GLP-1 Drugs & Eye Health: Cause For Concern?

First introduced as a diabetes medication, GLP-1 drugs quickly took hold for off-label use as weight loss aids, even when the science was still very young.

Here’s one of our first articles on that, back in the day: Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Big Research Gap

As for that popularity? Check out: 1 in 5 US Women Aged 50–64 Has Used GLP-1 RAs: What We’ve Learned

Spoiler, one of the things we’ve learned is: Most People Who Start GLP-1 RAs Quit Them Within A Year (Here’s Why)

One of the main things in their favor is, of course, that (for most people, anyway), they work (except when they don’t: Why Intermittent Fasting (& GLP-1 Drugs!) Might Not Work For You).

In other words, a rocky road with pros and cons. So what’s this about GLP-1 drugs and eye health?

We’ve been keeping our eye on it…

…and the numbers keep going down, at least from what we’ve seen.

See for example this study in 2024, that showed that those taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss had an 8x higher risk of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), which constitutes approximately 75% of ischemic optic neuropathy (ION) cases in adults:

Risk of Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy in Patients Prescribed Semaglutide ← and/but you’ll see the risk amongst those taking it for diabetes, rather than weight loss, was a 4x higher risk (rather than 8x higher, as in the weight loss group).

Some studies in 2025 suggested GLP-1 drugs increase the risk by lower amounts, such as for example:

• Incretin Receptor Agonists and Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy and Other Ocular Complications*
• Semaglutide or Tirzepatide and Optic Nerve and Visual Pathway Disorders in Type 2 Diabetes

If you’re wondering if “incretin receptor agonists” means the same thing as GLP-1 receptor agonists, the answer has been carefully hidden in the first line of the paper:

❝Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) and the dual glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and GLP-1 RA tirzepatide—collectively termed incretin receptor agonists (IRAs)❞

And to put it in numbers, it was a 2x increase in risk.

Most recently (paper published today, at time of writing, let it not be said we don’t bring you hot-off-the-press health science news), researchers (Dr. Kamika Reynolds et al.) investigated the effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists (compared to other antidiabetic treatments) on the risk of NAION.

In few words: over 18 months, ischemic optic neuropathy occurred in about 8.5 per 10,000 GLP-1 users compared with 5.5 per 10,000 sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT2) users, and 7.8 per 10,000 GLP-1 users compared with 4.2 per 10,000 dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP4) users.

More clearly put, because that was an unusual way for it to be represented in the paper’s abstract, this means that GLP-1 users had:

• 54% increase in risk compared to the SGLT2 group
• 88% increase in risk compared to the DPP4 group

You can read this paper for yourself, here: Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists and Risk for Ischemic Optic Neuropathy

So, why is this probably not cause for concern?

Well, “concern” is a bit subjective and relative, and this is with the caveat that this study was amongst diabetics, so those taking it for weight loss might have slightly higher numbers here, but for example that 2x increase in risk in the 2025 study was a jump from 0.02% to 0.04%.

The more alarming figures in the latest study represent approximately a jump from 0.05% to 0.09%, and a jump from 0.04% to 0.08%.

In other words, without it, the chance of getting it is very small, and with it, the chance of getting it is almost as very small.

Want to learn more?

You might also like this book that we reviewed a little while back:

Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs – by Johann Hari

Take care!