Ozempic makes life ‘miserably boring’ and most people quit within two years, scientist says

Ozempic takes the fun out of eating and makes life so “miserably boring” that many people give it up, says a scientist who helped develop the drug.

Jens Juul Holst, who found the hormone mimicked by Ozempic, warned against this this was the ‘price to pay’ for using the wonder drug – adding that most patients give up within two years.

The drug stops people from enjoying eating by mimicking the action of the GLP-1 hormone, or glucagon-like peptide-1, which regulates appetite to keep a person feeling full all the time.

The scientist’s statements are echoed in a 2020 study that followed diabetic patients taking an Ozempic-like drug and found that 70 percent stopped taking it. He believes the reason for this was a lack of interest in food.

In an interview with WiredHolst revealed, “So you don’t eat through [taking the drug] because you have lost interest in food.

“That can be a problem in the long run, that if you’ve been doing this for a year or two, life is so terribly boring that you can’t stand it anymore and have to go back to your old life.”

Ozempic and Wegovy have taken the American public by storm with their promise to help someone lose weight with little more than a weekly injection.

The number of prescriptions has increased by more than 2,000 percent in just three years, from 230,000 a year in 2019 to more than five million last year alone – and is expected to continue to rise.

But speaking to the publication, Dr. Holst suggested the drug would not solve the US obesity crisis without patients also receiving advice on healthy lifestyles and diets.

He said, ‘What happens is you lose your appetite and also the pleasure of eating [when you’re on the drug].

“So I think there’s a price to pay if you do that.

“If you like food, then that pleasure is gone. The desire to eat is removed in some people when they take GLP-1 drugs.’

When asked about people who stopped taking the drug, he said the loss of pleasure in eating was a major driver that made people “disinterested” in continuing.

When asked if everyone will eventually take the drug, he replies: ‘I do not see that a large part of the population will be put on Wegovy and stay on Wegovy for the rest of their lives.

“I just don’t see that picture because it hasn’t happened with other GLP-1 drugs.”

Dr Holst’s team discovered the hormone GLP-1 – mimicked by Ozempic – while researching stomach ulcers in the 1970s.

They also revealed that it was secreted by intestinal cells in response to someone consuming food, recognizing its role in regulating blood sugar levels.

Dr. Holst had previously patented drugs with Novo Nordisk – the owner of Ozempic – and is an advisor to the company.

But he says he never got a dime for developing the blockbuster drugs, with Ozempic raking in a whopping $8.56 billion last year alone.

Studies have shown that Ozempic can cause patients to lose up to 15 percent of their body weight within one year and four months.

By comparison, the trial of nearly 2,000 obese adults showed that those on a lifestyle intervention lost 2.4 percent of their weight.

However, individual newspapers have warned that after people stop taking the drug, they quickly gain weight again.

A study from the University of Liverpool, in the UK, involving 336 people found that those taking Ozempic lost 18 percent of their body weight in 68 weeks.

But over the course of the year after they stopped taking the drugs, the paper revealed that users regained about two-thirds of the weight they lost on average.

Dr. Christopher McGowan, a North Carolina-based weight loss expert, told DailyMail.com after reviewing the results that this suggested Ozempic should be a lifelong “commitment” for patients.

“As soon as you stop taking that medication, your body will start trying to promote weight gain again. It’s a brutal process,” he said.

“It’s very similar to how we treat other diseases, like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. When you start a medication, if your cholesterol and your cholesterol improves, you don’t stop the medication. You stay with it.’

Among the celebrities who use Ozempic but gain weight after stopping the drug is plus-size model Remi Bader.

The 28-year-old revealed last year that she was given the drug when she developed pre-diabetes.

She said she lost some weight on the medication, but regained twice that amount when she came off it.

“I was like, ‘I bet as soon as I leave I’m going to get hungry again,'” she told a podcast.

And I did. My binge eating got so much worse so then I blamed Ozempic. I gained twice as much after that.’

Many medics who prescribe Ozempic have also expressed concern about the drug’s side effects, including muscle loss and sagging skin.

It has prompted some to offer patients the drug only if they are undergoing other lifestyle changes, such as resistance training to protect muscle mass.