Warning of potentially deadly new side effect of Ozempic rival: 24-year-old school teacher suffers organ damage from weight-loss drug

Doctors are warning of a little-known deadly side effect of weight-loss injections after treating a patient with liver failure.

The 24-year-old teacher took a high dose of Mounjaro to lose weight, which works in a similar way to Ozempic.

Seven months after starting the drug, she began experiencing severe vomiting, nausea, and stomach pain, which sent her to the emergency room.

Tests showed the unnamed patient had “alarming” liver damage that could have killed her within days if the damage had not been repaired.

The patient, who was obese and had a BMI of 34, had “alarming” levels of liver enzymes, proteins that help break down bile and toxins.

This was a sign that her organ was failing and she was admitted to intensive care, where she was given a plasma transfusion to flush the toxins from her blood.

She was referred to a transplant team because if left untreated she would have gone into complete liver failure and a transplant would have been her only chance of survival.

Writing in the European Journal of Case ReportsAccording to Kuwaiti doctors who treated her, Mounjaro was ‘probably the most susceptible pathogen.’

Last year, a 37-year-old patient in Seattle was treated for a similar liver injury after taking the same medication. Doctors called her condition “drug-induced liver injury.”

Experts aren’t sure what causes this rare side effect, but they think high doses of the drugs reduce the amount of fat in the liver.

If this happens too quickly, healthy cells can be killed, leading to injury.

Paradoxically, some studies have even shown that tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro, can actually treat liver failure.

The patient in the case report, who had given birth to her first child the year before, took a 12-milligram dose of Mounjaro after being titrated up from a low dose.

Dosages start at 2.5 milligrams and go up to a maximum of 15 milligrams.

When the patient first presented to the emergency room in early July, her liver function tests were normal and she was responding well to fluids and intravenous medications.

She was discharged from the hospital, but returned to the hospital two days later with the same symptoms and low blood sugar.

Scans upon the woman’s admission showed that her pancreas and other organs were normal, but her liver appeared to be slightly enlarged.

She tested negative for hepatitis, herpes and other viruses previously linked to liver inflammation.

Doctors diagnosed her with acute liver injury, or a rapid deterioration of liver function due to damage or stress to the organ.

She was admitted to the intensive care unit and remained there for ten days until her liver function improved and she was stable enough to go home.

The patient, who was being treated in Kuwait, was advised not to take Mounjaro. By the time she was released, her BMI had dropped from 34 to 25.

The graph above shows deaths associated with semaglutide and tirzepatide by year. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, while tirzepatide is used in medications such as Zepbound. Yellow is used for 2024 to indicate that the data is incomplete

Clinical studies have not shown that tirzepatide causes liver damage. This is also not stated on the warning label.

But doctors say the rapid weight loss it causes can “overload” the liver and cause inflammation, which can lead to the injury.

When you lose weight, fat is sent from other parts of the body to the liver, where it is broken down into a substance that can be used by cells.

But if too much is sent at once or if a lot is sent continuously over a longer period of time, the organ can become ‘overloaded’, which can cause complications.

Acute liver damage has previously been identified after bariatric surgery, such as gastric bypass, which reduces the size of the stomach. Doctors have also linked this to rapid weight loss.

In the article, doctors from Adan Hospital in Kuwait wrote: ‘The (temporal) relationship between tirzepatide and acute liver injury makes it likely the susceptible cause.’

They added: ‘This case underscores the need for further investigation and frequent monitoring of liver enzymes when using tirzepatide for weight loss.’