People who took popular weight loss drugs say their stomachs are paralyzed
♪♪ >>> So some doctors are calling for more research into the side effects of very popular diabetes and weight loss drugs like ozempic and wegovy. They say new side effects may be emerging as the demands skyrocket. Meg Terrel is here. >> Reporter: We know these drugs work by mimicking a hormone in the gut to stimulate the body to produce insulin and slow hunger and slows the stomach from emptying. It's the last thing that doctors are focussed on now. They talked with patients who caused stomach paralysis or gastroperisis. That can cause severe vomiting and gnaw sa. Gi side effects are known side effects of these medicines. 44% of patients on wegovy which is a higher doze of ozempic for weight loss. But the stomach emptying effect is something that they mention in the drug's label but only to warn patients it can affect if they're taking other drugs the metabolism of those drugs as well. Not that it can cause this effect. The fda said it received some reports of stomach paralysis among patients taking the medicines they don't know if the medicines caused this.
They said in some cases that hadn't stopped even after patients stopped taking the medicine. And the American society of anesthesiologists warned patients should stop taking these medicines if they're having elected surgery. This is something that is known but doctors are saying we don't understand this effect well enough and patients should be aware of it. If they're having severe vomiting that's not a good thing. >> What are the companies saying? They were saying nshl initially, this could be some of the side effects. But not this severe. >> They said these drugs and the class of medicines has been on market. They say there's something like 9.5 million patient years of experience with these medicines. So they note that this can happen, they don't say it's a severe side effect of the drug and haven't been proven to be.
