The diabetes drug Ozempic has grow to be a social media phenomenon for its weight reduction properties, however its hovering recognition has led to world shortages and docs warn in regards to the potential unintended effects.
Movies underneath the hashtag #Ozempic have practically 600 million views on TikTok, the place many customers usually replace followers about their weight reduction.
“Dropping 40 kilograms (88 kilos) in lower than three months is feasible” due to Ozempic, a French TikToker stated in a typical submit in December with practically 50,000 views.
“It is a miracle,” he added.
The injectable drug from Danish pharmaceutical agency Novo Nordisk was initially developed and accredited in quite a few nations to deal with kind 2 diabetes.
The drug’s lively ingredient, semaglutide, binds itself to the receptors of a hormone which controls blood sugar, stimulating the discharge of insulin when glucose ranges are excessive.
It slows down how rapidly meals leaves an individual’s abdomen, decreasing their urge for food.
In early 2021, peer-reviewed analysis discovered that just about three quarters of people that used the drug misplaced greater than 10 % of their physique weight.
Novo Nordisk has since developed a semaglutide drug with the next dosage known as Wegovy particularly to deal with weight problems, which was accredited to be used in the US in 2021, and in Europe and the UK final 12 months.
Wegovy just isn’t but in the marketplace within the UK, France or a number of different nations, however Ozempic is on the market with a standard prescription.
‘Not a magic drug’
This has led to an increase in individuals with out diabetes acquiring prescriptions for Ozempic, in addition to “falsified prescriptions,” stated Jean-Luc Faillie, a pharmacology specialist at France’s Montpellier College.
Douglas Twenefour, head of care at Diabetes UK, stated on the charity’s web site that Ozempic “just isn’t a medicine for individuals who would not have diabetes or are vulnerable to kind 2 diabetes”.
France’s medicines regulator ANSM has urged docs to solely prescribe Ozempic for diabetes.
There has not been a very “sudden improve in consumption in current months,” the ANSM stated, including that there had been “provide tensions” worldwide.
Novo Nordisk advised AFP that “stronger than anticipated demand” for Ozempic had resulted in “intermittent availability and interval stock-outs” all over the world.
The corporate’s world manufacturing services “at the moment are working 24 hours, seven days every week” to bridge the hole, it added.
Docs have expressed concern that folks with diabetes could not be capable of pay money for semaglutide due to the hovering demand from individuals in search of to shed extra pounds.
Karine Clement, an weight problems specialist at France’s INSERM medical analysis institute, stated that when Wegovy does grow to be out there, it will be significant that folks intently comply with their prescription.
“It’s not a magic drug,” she stated. “As is at all times the case with weight problems, it have to be accompanied with a complete remedy plan.”
Uncomfortable side effects
Docs have additionally expressed considerations in regards to the unintended effects of semaglutide, which Faillie stated have gone under-discussed.
“Neither sufferers nor prescribers are motivated to report” the unintended effects, he stated.
Nausea is the most typical facet impact of the drug.
However Faillie stated “there are additionally rarer and extra critical dangers reminiscent of acute pancreatitis—which may happen even at decrease doses—biliary problems, and uncommon instances of extreme constipation which may result in bowel obstruction.”
He additionally pointed to an “elevated danger of thyroid most cancers” following a number of years of remedy.
Whereas the dangers had been affordable contemplating the advantages for individuals with diabetes, “there are nonetheless uncertainties, notably in overweight sufferers over the long run,” he stated.
“Whether it is used to lose a couple of kilograms, then the therapeutic profit is zero,” Faillie added.
“That will simply be beauty, whereas the dangers stay.”
© 2023 AFP
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Weight reduction drug development on TikTok worries docs (2023, February 28)
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