Weight-loss drugs prompt calls to poison centers

The labels on Ozempic, Wegovy, and related drugs increasingly used for weight loss warn that potential side effects can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain. But that’s if you take the drugs, as directed, once a week.

What if you were to take them every day by accident?

Misuse of such drugs — originally developed to treat type-2 diabetes — is driving a sharp increase in calls to poison centers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states, officials say. Nationally so far this year, the total number of calls about excess doses of Ozempic and Wegovy is 15 times what it was five years ago, CNN reported.

Most of the calls are coming from people who inject too much of the drugs by accident, say poison-center officials at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. But in a few cases, people eager to shed pounds have taken extra doses on purpose, said Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers.

“They think that if one dose is good, two are better,” she said.

The New Jersey center has gotten 96 calls so far this year from patients or their providers about excess doses, including 21 in which the symptoms were so bad that the person went to the emergency department, she said. In Pennsylvania and Delaware, poison centers have gotten 123 calls this year, up from 91 in 2022, said Anthony Jaworski, clinical program manager at the Poison Control Center at CHOP. Many have involved mild symptoms or none at all.

The nation’s 55 poison control centers have gotten 3,963 such calls between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 of this year, according to America’s Poison Centers, the umbrella group that represents them. That total includes 2,941 that specified semaglutide, a drug branded as Ozempic for treating diabetes and Wegovy for obesity — up from 196 cases in 2019.

In most cases, any symptoms resolve on their own in a few days, said Jaworski, who collaborated with Pittsburgh Poison Center officials recently in presenting an analysis of the issue at a conference of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists. Seven patients from Pennsylvania and Delaware have suffered from low blood sugar as a result of taking excess doses, in two cases requiring treatment with intravenous fluids, he said.

Some people have no symptoms at all, but they call the poison center hotline for guidance after realizing they injected too much, he said. That’s a good idea, as poison center staff can advise patients on whether they should seek medical attention, Jaworski said.

The dosing errors can occur for a variety of reasons. While some people have mistakenly taken the drugs every day, others have administered larger-than-recommended doses because they obtained the products from a compounding pharmacy, said Calello, the Rutgers physician.

Such facilities are licensed to prepare custom formulations of these and other drugs for patients who have special requirements. But in the case of the diabetes and weight-loss drugs, such pharmacists typically supply the product in multidose vials, requiring patients to draw out the precise amount each time with a syringe. Confusion sometimes ensues, she said.

“It requires a little more precision,” she said. “People get confused.”

Physicians say the drugs’ recent popularity has been driven primarily by people who want to lose weight, leading to drug shortages in many places. One Boston-area diabetes patient told the Associated Press that he sometimes has to call half a dozen pharmacies to fill his prescription. The drugs, which can cost more than $1,300 a month, have become so popular that some insurers have restricted coverage, the AP said.

Calello predicts the demand will continue to grow, especially now that evidence suggests the drugs may reduce the risk of heart disease.

The Rutgers physician said the phenomenon hit home for her at social gatherings in the past year. Like any doctor, she is used to being approached for informal medical advice on a range of topics, but now, she said, it’s almost all about Wegovy and Ozempic.

“It is currently my most frequent cocktail-party conversation,” she said.

And lately, Calello has noticed something different about the people who corner her: More and more of them are not drinking alcohol.

That squares with what she has read about yet another potential use for the drugs: They appear to reduce cravings for beer, wine, and liquor, so there is even talk of prescribing them to treat for alcohol-use disorder.