Take Ozempic, Wegovy? Stop before surgery, say anesthesiologists

By Dennis Thompson Health Day Reporter

MONDAY, July 3, 2023 (HealthDay News) — The trendy weight-loss drug Ozempic could be dangerous for a patient undergoing anesthesia for surgery, according to a new warning from the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and other drugs in their class known as GLP-1 receptor agonists slow digestion, which decreases hunger and reduces the amount of food.

This food left in the stomach increases the risk of vomiting under anesthesia, says the president of the ASA Dr. Michael Champeau.

“We’ve had reports of people vomiting immediately before surgery when there shouldn’t be food in their stomachs,” Champeau said. “As soon as we started hearing anecdotal reports and case reports, the mind immediately goes to how the drug works and what it does.”

The ASA recommends that people taking a GLP-1 agonist like Ozempic stop taking it before surgery.

If you take such a drug once a day, you shouldn’t take your daily dose the morning of surgery, Champeau said.

If you take the medicine once a week, you should delay your dose until after surgery.

“If you take it every Sunday and have surgery on a Wednesday, you can’t take it on the Sunday before the surgery,” Champeau said. “You must stop it at least a week in advance, if you take the dose once a week.”

There’s a reason patients are told not to eat the night before surgery, and it’s the same reason they have to wait for Ozempic.

“When anesthesia was first discovered in the 1840s, no one knew about it and it happened often. You would put someone to sleep with ether and they would vomit and suck it into their lungs and they would have a terrible, terrible pneumonia or he would die,” Champeau said. “And so it became clear to us very early on that this is a major complication of anesthesia and we need to find ways to reduce the likelihood that it happens as best we can.”

This is why anesthesiologists are so picky about how long patients must fast before surgery.

“We annoy people all the time. We annoy the patients and we annoy the surgeons, when a patient doesn’t follow the advice given to him and he gets a sandwich or a toast or an egg or whatever on the morning of his operation and then shows up said Champeau. “Basically, we won’t do the operation at that time and we’ll keep people waiting for the prescribed time.”

GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic were originally developed to treat people with diabetes. They mimic a hormone called GLP-1 that prompts the pancreas to produce more insulin after meals, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

But they also keep food in the stomach longer so patients feel full sooner when they eat, and they suppress the appetite – the reasons why Ozempic has become renowned for aiding weight loss.

Other GLP-1 agonists include dulaglutide (Trulicity), exenatide (Byetta), liraglutide (Victoza), and lixisenatide (Adlyxin), according to Johns Hopkins.

Patients can resume their GLP-1 agonist the day after surgery, Champeau said.

Those taking medication to control diabetes might need to briefly switch to another medication, he added.

“They’re going to have to see the doctor who’s managing their diabetes, because they’re going to have to switch to another diabetes medication to keep their diabetes under control on the days that they’re not getting their Ozempic,” Champeau said. .

SOURCES: Michael Champeau, MD, president, American Society of Anesthesiologists; American Society of Anesthesiologists, press release, June 29, 2023

Copyright © 2023 health day. All rights reserved.