People taking obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy gain weight once they stop medication

Patients taking blockbuster obesity drugs Ozempic or Wegovy will pack the kilos back on after they stop taking the medications. 

“I feel that is what we see when people go on diets or different exercise regimens, much like after they go on a pharmacological treatment,” Karin Conde-Knape, Novo Nordisk’s senior vice chairman of worldwide drug discovery, said in an interview at CNBC’s Healthy Returns Summit on Wednesday. “So long as you are keeping your intake the identical, your output the identical, you are in a position to control your weight. But for those who exit of this, you’ll immediately start to return back.” 

Conde-Knape said rates of weight gain after stopping Wegovy vary depending on the person, adding that “some will come back earlier, some will come later.”

She said available data suggests most people will get better most of their weight inside five years of stopping Wegovy, and roughly 50% of their weight after two to a few years. Some individuals may very well gain more weight after stopping the drug than they initially lost, Conde-Knape added. Studies have similarly shown weight rebound in individuals who stop taking Ozempic. Novo Nordisk makes each prescribed drugs.

She said it’s tied to how the drugs work. They mimic a hormone produced within the gut called GLP-1, which signals to the brain when an individual is full. She called that a “direct effect on satiety,” and noted that the drugs also can control what style of food people crave.

But she said GLP-1 doesn’t rewire “your neural networks to actually define a recent body weight setpoint.” So any weight reduction will not be everlasting, in response to Conde-Knape. 

The Danish pharmaceutical company still must conduct more investigations and clinical trials to grasp what drives those rates of weight gain, “but what’s critically necessary is that definitely you must stay,” Conde-Knape said. 

Her remarks come after Ozempic and Wegovy catapulted to the U.S. national highlight in recent times for being “weight reduction miracles” in a nation obsessive about body image. In clinical trials, Wegovy was shown to decrease body weight by around 15%.

Hollywood celebrities, social media influencers and even billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk have reportedly used the favored pen-shaped injections to do away with unwanted weight. 

Wegovy has flown off shelves since gaining Food and Drug Administration approval for “chronic weight management” in June 2021. So has Ozempic, which was first authorized to treat diabetes and is now getting used off-label for weight reduction. That popularity sparked widespread shortages last yr and prompted Novo Nordisk to ramp up production of Wegovy. 

The shortage and other aspects like out-of-pocket costs without insurance or unpleasant unintended effects have forced some people to stop taking Ozempic or Wegovy. That is left many complaining of that rebound in weight that is difficult to manage. 

Conde-Knape said to date data indicate that weight reduction is maintained with long-term use of the drugs. But the corporate’s data only examines use for 2 to a few years maximum. 

“We’ll have to see how far more with the longer duration of treatment, how far more will people will give you the option to realize,” she said.