Top doctor warns against using anti-obesity drugs to get ‘beach body ready’

People should not use anti-obesity drugs to lose unwanted weight and get “beach body ready” for the summer, the NHS’s top doctor has said.

Prof Steve Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, spoke out as evidence emerged that growing numbers of people who do not qualify medically to receive the drugs are obtaining them through online pharmacies.

Those using weight-loss medications, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, for “quick-fix” aesthetic reasons run the risk of “complications and dangerous consequences”, NHS England’s medical director said. They should only be prescribed for and taken by people with severe obesity or type 2 diabetes.

Recent reports have said people – especially young women – who used them without any medical reason were ending up seriously ill in hospital, including in intensive care.

The website Chemist and Druggist reported that a patient described as a “young girl” by an A&E doctor was treated as an emergency after presenting with life-threatening symptoms after taking Wegovy she got from the Boots Online Doctor service.

The patient arrived at A&E “feeling unwell, like she was going to pass out and couldn’t stand up … she was really struggling to eat”, said the doctor, who was not named.

The patient, who the doctor said was “not at all” overweight, had obtained Wegovy after she had “gone online, filled in the form and then got a month’s worth … she’d spent £150 or something”.

Highlighting the risks of such behaviour, Powis said: “We know these new drugs will be a powerful part of our arsenal dealing with obesity – but they should not be abused. Buying medication online without a doctor’s supervision can lead to complications and dangerous consequences.

“Drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy should only be used by people prescribed them for obesity or diabetes. I’m worried about reports that people are misusing them. They are not intended as a quick fix for people trying to get ‘beach body ready’.”

The A&E medic was “absolutely staggered” to hear the female patient had accessed the drugs through Boots Online Doctor. She presented with “starvation ketoacidosis, so she just needed some urgent treatment”. She also received “really strong counselling on the potential side-effects, that include death”.

The doctor said that, in the past couple of months “every time [I had] done a shift, [I] pretty much had some patient who, to a lesser or greater degree, was having a complication from getting these weight-loss drugs”, often from online pharmacies or private beauty clinics.

“Without fail, none of them would fit the criteria at all [to obtain the drugs legitimately].” Another such patient ended up in intensive care as a result of taking weight-loss drugs.

The Society for Acute Medicine, which represents many hospital doctors, said “urgent regulation” was needed to ensure proper access to weight-loss drugs.

Dr Vicky Price, a consultant in acute medicine and the society’s president-elect, said: “I and many other colleagues in acute medicine across the UK are very concerned about the increasing numbers of patients we are seeing with complications from new weight-loss drugs they have bought online.

“Sadly, we are seeing serious, life-threatening complications, including inflammation of the pancreas gland and alterations in blood-salt levels, in these patients who were not aware of the risks they were taking.”

The society has raised its concerns with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which monitors adverse reactions to drugs.

A spokesperson for Boots told Chemist and Druggist it was “concerned to hear about this case [of the female in A&E] and would like to investigate it fully”, and asked the patient or doctor to get in touch. “Patient safety is our number one priority,” they said.

Boots had “safeguards in place to ensure the Boots Online Doctor prescribes weight-loss medication where clinically appropriate and in line with the product licence”, they added.

These included requiring a photograph of the patient and the details of their GP, who was then informed.