The load-management drug Wegovy has grow to be extensively used and now is available in a handy tablet type — however lately, a examine flagged that the favored treatment might carry a danger of “eye stroke,” additionally referred to as ischemic optic neuropathy (ION), which might trigger fast imaginative and prescient loss.
However Wegovy customers should not panic, consultants informed Dwell Science. For now, the hyperlink between the drug and eye stroke is way from confirmed and the general price of the situation is extraordinarily low. Within the examine, revealed in March within the British Journal of Ophthalmology, ION occurred in lower than 1% of sufferers who reported experiencing negative effects when taking Wegovy.
She added that the U.Ok.’s Medicines and Healthcare merchandise Regulatory Company — the U.Ok. equal of the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) — is informing individuals who use semaglutide to “search pressing medical care in the event that they discover their eyesight getting worse rapidly.”
A possible sign
This is not the primary time a connection has been drawn between weight-loss medicine and eye well being considerations.
A overview of the medical literature revealed in 2025 flagged a possible danger tied to semaglutide. In scientific trials and observational research, the drug carried a barely increased danger of eye stroke in these utilizing it for diabetes administration in contrast with non-users. That danger wasn’t seen in sufferers utilizing the drug for weight reduction, although, and the general price of eye stroke in semaglutide customers was nonetheless low.
The brand new BJO examine takes this current work and delves deeper into Wegovy, one of the widespread medicine taken for continual weight administration. The findings confirmed a connection between Wegovy and ION, which is attributable to interrupted blood move to the optic nerve, inflicting harm that may result in fast imaginative and prescient loss.
“It is a very sudden and painless approach to lose your eyesight,” Barbara Pierscionek, deputy dean of analysis and innovation at Anglia Ruskin College within the U.Ok., informed Dwell Science. “You’ll be able to lose imaginative and prescient in considered one of your eyes or each of them. We’re not fairly certain precisely the way it occurs, however it’s primarily a blockage of the blood vessels within the eye,” mentioned Pierscionek, who was not concerned within the new examine.
The staff behind the examine needed to grasp if sure weight-loss medicine offered a better danger of ION than others. To search out out, they scoured studies of negative effects related to medicines that had been submitted to the U.S. FDA between December 2017 and December 2024.
They recognized 31,774 studies that concerned semaglutide-based medicine; of these, 3,070 had been attributed to Wegovy and 20,608 to Ozempic. Twenty-eight of the Wegovy studies famous ION, in comparison with 47 of the Ozempic studies.
Wegovy and Ozempic comprise the identical lively ingredient.
(Picture credit score: The Washington Put up / Contributor through Getty Pictures)
Ozempic has been in the marketplace longer than Wegovy, having been accepted in 2017 whereas Wegovy was accepted in 2021. Factoring on this time distinction, in the case of ION, the proportional danger was increased with Wegovy than Ozempic, the examine authors concluded.
A lesser-known semaglutide drug referred to as Rybelsus, which is accepted for diabetes administration, had no notable affiliation with ION within the examine.
Weaknesses of the examine
Importantly, the facet impact studies reviewed within the examine should not verified by consultants. As an alternative, they serve to supply early hints about customers’ experiences with a given drug after it has been accepted.
“The analysis didn’t examine sufferers immediately,” Brian Woods, an ophthalmology knowledgeable on the College of Galway who wasn’t concerned with the examine, informed Dwell Science in an e-mail. “As an alternative, it analyzed studies submitted to a big US drug security database the place suspected negative effects are logged. These methods are helpful for detecting attainable warning indicators however they can not decide how widespread a complication really is.”
If a regarding sample crops up within the database, regulators can then launch a proper investigation to see if the drug’s use or approval standing needs to be adjusted.
“The [BJO study’s] findings are primarily based on fewer than 100 studies of ION amongst tens of tens of millions of entries,” Woods mentioned. “Such studies should not independently verified and lack vital medical particulars.” So whereas this knowledge hints at a hyperlink between Wegovy and eye-stroke danger, extra analysis is required to know if the drug immediately causes the situation.
“The opposed impact noticed could also be causal or could also be as a result of semaglutide is obtainable to folks already at increased danger of ION, that’s,” Adler mentioned. As an illustration, hypertension and heart problems are danger components for ION, she famous. That mentioned, diabetes is additionally a danger issue for ION, and Ozempic is particularly accepted for folks with diabetes, whereas Wegovy is just not, although some folks with diabetes should be eligible for it. So presumably, Ozempic and Wegovy customers each could also be more likely to have a barely elevated danger of ION at baseline.
One distinction between Wegovy and Ozempic is that the previous comprises a better dose of semaglutide, but it surely’s unclear if that impacts ION danger.
“Whereas it’s biologically believable that dose alone might be inflicting this, it stays unproven,” Woods mentioned. “At this stage, there’s a vital probability that variations could also be confounded by baseline danger and metabolic dynamics reasonably than dose alone. So, for now, the jury continues to be out on this key issue.”
If the upper dose is related, that might be a priority as a result of Wegovy simply introduced a higher-dose different of its drug.
“An elevated dose would trigger an elevated danger, however solely to those that are weak,” Pierscionek mentioned. “Not all people is vulnerable to ION when taking these medicine,” she emphasised.
This text is for informational functions solely and isn’t meant to supply medical recommendation.
Lakhani, M., Al-Ani, A., Popovic, M., Bénard-Séguin, É., & Margolin, E. (2026). Ischemic optic neuropathy with SEMAGLUTIDE: World observational evaluation of sex- and formulation-specific danger. British Journal of Ophthalmology. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjo-2025-328483
