Lisa Marie Presley attempted to shed weight for the Elvis awards season and even took painkillers in the weeks preceding her death. Was she doing it out of pressure?
According to TMZ sources, the celebrity underwent plastic surgery two months before the Golden Globes and shed up to 50 pounds as part of a stringent diet and exercise regimen.
The 54-year-old was observed slurring her words and appearing wobbly on her feet on the red carpet at the awards presentation days before her untimely death from cardiac arrest at her California home.
In the tape, she turned to her 80-year-old buddy Jerry Schilling and stated, "I'm going to grab your arm" as Extra host Billy Bush questioned her questions before to the event. She appeared to speak slowly and slurred her words as she discussed the film's lead, Austin Butler, as well as the storms and flooding in Southern California.
In 2008, Lisa Marie was given a short-term prescription for opioids during her recovery from the birth of her twin girls, Harper Vivienne and Finley. She had previously struggled with opiate addiction.
By 2013, she was misusing cocaine heavily and had entered treatment at least five times. Opioid overdoses are known to cause cardiac arrest, and after a long time of sobriety following addiction, the body's tolerance to the narcotics will be significantly reduced. It is unclear what weight loss medications Lisa Marie was using, but Wegovy, the most recent weight loss medication to be approved by the FDA, has proven to be extremely popular.
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Wegovy's primary ingredient, semaglutide, can produce a variety of adverse effects, including heart difficulties. In clinical trials, users lost 15% of their body weight over the course of 68 weeks, but the medicine also increases heart rate and affects the way electrical impulses pass through the heart muscle. This indicates that Wegovy may exacerbate heart conditions such as heart disease or an irregular heartbeat.
Dr. Shauna Levy, an assistant professor of bariatric surgery at Tulane University in New Orleans and a member of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, did not rule out the possibility that Lisa Marie was taking Wegovy, but she told DailyMail.com that even if she was, it was unlikely to have played a role in her death.
Regarding the effect of Wegovy on heart rate, she stated, "It's only a one to two beat increase, so it shouldn't have a significant effect on cardiac outcomes." Wegovy was only recently licensed by the FDA as a weight-loss medication; therefore, nothing is known about how it may interact with other medications, especially opioids.
Doctors are unaware of any interactions between opioids and Wegovy, according to Dr. Levy, so as long as a patient follows a doctor's instructions and takes the exact dosages of each prescription, there should be no adverse effects from taking them together. Lisa Marie's cause of death has not yet been determined, and the autopsy has been postponed while toxicology tests are conducted to determine whether her overdose was accidental or intentional.
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