Semaglutide associated with vision loss in large observational study
The increased risk may not kick in until after more than a year on the drug, the study suggests.
A retrospective cohort study has linked semaglutide to double the risk of serious optic neuropathy in type 2 diabetes patients.
Published in JAMA Ophthalmology, the study found no increased risk of non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (NAION) in the first year after initiating the GLP-1 receptor agonist.
But patients taking semaglutide were more than twice as likely to have NAION after two, three or four years, compared with patients started on a non-GLP-1 RA medicine.
The study tracked nearly 175,000 patients taking semaglutide and an equal number of controls taking other antidiabetic drugs between 2019 and 2023.
