Mounjaro for seven months (file image)
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The patient, who was obese and had a BMI of 34, had “alarming” levels of liver enzymes, proteins that help break down bile and toxins.
This was a sign that her organ was failing and she was admitted to the ICU, where she was given a plasma transfusion to remove toxins from her blood.
She was referred to a transplant team because, if left untreated, she could have suffered severe liver failure and a transplant would have been her only chance of survival.
Writing in the European Journal of Case ReportsKuwaiti doctors who treated her said Mounjaro was “probably the likely cause.”
Last year, a 37 year old patient in Seattle She was treated for a similar liver injury after taking the same medication. Doctors called her condition “drug-induced liver injury.”
Experts don’t know exactly what causes this rare side effect, although they believe that high doses of the drugs reduce the amount of fat in the liver.
If this happens too quickly, it could kill healthy cells and cause injury.
Paradoxically, some studies have even indicated that tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro, might actually treat liver failure.
The patient in the case report, who had given birth to her first child the previous year, had been taking a 12-milligram dose of Mounjaro after gradually increasing the dose from a low dose.
Doses start at 2.5 milligrams and go up to a maximum of 15 milligrams.
When the patient first presented to the emergency room in early July, her liver function tests were normal and she was responding well to fluids and intravenous medications.
He was discharged, but two days later he returned to the hospital with the same symptoms and low blood sugar.
Scans when the woman was admitted showed her pancreas and other organs were normal, but her liver appeared to be slightly enlarged.
Tests for hepatitis, herpes and other viruses previously linked to liver inflammation came back negative.
Doctors diagnosed him with acute liver injury, or a rapid decline in liver function due to damage or stress to the organ.
She was admitted to the intensive care unit and kept in the hospital for 10 days before her liver function improved and she was stable enough to go home.
The patient, who was treated in Kuwait, was advised not to take Mounjaro. When she was discharged, her body mass index had dropped from 34 to 25.
The chart above shows semaglutide and tirzepatide-related deaths by year. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, while tirzepatide is used in drugs such as Zepbound. Yellow is used for 2024 to indicate that the data is incomplete.
Tirzepatide has not been shown to cause liver damage in clinical trials, nor is this mentioned in its warning label.
But doctors say the rapid weight loss it causes could “overload” the liver and cause inflammation, leading to injury.
During weight loss, fat is sent from other parts of the body to the liver, where it is broken down into a substance that cells can use.
But if too much is sent at once or too much is sent continuously over a long period of time, the organ can become “overwhelmed,” leading to complications.
Acute liver injury has previously been reported after bariatric surgery (such as gastric bypass, which reduces the size of the stomach), which doctors have also linked to rapid weight loss.
In the article, doctors at Adan Hospital in Kuwait said: “The (temporal) relationship between tirzepatide and acute liver injury makes it likely to be the susceptible cause.”
They added: “This case underscores the need for further investigation and frequent monitoring of liver enzymes when tirzepatide is used for weight loss.”
