Side effects and risks of taking weight loss medications

Pharmacist talks supply and demand and the possibility of the effects in the long run

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — You may or may not have seen a commercial or two about weight loss medications and it seems they’ve become more prominent especially in society.
It is no longer as taboo to talk about taking medication to help you lose weight.

“They make you kind of feel full, they reduce the amount of insulin you produce. So that way, they actually can lower the blood sugar. And that’s how they first came on the market is as blood sugar or diabetic type medications. And also they help with the liver in producing sugar, so reduces that. That way they make us feel fuller, and we reduce our intake, reduce our sugar in the body,” says Dr. Clarence Sullivan the owner and a pharmacist at The Pharmacy Shop.

While taking certain medications can help with obesity, or just plain weight loss, there are risks.

“The worst ones are GI blockages, shut downs. So instead of the motility of the GI tract, it slows down or stops, you get an intestinal blockage, a bowel blockage, things like that,” adds Dr. Sullivan.

And those risks aren’t the only ones, Dr. Sullivan says the others might not be visible until years down the road.

“Don’t really know it’s probably a year, 2, 3, 4 or 5 years out really knowing what happens to the majority of people. Because most people are still in that taking them phase and not in the phasing them out time,” he says.

He says the inconsistency of supply will also have effects in the long run.

“We really don’t know what’s gonna happen 5, 10, 15 years from now for the mass majority of people who have taken them,” also says Dr. Sullivan.

He says such medications have also proven that they can help some in the most extreme of cases, like, “people lose their vision with high blood sugar, excess obesity, weight, lose their limbs.”

But with the introduction of new medications there comes a hype, that’s made it hard for some to have access.

“Most of the time, we’re on back order, for weeks and weeks,” said Dr. Sullivan.

Sullivan adding that he hopes, in the future the U.S. has more control of its supply, “the pharmaceutical companies do a better job of planning and bring, and bring some of it back from overseas so that we have control of it right here in the United States.”