Home Health Warning! Weight Loss Hits Like Ozempic Linked to Fatal Cancer Diagnosis One Year After Using Them

Warning! Weight Loss Hits Like Ozempic Linked to Fatal Cancer Diagnosis One Year After Using Them

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The drugs, which include Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, have ushered in a new era in the battle against obesity, helping dieters lose up to a fifth of their body weight.

The innovative weight-loss injections trusted by millions of weight losers and diabetics could increase the risk of thyroid cancer in the first year of use, new research suggests.

The drugs, which include Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, have ushered in a new era in the battle against obesity, helping dieters lose up to a fifth of their body weight.

But American doctors, who followed more than 350,000 patients, have now found that the injections put users at a “significantly increased” risk of contracting the disease compared to three other common diabetes medications.

However, the overall risk of developing thyroid cancer over six years with the injections remains “low,” experts said.

The scientists, who called the findings important, warned that more research was needed to confirm their findings.

Around half a million Britons are thought to be currently using the drug, which can help them lose up to 20 per cent of their body weight in just a few months.

It comes as a Mail on Sunday investigation last week revealed that almost 400 Britons had been hospitalised, some with life-threatening complications, since the rollout of vaccines such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Saxenda.

In 2023, research in mice and rats suggested that semaglutide, the powerful ingredient behind Wegovy and Ozempic, could increase the risk of one type of thyroid cancer: medullary thyroid cancer (MTC).

The drugs, which include Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, have ushered in a new era in the battle against obesity, helping dieters lose up to a fifth of their body weight.

Last year, the European Medicines Agency also said that research in rodents suggested that artificial hormones packaged in tirzepatide (sold under the brand name Mounjaro) could also increase the risk of TCM.

However, follow-up studies in patients taking the drug are still being done to explore this potential risk in humans, as the risk is currently inconclusive.

In the latest study, researchers at the University of Maryland in Baltimore evaluated 351,913 patients with type 2 diabetes who had no history of thyroid cancer and had an average age of 65 years.

More than 40,000 were vaccinated, known collectively as glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists or GLP-1 agonists.

Others received three common type 2 diabetes medications: DDP-4 inhibitors, sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, and Sulfonylurea therapy.

During a six-year follow-up, researchers found that the risk of thyroid cancer was “significantly higher” during the first year after starting GLP-1, compared with the other three drugs.

However, writing in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology, they added that the relationship was no longer significant when researchers assessed thyroid cancer risk over the six-year study period.

“This finding may be due to increased early detection, so further research is needed to understand the underlying causes of this association,” the authors wrote.

The scientists also acknowledged that the study had some limitations, including the inability to differentiate between MTC and other types of thyroid cancer.

Future research evaluating this is “critical” to understanding why hitting has been specifically associated with MTC, they added.

“These findings highlight the need for further research to fully understand the nature of this association,” they said.

As of October last year, the number of hospitalizations in the six years since the weight-loss shots began being prescribed was 279.

But new data obtained from the medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), found that cases soared during the four weeks to the end of November, with an additional 118 hospitalizations recorded.

Most reactions are gastrointestinal problems, such as persistent nausea and diarrhea, which leave some patients with “severe dehydration.”

But some doctors warned they were seeing patients with “serious and life-threatening complications” such as seizures, intestinal obstruction and inflammation of the pancreas, known as pancreatitis.

Wegovy and Ozempic work by causing the body to produce a hormone called GLP-1 that is released naturally from the intestines after meals.

Wegovy and Ozempic work by causing the body to produce a hormone called GLP-1 that is released naturally from the intestines after meals.

Like any medication, injections are known to cause side effects that vary in both frequency and severity.

Other reported problems include constipation, fatigue, stomach pain, headaches and dizziness.

Some patients have also reported strange symptoms, such as hair loss.

Doctors have also long told how they are treating increasing numbers of thin women who end up in hospital after falsely telling online pharmacists that they are overweight to pass eligibility checks.

According to NHS guidelines, Wegovy should only be prescribed to patients who have a body mass index (BMI) over 35, or a BMI of 30 and at least one weight-related health problem, such as high blood pressure.

UK law prohibits the sale of such medicines without a prescription.

Earlier this month, the MHRA also revealed removed 150 social media posts that “actively” sold counterfeit weight loss drugs in 2024.

It came just weeks after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued a warning to advertisers, businesses and influencers to remove online and social media ads for targeted prescription weight-loss drugs to the general public.

This followed a MailOnline investigation which found social media influencers were being encouraged to illegally promote prescription weight-loss vaccines to their thousands of people. followers.

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