Here’s a tragic jab of the reality.
More evidence is coming out that pricey semaglutides like Ozempic and Wegovy — diabetes medications lauded for secondary weight reduction capabilities through appetite suppression — aren’t necessarily helping as many individuals shed kilos as previously thought.
“There was appetite suppression the primary 1½ months nevertheless it’s form of just fallen off after that,” Nashville, Tennessee, resident Melissa Traeger, 40, told the Wall Street Journal regarding her lack of success on the medication type, also often called GLP-1s.
At first, the 300-pound Traeger quickly dropped 10 kilos, but the subsequent five got here more stagnantly — after which she said no more weight was lost.
One other man, Anthony Esposito, 68, of Austin, Texas, saw no success on either Ozempic or Wegovy, just feelings of sickness while he took them.
“It didn’t budge the needle,” he said.
Traeger and Esposito are amongst many frustrated users, based on the Journal, which also cited a trial that showed only about 14% of patients cut greater than 5% of body weight, while only one-third lost 10% of it.
One other report published on Epic Research saw that 17.7% of semaglutide users regained all of their weight — if no more — upon stopping.
Doctors have also observed many “non-responders” — about 10% to fifteen% of people that lose 5% or less of their body weight.
“There’s going to be extreme variability in how people respond,” Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, an obesity-medicine physician at UC San Diego Health, told the Journal.
Grunvald added that problems with weight gain may transcend something in hormones that the drugs imitate to control appetite. He also said that peoples’ other medical issues may play an element, corresponding to how those with Type 2 diabetes typically lose lower than those without the disease.
The doctor added that prior exercise and eating habits before starting the drugs are also highly influential aspects.
Those that have made healthy lifestyle changes and already lost weight likely don’t get that much added bonus from the medications.
Individuals who have struggled with obesity for a lifetime may also have a genetic mutation that forestalls the drugs’ potency, based on Dr. Steven Heymsfield of Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
He added that those that can metabolize drugs quickly also may not see much out of them on this case.
Taking other medications as well, especially antipsychotics or antidepressants, may be related to weight gain as a side effect.
“You could possibly have another drug interactions that prevent the effect of the GLP-1 drugs from working,” Heymsfield told the Journal.