Young slim women end up in A&E after abusing Ozempic or Wegovy, medics say, as NHS chief doctor warns against using the jabs to get ‘beach body ready’
Medics claim a wave of young, healthy women are needing emergency care after suppressing appetite and buying Ozempic and Wegovy online under false pretenses.
It comes as the NHS’s top doctor issued a warning that the powerful drugs are only intended to help diabetics and obese people and should not be abused by holidaymakers trying to become ‘beach-body ready’.
Emergency physicians, speaking anonymously, warned that they are seeing cases of “young, beautiful girls” who were not overweight and had complications from abusing the drugs “almost every shift.”
Both Ozempic and Wegovy contain semaglutide, which can help people lose weight by mimicking an appetite suppressant hormone.
Although effective, the drugs are increasingly used by normal and even underweight people without clinical need, with potentially serious consequences.
Ozempic and Wegovy work by mimicking a hormone that tells the body to completely suppress appetite, and it is suggested that this caused the girl’s health problems.
The Boots website for Wegovy prescriptions says patients can get a clinical assessment of their case within ‘just 24 hours’
It is believed that young women obtain the drug through online pharmacies, which offer them between £150 and £200 a month after providing false information about their appearance and health.
Medics, speaking on condition of anonymity, recently highlighted a case where a “young girl” ended up in the emergency room after taking the drug under these circumstances.
They said the patient went to the emergency room and “felt unwell, like she was going to pass out and couldn’t get up… she was really having trouble eating,” according to the doctor who spoke to the pharmacy’s website. Chemist and Druggist.
She was reportedly not overweight ‘at all’ but had managed to get her hands on Wegovy, the semaglutide formulation specifically for weight loss, for a month’s supply for around £150.
The girl, whose age was not disclosed, was being treated for ‘starvation ketoacidosis’, a potentially life-threatening problem caused by prolonged fasting that causes harmful substances called ketones to build up in the body.
Doctors who reported the girl’s case claimed that this is just the latest in a growing pattern of similar incidents in which patients who should not have received the drug needed emergency medical care.
They added that in many cases the patient had managed to get the drugs from an online pharmacy or a private beauty clinic.
“Without a doubt, none of them would fully meet the criteria,” they claimed.
Another alarming case involved a patient who suffered acute pancreatitis after receiving the weight-loss shots, and “ended up going to intensive care.”
According to NHS guidelines, only patients with 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, should be prescribed Wegovy.
Although private prescribers are not bound by this, they should still follow general professional guidelines and take into account national guidelines to ensure that only patients who need the medicine can access it.
However, the doctor who reported the girl’s case said that this does not happen and that if this pattern continues, the patient’s death is almost inevitable.
Although patients should in theory provide photos and notify their GP of their prescription when they get it from an online prescriber, the doctor said these so-called safeguards are being circumvented.
The doctor reported that patients are editing photos and that time-poor GPs do not have time to raise the alarm if a patient, whom they may not have seen, receives a Wegovy prescription.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis (pictured), medical director of NHS England, warned that the drugs could be dangerous and are not a ‘quick fix’ for people who ‘just want to lose a few pounds’
“Boots asks for a photo of you, but I can obviously put any photo of someone overweight on it,” they told the website.
‘And then they also asked for your GP’ as a ‘safety mechanism’ – but ‘GPs are under enormous pressure at the moment (so) I can’t imagine them going through all this,’ they claimed.
Responding to the claims, a spokesperson for Boots said it was concerned about the matter and would like to “fully investigate” and has encouraged any medical professional or patient in the case to get in touch.
They also emphasized that “patient safety is our number one priority” and that the company has “put a number of safeguards in place” for its online weight loss services.
This includes ‘answering questions about their medical and psychological history and providing a photograph’, and Boots ‘informs each patient’s GP as an additional safety measure and can contact the patient’s GP if necessary’.
Dr. Vicky Price, a consultant in acute medicine and president-elect of the Society for Acute Medicine, added that he had also seen an influx of young girls in A&E suffering side effects from the drugs.
She added: ‘Almost every shift I’ve done lately has had a complication due to a young girl taking the new weight loss medication they bought from an online pharmacy. No one has been overweight.’
The fact that the British are unlawfully obtaining and using Ozempic and Wegovy was also recently highlighted by the medical director of NHS England, Professor Sir Stephen Powis.
He warned that the drugs can be dangerous and are not a “quick fix” for people who “just want to lose a few pounds.”
Speaking at the NHS ConfedExpo conference in Manchester yesterday, Sir Stephen said: ‘We know these new drugs will be a powerful part of our arsenal in the fight against obesity – but they must not be misused.
‘Buying medicines online without a doctor’s supervision can lead to complications and dangerous consequences. Medicines, including Ozempic and Wegovy, should only be used by people who have been prescribed them for obesity or diabetes. I’m concerned about reports of people abusing them. They are not intended as a quick fix for people trying to become beach-body ready.”
Ministers have pinned hopes on using slimming pills such as Wegovy to tackle Britain’s ballooning obesity crisis and get more Britons back to work.
However, critics say we risk medicalising obesity rather than tackling the poor diet and lack of exercise that cause the condition in the first place.
There are also concerns about possible side effects of the medicines and the fact that patients prescribed it will have to take the injections for the rest of their lives to maintain their weight.