People who take weight loss drugs to prepare for the beach risk 'dangerous consequences', warns senior NHS doctor

People risk “dangerous consequences” by using “powerful” weight loss drugs to “prepare their bodies for the beach”, a senior NHS doctor has warned.

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said he was concerned about drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy is used by people who are “otherwise healthy” and “just want to lose a few pounds.”

Buying such drugs online can cause “side effects”, he said.

“I worry about reports that people are overusing them – they are not intended to be a quick fix for people trying to get beach ready.”

Doctors are seeing “an increasing number” of patients with “complications” from medications they purchased online, said Dr. Vicky Price, president-elect of the Society for Acute Medicine.

She added: “We are seeing serious, life-threatening complications, including inflammation of the pancreas and alterations in blood salt levels in these patients who were not aware of the risk they were taking.”

Concerns have been raised with authorities and there is an “urgent need for regulation and control of access to weight loss medicines online”, Dr Price continued.

An emergency room doctor said a “young girl” arrived at his department with life-threatening symptoms after taking Wegovy purchased online.

The doctor, speaking anonymously to the Chemist and Druggist news site, said the girl arrived at the emergency room “not feeling well, like she was going to pass out and couldn’t get up… she really had having trouble eating.”

The girl was “not at all” overweight, the doctor added, but she had received about a month’s worth of medication.

She was suffering from “starvation ketoacidosis” and needed “urgent treatment” and “very strong advice about potential side effects, including death,” the doctor said.

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Starvation ketoacidosis occurs when ketone bodies build up in the blood due to a lack of food. Ketones are a type of chemical produced by your liver when it breaks down fats.

Weight loss drugs can help, Professor Powis said. “We know that these new drugs will be a powerful part of our arsenal to fight obesity, but they must not be overused,” he commented.

“Buying medicines online without a doctor’s supervision can lead to complications and dangerous consequences”