{"id":106013,"date":"2026-09-24T09:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/?p=106013"},"modified":"2026-09-24T09:16:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T13:16:00","slug":"glp-1-weight-loss-and-diabetes-drugs-linked-to-nutritional-deficiencies-in-nearly-1-in-6-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/?p=106013","title":{"rendered":"GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs linked to nutritional deficiencies in nearly 1 in 6 children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vitamin D deficiency was the most frequently identified problem, affecting 12.4% of children within one year of beginning GLP-1 therapy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nutrition Matters During Childhood Growth<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As appropriate pediatric use of GLP-1s becomes more widespread, we need to understand the risks during periods of rapid growth and pubertal development,&#8221; said senior author Justin Ryder, PhD, Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Surgery at Ann  Robert H. Lurie Children&#8217;s Hospital of Chicago, and Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. &#8220;Nutrients such as vitamin D, iron and calcium are of particular concern during adolescence, when deficiencies may have lasting implications for skeletal health and overall development.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Adolescence is a period when the body requires substantial nutritional support for bone growth, physical development, and other major biological changes. Because GLP-1 medications can affect appetite and food intake, researchers say attention to nutrition may be especially important for younger patients receiving these drugs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nutritional support needs to play a critical role once treatment with a GLP-1 medication is initiated,&#8221; he added. &#8220;In our study, however, we found that only 5% of patients received nutritional counseling within 30 days of GLP-1 treatment and less than 25% received nutritional counseling within 6 months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tracking GLP-1 Use in More Than 2,000 Children<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To investigate the issue, Dr. Ryder and his colleagues analyzed national administrative claims data collected from 2017 through 2022. The broader database covered more than 100 million patients.<\/p>\n<p>From those records, the researchers identified 2,031 GLP-1 users ages 10 to 17 who met the study&#8217;s continuous enrollment requirements and had not previously been diagnosed with a nutritional deficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Among these children, liraglutide (Victoza and Saxenda) was by far the most commonly prescribed GLP-1 medication, accounting for 78.6% of prescriptions. Dulaglutide (Trulicity) accounted for 10.4%, while semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) accounted for 9.1%.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Researchers Call for Earlier Nutritional Support<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The findings suggest that nutritional care may need to begin alongside GLP-1 treatment rather than only after a deficiency has already been detected.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We hope that our study findings bring much needed recognition to the importance of proactive nutritional management when GLP-1s are prescribed to children, as opposed to waiting until a nutritional deficiency is diagnosed,&#8221; said Dr. Ryder. &#8220;Knowing the risks, we are in a much better position to prevent harm to children treated with GLP-1s during a pivotal period in their lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vitamin D deficiency was the most frequently identified problem, affecting 12.4% of children within one year of beginning GLP-1 therapy. Nutrition Matters During Childhood Growth &#8220;As appropriate pediatric use of GLP-1s becomes more widespread, we need to understand the risks during periods of rapid growth and pubertal development,&#8221; said senior author Justin Ryder, PhD, Vice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106013"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}