Picture by Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto through Getty / Futurism
The rising consensus about semaglutide, the lively ingredient within the buzzy medication Ozempic and Wegovy, had been that there was a vital catch: if sufferers stopped taking it, they’d quickly regain the weight, locking them into an costly and lifelong pharmaceutical behavior.
However curiously, new information now contradicts these findings, not less than for some sufferers. As a new survey from the well being software program firm Epic Techniques signifies, two thirds of sufferers who used semaglutide injections accurately had been capable of hold off the burden they’d misplaced for so long as a yr after discontinuing their prescriptions — which flies within the face of stories from individuals who regained the burden after getting off the drug.
The outcomes did not maintain throughout the board. Of the greater than 20,000 individuals surveyed by the agency’s analysis arm, practically 18 p.c stated they regained all the burden they’d misplaced — however nonetheless, 56 p.c stated that they saved the burden off, and greater than half of these respondents stated they continued to reduce weight within the yr after stopping their injections.
In different phrases, a terrific vary of outcomes are potential, relying on the precise individual — outcomes that when once more add to the rising and generally contradictory canon of research and anecdotes concerning semaglutide because it continues to develop ever extra common, controversial, and tough to acquire.
A part of a category of medication often called GLP-1 agonists that mimic the abdomen enzyme that makes us really feel full, the precise functioning of semaglutide remains to be something of an open question within the medical group as a result of, like antidepressants, no one’s completely positive the way it works.
What research have proven, nevertheless, is that these medication can provide important health benefits that are not simply restricted to weight reduction. On the flip aspect, analysis has additionally indicated that semaglutide carries the danger of some serious side effects, which may embody every part from nausea and diarrhea to stomach paralysis and, in some uncommon instances, renal failure and pancreatitis.
Between the hype surrounding these drugs and the sober research about a few of their scarier-sounding unwanted effects are the rising variety of private tales medical doctors and journalists have begun compiling about them.
From The Messenger‘s report a couple of girl who regained all the burden she misplaced on Wegovy and extra to NBC‘s interviews with the household of a person who died by suicide on Ozempic and now needs to get suicidal ideation included on the drug’s warning label, media stories about semaglutide have been fairly the blended bag.
It is onerous to think about how individuals contemplating taking semaglutide or every other related GLP-1 agonist handle to sift by way of the noise and resolve whether or not to take the drug for themselves, particularly with the memeification of Ozempic bestowing it with an nearly mystical high quality within the minds of individuals with weight on the brain.
Huge image? As soon as agin, plainly all these research and tales reinforce a nuanced view: totally different peoples’ our bodies reply in several methods to this drug — similar to just about every part else we ingest or inject.
Extra on semaglutide: Knockoff Ozempic Pharmacy Went Out of Business After an Executive’s Suicide
