Researchers are turning to AI to uncover some of the surprising side effects people say they’ve had while taking GLP-1 medications.
It’s widely understood that weight loss injections such as Ozempic and Mounjaro can cause side effects, with commonly reported issues including nausea, diarrhea, bloating, and vomiting.
However, there also appear to be less frequently discussed symptoms that may not have been obvious during clinical trials, meaning many users aren’t specifically warned about them by manufacturers.
That’s where Reddit comes into the picture. With millions of daily users, the platform hosts huge numbers of firsthand accounts about all kinds of topics, including personal experiences with GLP-1 drugs.
But manually reviewing every post and comment about Ozempic-type medications would be unrealistic—so researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help process the volume of discussion.
In a newly published study, a team from the University of Pennsylvania used AI to review more than 400,000 Reddit posts from close to 70,000 users, covering a period of over five years.
The approach highlighted the side effects people most often talk about online, offering clues about potential areas scientists may want to investigate further.
Among the topics raised by Reddit users were menstrual irregularities and temperature-related complaints such as chills and hot flashes, according to ScienceDaily.
Explaining what the team found, Sharath Chandra Guntuku, Research Associate Professor in Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Penn Engineering and the study’s senior author, told the news outlet: “Some of the side effects we found, like nausea, are well known, and that shows that the method is picking up a real signal.
“The underreported symptoms are leads that came from patients themselves, unprompted, and clinicians could potentially pay attention to them.”
Lyle Ungar, a CIS professor and co-author, also noted that social media can reveal worries patients have about GLP-1 drugs that might not get raised during routine appointments.
“Clinical trials generally identify the most dangerous side effects of drugs,” said Ungar. “But they can fail to find what symptoms patients are most concerned about; even though social media is not necessarily representative, a large collection of posts may reflect additional concerns.”
One area the researchers say may merit closer study involves reports from female GLP-1 users about changes to their menstrual cycle.
Neil Sehgal, the study’s first author, explained: “We can’t say that GLP-1s are actually causing these symptoms. But nearly 4 percent of the Reddit users in our sample reported menstrual irregularities, which would be even higher in a female-only sample. We think that’s a signal worth investigating.”