She said: “Susan had always carried a wee bit of extra weight but there were never any health concerns. She wasn’t on any other medication. She was healthy.”
“Susan was such a bubbly person. She was really generous, she was really kind and she was the life of the party – a huge personality. They said she had the biggest laugh in the hospital.”
Ms Campbell was told by doctors that her aunt’s kidneys were not functioning properly. Days later she went into a coma, and her organs began to fail.
“It was so quick,” she said. “I still find myself thinking, ‘has that actually happened?’”
Tirzepatide is one of a group of weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which work by making the patient feel fuller for longer.
It was approved for use as a weight-loss aid in the UK in 2023 by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
That included use on the NHS, although the drug is currently only prescribed by the NHS for a small number of patients due to factors like cost and availability.
The MHRA runs the yellow card scheme, where any member of the public or health profession can log reports of suspected side effects of drugs.
Public data is only available up to May this year, but between January and May 2024 there were 208 reports about tirzepatide on the yellow card scheme, including 31 serious reactions and one suspected death of a man in his sixties.
Ms McGowan’s death is too recent to appear within this data.
