NEW YORK (EFE).— The injectable drug Ozempic, the brand name for a product originally made to treat type 2 diabetes, has gained enormous popularity for its weight-loss effects among both the Hollywood elite and the rest of us, despite its high price and side effects that have not yet been sufficiently studied.
One of the effects of this drug, which belongs to a group known as GLP-1 agonists, is that it transmits the feeling of satiety after eating.
Ozempic, which has to be injected once a week, is the best known, but there are other similar drugs, such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, the latter approved for the specific purpose of combating obesity.
Public figures
Celebrities who have claimed to use these drugs include the world’s richest person, Elon Musk; actress Rebel Wilson, who has lost more than 35 kilos; and presenter Oprah Winfrey. They have all said that they reached their ideal weight by combining this drug with a healthy diet and exercise.
“In my entire life, I never dreamed we would be talking about medicines that bring hope to people like me, who have struggled for years with overweight and obesity,” Oprah Winfrey said last March on an ABC program titled “Oprah: Shame, Guilt and the Weight Loss Revolution.”
Other celebrities have lost a lot of weight but deny having used this drug to slim down their figure, such as Khloe Kardashian, who said on Instagram at the beginning of the year: “Let’s not discredit my years of exercise. I get up 5 days a week at 6 to work out. Please stop making assumptions.”
The effects of these drugs are not only visible on magazine covers. There are more than 92,000 videos on TikTok with the hashtag #Ozempic.
Without insurance to cover the cost – which is difficult to obtain if the user does not have diabetes or obesity, since some insurers consider these drugs to be cosmetic – to have the medicines one must pay between 900 (16,273 pesos) and 1,400 dollars (25,314 pesos) per month.
Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, warned The New York Times that these drugs could increase healthcare spending in the country by 50%.
Fertility
Side effects include diarrhea and nausea, although some experts warn that, as it is a new drug, over time other consequences could be discovered in more people.
Some women have taken to social media to report that they have become pregnant while taking these types of drugs, even when they were also taking the contraceptive pill or after being diagnosed with infertility.
Scientists told Nature that the reports are plausible and that they have different hypotheses about why the drugs boost fertility, but until more data is available the exact mechanism remains unknown.
Eli Lilly, one of the companies behind the drugs, advises people taking oral contraceptives to use back-up methods for four weeks after starting the drug or if the dose is increased.
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2024-08-28 17:02:12