A man almost died after overdosing on weight loss drugs in an apparent suicide attempt, with doctors warning how these medications could trigger mental health conditions.
The unnamed 67-year-old man from Israel had been prescribed semaglutide to treat his type 2 diabetes and also to help him lose weight.
However, after self-injecting 1-mg of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, on a weekly basis for one year he reported feeling ‘very unhappy’ and ‘moody.’
As his mental state deteriorated, he said he decided to inject his monthly semaglutide prescription all at one time, meaning he had four times the recommended dose all at once.
The maximum recommended dose of semaglutide is 2mg weekly for Ozempic, and 2.4mg weekly for Wegovy.
Takking more than this can lead to a range of serious side effects, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and extremely low blood sugar levels – a condition known as hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemiacan trigger dizziness, confusion, seizures and death.
Fourteen days after overdosing on semaglutide, the man was admitted to the Barzilai Medical Center hospital with multiple organ failure.
His other complaints included hypoglycemia, weakness, a loss of appetite, pain in his upper abdomen, and severe diarrhea along with black, tarry stools.
A man almost died after overdosing on weight loss drugs in apparent suicide, with doctors warning how these medications could trigger mental health conditions (stock image)
Further tests revealed he also had cholestatic liver dysfunction, a type of liver disease characterized by impaired bile production or flow.
Bile helps the body with a number of processes including fat digestion and absorption, the elimination of waste products and the absorption of certain fat-soluble vitamins (like A and D).
The male patient also had two duodenal ulcers (sores) in the lining of his small intestine.
The day before he was admitted to the hospital, the man started passing out as his condition worsened.
Luckily, the medical team were able to treat him and they said his ‘clinical status improved gradually.’
It is unclear how many days he spent in hospital before being discharged or if he required follow-up care.
It is also not clear if he returned to taking the weight loss medication, following the correct dose.
In light of the case, the doctors treating the man are calling for patients receiving GLP-1 medications, such as semaglutide, to be screened for common mental disorders.
Last year, a study revealed that taking weight loss drugs like Ozempic alongside antidepressants may raise the risk of suicide.
Researchers in New York, Switzerland and Italy combed through a World Health Organization database for reports of suicidal thoughts among people taking the drugs in more than 140 countries.
They found 107 cases of suicidal or self-harm thoughts or actions among those who took semaglutide and 162 from those on liraglutide, the active ingredient in the weight-loss drug Victoza, suggesting a harmful interaction between the weight loss drugs and antidepressants.
However, some experts slammed the study for its ‘weak evidence’ and ‘major limitations’ based on ‘spontaneous reports’ of interactions between GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and antidepressants.
They also cautioned that the proportion of reports linked to both drugs was too small to determine an association.
Combined annual sales for Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy
Similarly, another 2024 study out of Saudi Arabia looked at psychiatric adverse events associated with semaglutide, liraglutide and tirzepatide.
They looked at all individual case safety reports for semaglutide, liraglutide, and tirzepatide reported to the European Medicine Agency’s EudraVigilance database from 2021 to 2023.
During the study period, there were 31,444 adverse event reports with 44 percent involving semaglutide, 53 percent linked to liraglutide, and two percent tied to tirzepatide.
Of these, 372 reports were linked to psychiatric side effects.
Depression was the most commonly reported adverse event (50 percent), followed by anxiety (39 percent) and suicidal ideation (20 percent).
A deterioration in mental health for people taking the weight loss drugs was attributed to nine deaths (eight with liraglutide and one with semaglutide) and 11 life-threatening outcomes (four associated with liraglutide and seven with semaglutide).
The researchers in that study noted that the fatal outcomes occurred primarily among men (eight out of nine) ‘resulting from completed suicidal attempts and depression.’
Although psychiatric adverse events comprised only 1.2 percent of the total reports for semaglutide, liraglutide, and tirzepatide, the researchers concluded that ‘the severity and fatal outcomes of some of these reports warrant further investigation.’
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