Ozempic, branded the ‘Hollywood skinny jab’, continues to make headlines as celebrities and influencers admit using the wildly popular medication to shed weight.
While slimming drugs are not new, semaglutide started gaining attention over the past year when demand for it surged and sparked a global shortage.
Semaglutide is branded as two separate drugs — Ozempic and Wegovy.
Ozempic is the brand name for the injection approved only for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
Sister drug, Wegovy, is the semaglutide approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for chronic obesity.
Cottesloe GP Dr Deb Cohen-Jones said late last year that she was having “great success” prescribing compounded glutides for patients while waiting for Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to approve a long-acting version.
She said the long-acting version (Wegovy, basically) should be available in Australia “soon”.
Most celebrities have kept quiet about whether they use the jab but a few have been open about having tried it.
Chelsea Handler
Former E! personality Chelsea Handler admitted to taking the weight loss drug — accidentally.
The 47-year-old revealed that she had taken Ozempic without knowing what it did.
“I didn’t even know I was on it,” she said, admitting on the Call Her Daddy podcast that her “anti-aging doctor just hands it out to anybody”.
After finding out that the drug is meant to help people with diabetes, the entertainer stopped taking it.
“I’m not on it anymore. That’s too irresponsible,” she said.
“I’m an irresponsible drug user, but I’m not gonna take a diabetic drug. I tried it, and I’m not gonna do that. That’s not for me. That’s not right for me.”
Remi Bader
TikTok creator and model Remi Bader revealed she went on the drug for “actual health issues” shortly after it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
She was prescribed the drug by her doctor.
In an episode of the podcast Not Skinny Not Fat, Bader told host Amanda Hirsch that she started taking the medication before it was “this trendy drug.”
She said she was prescribed it because she was pre-diabetic, insulin-resistant and gaining weight.
Bader has been very open about her experience with binge-eating disorder. She has 2.2 million followers on TikTok and advocates for size-inclusive fashion.
She warned people that when she went off Ozempic, she “gained double the weight back.”
“I saw a doctor and they were like, ‘It’s 100% because you went on Ozempic ‘,” Bader revealed.
“It was making me think I wasn’t hungry for so long. I lost some weight.
“I didn’t wanna be obsessed with being on it long-term. I was like, I bet the second I go off I’m gonna get starving again. I did, and my bingeing got so much worse. So then I kind of blamed Ozempic.”
Bader now discourages other people from taking the drug if they don’t need it, explaining: “You’re stopping it from even being in the market because there’s not enough for people who need it.”
Elon Musk and Jeremy Clarkson
Elon Musk also had no qualms about admitting he uses Ozempic.
The Twitter and Tesla CEO responded to a Tweet asking him about the secret to his physique by tweeting “Fasting. And Wegovy.”
Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson also credited semaglutide for helping him lose weight.
Golnesa GG Gharachedaghi
Shahs Of Sunset star Golnesa GG Gharachedaghi was just as candid about her health journey.
She didn’t hide the fact she used a weight loss drug.
In a video posted to her Instagram page, the 41-year-old admitted: “Unfortunately, because of my health, I had to get a lot of steroid injections last year, which caused me to really pack on some weight.
“I’ve been having a very, very, very hard time getting rid of that weight.
“I did what all the people are doing, and lying about. I’m on the weight-loss shots.
“I’m just not gonna lie about it.”
While Gharachedaghi admitted to taking semaglutide, she also told Entertainment Tonight in May: “Obviously, I didn’t look like this two months ago, so, all of a sudden, to lose almost 30 pounds, I would be a liar to say I quit drinking alcohol and you know all of a sudden started working out like some people like to say.”
Drug causes ‘full feeling’ faster
Ozempic and Wegovy both reduce appetite and cause the stomach to empty more slowly so that a person feels fuller faster which is the reason they’re popular for their weight loss effects.
However, health experts started noticing people were using semaglutide without meeting the clinical criteria for being overweight or obese.
Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30, and overweight is a BMI of 25-30. Yet people with BMIs less than 25 were using Ozempic to drop “a bit of weight,” says GP Natasha Yates.
Also worrying was the potential for the drug to be used by people with eating disorders to starve themselves.
Just as alarming, people who depend on the medication to treat their diabetes were turning up at pharmacies unable to get their prescription filled because so many people were suddenly accessing the drug off-label to lose weight.
As a result, Australian GPs were asked not to prescribe it to treat obesity.
GP’s warn of side-effects
Dr Yates, who is also an assistant professor of general practice at Bond University, also points out that as with all medications, semaglutide is not entirely risk-free.
Users commonly complain of nausea, constipation and diarrhoea, while some also suffer from acid reflux, fatigue and complain that food tastes different after taking the drug.
Some users describe missing eating and the pleasure of food.
Dr Yates wrote in The Conversation that there are also concerns it could increase the risk of pancreatitis, thyroid and pancreatic cancers.
And, while the research so far is reassuring, she added that we are unlikely to know if there is any significant increase for some years to come — there are still many unknowns.
While semaglutide in the form of Wegovy is designed specifically for weight loss, and even though US and Australian regulators recently approved Wegovy for that purpose, it hasn’t been available for use in Australia to date, Dr Yates said.
Who will be able to access the drug?
Studies show semaglutide helps between 66% and 84% of people to lose weight, which Dr Yates notes, “makes it more effective than other drugs on the market.”
She said after two years, patients do not regain their lost weight — but only if they are still taking the drug.
“Disappointingly, once stopped, patients notice a gradual regain of up to two-thirds of the weight they lost,” Dr Yates told The Conversation.
“So essentially, semaglutide works only while taking it — it ‘manages’ but does not ‘cure’.”
Dr Yates added that when semaglutide is once again available in Australia for those with diabetes, it’s unclear who will be able to access it for weight loss.
Cost ‘a barrier’
Dr Deb Cohen-Jones believes once supply issues have been fixed, long-acting glutides will lead the way in 2023 due to their “efficacy” and “tolerability” among users.
However, Dr Yates thinks one of the biggest barriers to using semaglutide for weight loss is the cost.
This is because people with diabetes will continue to be able to access the drug more affordably through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) but people using it for weight management will need to fork out for the medication entirely on their own through a private prescription.
Semaglutide use was costing around $130 per month in Australia in 2022.
Dr Yates thinks the cost could rise once supply issues resolve because the manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, had to spend millions of dollars building new facilities to meet increased demand for the drug.
“In the United States, prices are already over US $1,000 a month unless covered by insurance,” Dr Yates noted.
Dr Cohen-Jones stressed that semaglutide is meant to be an add-on, not a replacement, for exercise and a healthy diet.
Meanwhile the TGA, Australia’s drug regulator, is investigating some influencers and online platforms for unlawful promotion of the drug as a weight-loss remedy.
Under Australian law, prescription-only medicines cannot be advertised to the public. The law aims to protect people from false and misleading claims and to ensure drug information is balanced and accurate.
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