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Diabetes drugs for quick weight loss
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: April 10, 2023
Have you heard the news surrounding the diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy?
Could very well be they’re not quite the miracle weight loss drugs their advocates purported them to be.
Which means we might be witnessing yet another diet drug, amidst a clatter of fanatical speculation, on the verge of going bust.
Indeed, pop culture is notorious for glomming onto miracle weight loss pills.
Heck, you boomers might recall the days when amphetamines like Appetrol were touted as cutting edge weight loss aides but then fell out of favor once researchers discovered they caused malnutrition, psychosis and depression upon withdrawal.
And you Gen Xers and Millennials might remember the amazing diet drug Fen-Phen which was subsequently discredited because of its link to heart valve damage.
And I might as well add to that list several of the lesser know of diet pill fails.
There was the fiasco with Clenbuterol, a steroid used to treat respiratory illnesses in horses, the Brazilian diet pill Herbaslim, which caused severe mood swings as well as a tactile hypersensitivities, and lest we not forget Qnexa, which the FDA has mandated for further testing due to concerns about heart valve damage.
Which brings us back to this Ozempic craze.
Here’s a drug that was designed to treat diabetes but which the drug’s parent company, Novo Nordisk, suggested might also assist its users in weight loss, this due to the active ingredient, semaglutide.
When weight loss did occur, semaglutide trials were subsequently run to test its efficacy as a weight loss drug.
The FDA later approved semaglutide for general weight loss use in 2021 under the brand name Wegovy.
Now once Wegovy was FDA approved a weird thing happened.
Wegovy is priced at over $1,300 for a 28-day supply, while Ozempic goes for $892.
Yet most insurance plans don't cover Wegovy but will pay for Ozempic, this because the latter is a diabetes treatment while the former is an off-label intended for weight loss.
Then BOOM: Ozempic skyrocketed in demand and soon became unavailable because a plethora of non-diabetic, dieters began getting themselves put on the drug for weight loss.
But alas, we’re now beginning to find that there are some critical pitfalls in using drugs experts consider to be lifelong medications for short term dieting scenarios.
And thus, amidst the cacophony of miracle weight loss stories surrounding these medications, there have been more and more disappointing stories of weight regain once the use of the drug was curtailed.
And it only took a year for a peer reviewed study to confirm those anecdotal observations.
The study, Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension, is in the April 2022 edition of Diabetes, Obesity And Metabolism.
Its researchers concluded, “one year after withdrawal of once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide 2.4 mg and lifestyle intervention, participants regained two-thirds of their prior weight loss, with similar changes in cardiometabolic variables. Findings confirm the chronicity of obesity and suggest ongoing treatment is required to maintain improvements in weight and health.”
So what’s going on?
Well, because of Wegovy and Ozempic’s affect on certain hormones, appetite suppression and feelings of fullness are activated for longer periods than normal. But stop the drug treatment and those hormones reset and normal appetite returns.
So what does this mean for the non-diabetic dieters who take these drugs for weight loss, must they take Wegovy and/or Ozempic forever?
Right now the answer appears to be yes, they’ll likely need to continue self-injecting these drugs to maintain their weight loss results.
But the bigger issue surrounding this Ozempic/Wegovy commotion right now has to do with the fact that it’s created two categories of users: The “recreational” and/or crash diet individuals in search of the magic weight loss bullet, and the Type 2 diabetes and/or obesity individuals with metabolic health conditions who need these drugs for the long term.
As a consequence there’s currently a temporary shortage of both drugs because celebrities and notable figures––like Elon Musk––have espoused the effectiveness of these drugs as weight loss treatments.
Maybe, just maybe sanity will once again prevail as researchers continue to offer enough evidence to push yet another quick fix diet gimmick into the dustbin of classic fails.