Additionally, nutrition therapy and counseling underused in youth using GLP-1 receptor agonists
THURSDAY, Sept. 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Nutritional deficiencies are a common and underrecognized risk among pediatric patients receiving glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) treatment, according to a study published online Sept. 17 in Childhood Obesity.
Kirk W. Kerr, Ph.D., from Abbott Nutrition in Columbus, Ohio, and colleagues examined nutritional deficiency incidence and use of nutrition therapy/counseling among pediatric GLP-1 RA users. The analysis included 2,031 GLP-1 RA users aged 10 to 17 years identified from the Inovalon administrative claims data (2017 to 2022); 62.6 percent had obesity.
The researchers found that liraglutide (78.6 percent), dulaglutide (10.4 percent), and semaglutide (9.1 percent) were the most prescribed GLP-1 RA drugs. Within one year of use, 16.88 percent of patients were diagnosed with at least one nutritional deficiency or deficiency-related complication, including most frequently vitamin D deficiency (12.4 percent), followed by nutritional anemia (1.55 percent) and iron-deficiency anemia (1.44 percent). Within 180 days, only 23.3 percent had a nutrition therapy/counseling visit (mean time to first visit, 149 days). There were higher rates of nutritional deficiencies and deficiency-related complications observed among patients with nutrition therapy/counseling consultations versus those without (23.2 versus 14.8 percent).
“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,” senior author Justin Ryder, Ph.D., from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a statement. “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.”
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott, which funded the study.
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