GLP-1 Drugs Are Linked to 153 UK Deaths, Hair Loss and Symptoms Not on the Label

Roughly 1 in 15 adults in the UK has taken a GLP-1 drug, according to the think tank The Food Foundation. That's millions of people on semaglutide, tirzepatide, or liraglutide. Now the safety data is catching up to the hype.

The UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, through its Yellow Card Biobank, has logged 153 deaths reported in connection with GLP-1 drugs, according to foodnavigator. The breakdown: 98 suspected tied to tirzepatide (sold as Mounjaro), 37 to semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), and 18 to liraglutide (Victoza, Saxenda). Another 28 came after exenatide use and a handful more after dulaglutide and lixisenatide, drugs rarely prescribed for weight loss.

Correlation isn't causation. Foodnavigator's own reporting notes the link between these deaths and the drugs "was not conclusive," and the deaths could have unrelated causes. No UK regulatory action, recall, or new black-box warning has been announced based on this data. This is a passive reporting system, not a scientific study. Nobody has proven the drugs killed 153 people.

Passive adverse-event databases like the Yellow Card system (or the FDA's equivalent, FAERS) rely on doctors and patients voluntarily reporting problems. Nobody has to prove the drug caused the event. That makes the system good at catching a signal early but bad at confirming whether the signal is real. A reasonable skeptic would say this makes it easy to both overstate and understate a drug's true risk. Thousands of GI complaints, nervous system disorders, and psychiatric reports piled up in the same database, and University College London estimated 1.6 million people in England, Scotland and Wales used Wegovy or Mounjaro for weight loss in 2024 and early 2025 alone. Against that base, even 153 deaths is a small fraction. But small doesn't mean zero, and patients deserve to know the signal exists.

Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, told foodnavigator it "cares deeply about patient safety" and that medicines should be "prescribed by, and used under the supervision of, a healthcare professional." Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro, said patient safety is its "top priority" and that it "actively monitors" safety reports. Neither company disputed the raw numbers.

Beyond the death reports, the side-effect list keeps growing. A study published in The BMJ, led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and reported by ScienceAlert, found GLP-1 users had a 37% higher risk of hair thinning compared to patients on SGLT-2 inhibitors, and a 68% higher risk compared to those on DPP-4 inhibitors. The study tracked over 23,000 type 2 diabetes patients and controlled for age, sex, ethnicity and pre-existing conditions. The mechanism, researchers say, is likely tied to rapid weight loss and nutritional shifts that trigger telogen effluvium, a temporary hair-shedding condition.

Patients are also reporting side effects online that never made it onto a drug label. A study published in Nature Health in April 2026 used AI to analyze more than 410,000 Reddit posts spanning May 2019 to June 2025, according to Forbes contributor Jesse Pines. Among 67,008 self-identified semaglutide and tirzepatide users, 44% reported at least one side effect, averaging 2.7 symptoms each. The familiar stuff topped the list: nausea (37%), fatigue (17%), vomiting (16%), constipation (15%), diarrhea (13%).

But the less-discussed effects are drawing attention. Sulfur burps showed up in 6.9% of posts. Hair loss came in at 3.1%. Menstrual changes hit 3.8% of users, and Pines notes some of those cases involved unexpected pregnancies, dubbed "Ozempic babies," possibly linked to restored fertility or reduced birth control efficacy. Patients also reported "Ozempic face" and "Ozempic vulva," both tied to rapid structural volume loss from fast fat reduction.

MedPage Today's rundown adds more to the file: dry mouth and gum inflammation ("Ozempic teeth"), muscle mass loss that experts say can be partly offset with higher protein intake, and a reported "Ozempic personality," an emotional flattening some patients describe as dulled joy in food, music, or sex. On the more serious end, the European Medicines Agency warned last year that semaglutide carries a rare risk of NAION, a form of vision loss from reduced blood flow to the optic nerve, estimated to affect up to 1 in 10,000 users. The FDA in 2024 added a warning about pulmonary aspiration risk during surgery, though the American Society of Anesthesiologists has since walked back its blanket recommendation to stop the drugs before procedures.

Stanford Medicine clinicians, including endocrinologist Dan Azagury, frame these drugs as mimicking a hormone the body already makes, essentially amplifying a natural "I'm full" signal. That mechanism explains the benefits. It also explains why slowing digestion and cutting caloric intake can ripple out into muscle loss, nutrient deficiencies, and the cascade of side effects patients are now reporting in growing numbers.

The full risk picture is still being written in real time, largely by the patients living it, one Reddit post and one Yellow Card report at a time.