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These people/researchers have zero shame. Gross.

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So, essentially, this drug works by putting a person into medically-induced anorexia. Since we have plenty of data about the long term effects of anorexia, my hypothesis is that in the next 10-20 years, we’re going to start seeing those same effects from long-term semaglutide use.

I hope this drug is taken off the market.

Can we take a moment to address the death of the one study participant? Did the study attempt to explain this at all? One death out of 152 people should be horrifying, especially for a drug they’re expecting to market to a large population of people. (And not to mention a population of people who have historically received substandard healthcare and may not receive proper interventions before a medically unnecessary drug kills them.)

The drug companies will always try to blame an unrelated issue for study participant deaths (and now they can just blame fatness!), but drug trial deaths should be taken very seriously. Drug trials are a teensy snapshot of a much larger reality, so if this short small study resulted in 1 person dying out of 152 in just two years… RED FLAG. (On top of all the other red flags.)

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Hi Jen,

Thank you for the comment!

I hesitate to use "medically-induced anorexia" since anorexia is a complex biopsychosocial illness, but I agree that we may well see similar (actual) long-term effects.

As to the death, the study says: “Semaglutide group: one death due to acute myocardial infarction occurred in a participant who was a previous smoker with a medical history of hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea and dyslipidemia.” I wonder if this was the only person with this set of diagnoses in the trial, otherwise I would think they should say that more research is necessary to determine if this medication is contraindicated in people with these (or possibly some subset of these) diagnoses/previous behaviors.

I also absolutely agree about investigation by a third party.

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Thanks for your reply! The death in the study is really concerning… millions of people have sleep apnea, high cholesterol, and and high blood pressure, and live long lives with their conditions well-controlled. And if those conditions are qualifying conditions which the drug makers WANT people to justify taking their next blockbuster, then… oof. Scary scary shit.

I agree about “medically induced anorexia” and retract that comment. Although I think medically induced starvation applies. Doctors should be concerned about making their patients forget to eat or not want to eat… maybe if nutrition was stressed more in medical schools, doctors would be as alarmed by malnutrition as they should be.

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Yes, listing preexisting conditions for a death as if that means that the drug had nothing to do with it is so disingenuous. I absolutely agree on medically induced starvation and on stressing nutrition - I actually have a piece in the queue about the issue with lack of testing for malnutrition in weight loss interventions.

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I’m looking forward to reading that!!

I’ve had to push hard for nutritional testing (and even then I’ve only had the basics of b12, iron, and D), and each time, my levels have been dangerously low. My vitamin D was lowest at 3, and my iron has been low enough to require iron infusions, but again, I only found out through advocating for my own care.

It infuriates me that doctors will prescribe starvation (or praise it when a patient presents with “I can’t keep any food down”) and so rarely consider the ramifications of malnutrition.

I’ve had doctors be convinced my tingling extremities HAD to be diabetes, but it was actually a B12 deficiency and gluten ataxia.

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I wondered about the cause of death, too. If the person died in a car accident, or of Covid, or drowned, or died from any number of other unrelated issues, then the death has no bearing on the study. But if the person died from, say, a sudden unexplained heart attack, then that is indeed concerning.

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Agreed. Although tbf, if it were covid, was it because the drug made them higher risk for covid complications?

Even if it were a car accident or drowning: was it because the drug caused a medical emergency while swimming or driving? If they were hit by a car in a crosswalk, was it because the drug impacted their cognitive skills and made them cross at a “don’t walk” sign?

Every death in a drug trial should be investigated by a neutral third party.

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Good points.

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