MW Amid 'Ozempic babies' questions, women account for more than 75% of young adults taking GLP-1 drugs, study finds
By Eleanor Laise
For patients anxious about fertility and pregnancy outcomes, a 'frustrating' lack of data
More than three out of four young adults prescribed GLP-1 drugs last year were women, new research shows, raising questions about how societal views of women's weight may influence use of these medications and underscoring the need to better understand how the drugs may affect fertility, pregnancy, and longer-term health outcomes, researchers say.
Women accounted for 76% of the 18- to 25-year-olds who were prescribed a GLP-1 drug in 2023, according to the study by researchers at University of Michigan Medical School and Yale School of Medicine and published in JAMA Wednesday. Six out of 10 adolescents prescribed GLP-1 medications last year were also female, the study found.
The total number of adolescents and young adults prescribed GLP-1 drugs, which are used to treat obesity as well as type 2 diabetes, jumped 594% between 2020 and 2023, the researchers found. In both the adolescent and the young-adult age group, the number of prescriptions for females grew significantly faster over that period than prescriptions for males.
Given that the prevalence of obesity in these age groups is roughly equal between males and females, the surging prescriptions for young women "probably reflects some societal bias" around females' weight, said Joyce Lee, co-author of the study and a University of Michigan Medical School professor and faculty investigator with the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center. Lee notes, however, that the study didn't examine whether the drugs were prescribed for weight loss or diabetes.
Data on the GLP-1 gender gap are emerging as social-media platforms are abuzz with talk of "Ozempic babies" - surprise pregnancies among GLP-1 users. Some women suspect that the drugs helped them get pregnant after years of trying, while others taking GLP-1 medications say they got pregnant despite taking birth-control pills.
While the trend is largely anecdotal, there are reasons to believe GLP-1 drugs may contribute to unplanned pregnancies, experts say. Obesity is linked with polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition associated with irregular periods. Weight loss may help restore normal ovulation in patients who have irregular cycles, and "no doubt that's contributing to what we may refer to as 'Ozempic babies,'" said Daniel Drucker, who helped discover GLP-1 and is senior investigator at Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto.
The drugs also slow stomach emptying and may affect the absorption of other medications that patients are taking orally - including, in some cases, birth control pills. Prescribing information for Eli Lilly & Co.'s $(LLY)$ weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro warns specifically that the medications may reduce the efficacy of oral contraceptives. Tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound, acts on both GLP and GIP gut hormones. The prescribing information for Novo Nordisk $(NVO)$ GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, meanwhile, includes a general warning that the medications may impact absorption of oral drugs.
As is common in drugmakers' clinical trials of experimental treatments, Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy trials and Lilly's tirzepatide trials excluded people who were pregnant. Wegovy and Zepbound prescribing information says that, based on animal studies, there may be risks to the fetus from exposure to the drugs during pregnancy but notes that there's not enough data on the drugs' use in humans to evaluate the risks of birth defects or miscarriage.
Women should generally stop taking GLP-1 drugs about two months before trying to get pregnant, or in the case of an unplanned pregnancy, as soon as they realize they're pregnant, doctors say. "We don't want women who are pregnant to be eating less and providing less energy and nutrition to a developing fetus," Drucker said.
Better data on pregnancy and GLP-1 drugs is on the horizon. Novo Nordisk has a pregnancy registry for Wegovy that is collecting data on maternal, fetal and infant outcomes for women exposed to the medication during pregnancy. Results will be publicly disclosed at the end of the study, Novo Nordisk said.
Lilly also plans to launch a pregnancy exposure registry for Zepbound, a spokesperson told MarketWatch.
"We need to learn a lot more" about how GLP-1 drugs may affect pregnancy, Drucker said. For people who are currently interested in the medications but also trying to get pregnant, the lack of extensive data is "understandably a bit frustrating," he said.
More broadly, the rising numbers of GLP-1 prescriptions among teenagers and young adults underscores the need to better understand the long-term effects of the medications, Lee said. Wegovy, which was first approved for adults in 2021, got FDA approval for treatment of obesity in patients 12 and older in late 2022.
In terms of long-term side effects, "we have yet to understand what will unfold" in the coming years," Lee said. "And if you start adolescents or young adults on the medication, are we going to put them on this indefinitely?"
-Eleanor Laise
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 22, 2024 11:04 ET (15:04 GMT)
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