A pharmacist holds a field of Novo Nordisk A/S Ozempic emblem semaglutide medicine organized at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah.Symbol: Bloomberg / Contributor (Getty Pictures)In This StoryNovo Nordisk’s (NVO) blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic will have a possible hyperlink with an eye fixed situation that reasons imaginative and prescient loss, in keeping with a non-peer reviewed find out about revealed Thursday on medRxiv.Why generative AI is in its ‘Offended Birds’ segment, in keeping with DataStax CEO Chet KapoorDiabetes sufferers the usage of Ozempic had been discovered to be over two times as more likely to expand an extraordinary eye situation referred to as NAION in comparison to the ones taking different diabetes drugs, in keeping with researchers who analyzed years of affected person information from Denmark and Norway.Ozempic and prescription weight reduction medication: How they paintings, what they value, unintended effects, and the whole lot to knowStill, the find out about decided that the total prevalence of the situation used to be exceptionally low, with simply 1.4 further circumstances in line with 10,000 patient-years of remark — calculated because the collection of sufferers multiplied through the years they had been monitored — amongst the ones taking Ozempic in comparison to customers of different diabetes drugs.If the chance stays constant over the years, a sort 2 diabetes affected person taking Ozempic for twenty years would face a zero.3% to 0.5% probability of creating NAION, in keeping with the find out about.The findings for Wegovy — the corporate’s weight-loss drug that stocks the similar lively component as Ozempic — had been inconclusive because of an inadequate collection of sufferers within the research. Wegovy didn’t release in Denmark till 2022 and in Norway till 2023. NAION is a situation by which blood glide within the optic nerve — a package deal of nerve fibers that connects the again of the attention to the mind — is lowered resulting in surprising and irreversible blindness. The situation is the most typical optic nerve illness in america, affecting as much as 10 out of 100,000 older American citizens yearly, in keeping with the American Academy of Ophthalmology.Novo Nordisk didn’t in an instant reply to a request for remark from Quartz. This find out about follows any other one from previous this 12 months that still discovered a hyperlink between semaglutide, the lively component in Ozempic, and NAION. “Given the well-established results of semaglutide in managing each diabetes and weight problems, it is necessary to weigh the prospective chance of NAION in opposition to the considerable healing advantages of semaglutide,” the researchers wrote.
