Invited Talk ESA-SRB-ANZOS 2025 in conjunction with ENSA

Incretin-based anti-obesity therapy: will it make you blind? Finding facts and busting myths. (129892)

Kathryn Williams 1 2
  1. Nepean Hospital, Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, Kingswood, NSW, Australia
  2. Nepean Clinical School, The Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Each week we are reminded in the media about the benefits and, increasingly, the potential dangers of the new incretin-based obesity modifying medications. We regularly see articles with titles such as: ‘What is ‘Ozempic personality’, and is it real?’, ‘Ozempic blindness. What Ophthalmologists want you to know’ and ‘Researchers link popular weight loss drugs to serious digestive problems for ‘hundreds of thousands’ worldwide’. This session will include a deep dive into some of the proposed dangers of incretin therapy use, with a focus on pancreatitis and other rare gastrointestinal complications, eye damage and changes to our personality.