Long-term Wegovy users who stop taking the drug will sometimes experience large blood sugar spikes that require hospitalization, experts warn.
Both Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic use the active ingredient semaglutide. The drug works by greatly increasing insulin secretion.
When a person stops taking it, their insulin production returns to how it was.
It’s because more attention is being paid to the drug, especially in regards to how a person becomes dependent on it. Reality star Mama June said in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com that as a former drug addict she would never take Ozempic.
Fat-melting semaglutide injections like Wegovy and Ozempic have been heralded as the start of a new era in the war on obesity. Now experts have discovered that the drugs may have other benefits, namely restoring the body’s ability to defend itself against cancer
Not interested: Mom June Shannon revealed she won’t be using fat loss injections like Ozempic and Wegovy to lose weight
Mama June, speaking to DailyMail.com about whether she’d like to lose pounds again with the popular “quick fix” that’s taking Hollywood by storm, said, “I don’t want to try Ozempic because honestly I’ve heard about so many bad side effects.
“It’s using a drug that isn’t really prescribed to do that.” They use a diabetes drug to lose weight.’
Neither Wegovy nor Ozempic are traditionally considered addictive, as they don’t give a euphoric high and don’t make you crave the drug if you don’t have it.
However, users may become dependent on the medication if you regain weight after stopping and your appetite is no longer suppressed.
There have also been anecdotal reports of people experiencing severe blood sugar spikes after taking it.
Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, mimics glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) – a hormone in the brain that prompts the body to produce more insulin and lower blood sugar, thereby regulating appetite .
When a patient stops taking it, their blood sugar may rise because the body no longer produces the extra insulin to calm it down.
Dr. Shauna Levy told DailyMail.com, “When someone stops treating an illness, the symptoms of illness will be experienced again.
“In this circumstance, the patient stops treating his diabetes with the drugs Ozempic and Wegovy and experiences blood sugar spikes due to the untreated disease.
“Ozempic and Wegovy are very good at treating diabetes, but they don’t cure diabetes.”
Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association, told The New York Times: “Like any drug, if you stop taking it, it stops working.”
When people stop taking semaglutide, their blood glucose levels can skyrocket, he said.
Those with diabetes may experience blurred vision, fatigue, and excessive thirst and urination — symptoms that may have originally caused them to have diabetes.
They are also at higher risk of yeast and other fungal infections, which are associated with elevated blood sugar.
Fluctuations in blood sugar can even cause people to end up in the emergency room, Dr. Gabbay said.
Dr. Janice Jin Hwang, chief of the division of endocrinology and metabolism at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said users are likely to feel the withdrawal symptoms after about a week if they stop taking Ozempic or Wegovy.
A British study found that people taking Wegovy lost weight quickly, losing 18% of their weight over 68 weeks. They regained two-thirds of that weight, or 12% of their original body weight in the year after they dropped the weekly injections. Experts say the drug should be used for a lifetime to keep the pounds off
She said doctors often try to give alternative therapies to control blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, such as metformin or insulin.
But switching medications can be disorienting for both patients and doctors.
Art teacher Terri Parris Ford, 57, was prescribed Ozempic in 2021 by her doctor for her pre-diabetes.
She experienced the desired drop in her blood sugar and also lost 20 pounds in six months.
But she felt incredibly nauseated from the medication and dried off on the days she had to inject herself with it.
In the end, she decided with her doctor that she would stop taking it.
Within two months she had regained all the weight and her appetite had returned completely.
Her doctor had to prescribe extra medication to control her blood sugar, and she had to go back on Ozempic to try and lose the weight.
She told The New York Times, “I was insatiable. I was like, “Oh, my God, what’s going on? I’m hungry all the time.” It shocked me how fast it went.’
Patients piled on two-thirds of the weight they lost on the drugs just months after they stopped taking them, and most would have to take the injections forever to maintain their results, a study found.
Dr. Christopher McGowan, a North Carolina-based weight loss expert, told DailyMail.com that using the drug for weight loss is a lifelong “commitment.”
Others say it’s a golden ticket for big drug companies looking to monetize the US obesity crisis.
A study from the University of Liverpool, in the United Kingdom, published in April found that patients taking the “game changer” weight loss drug lost 18 percent of their body weight after 68 weeks of use.
But after dropping the weekly injections, users would regain two-thirds of the weight within the next year.
The study, published earlier this year in the journal Diabetes Obesity and Metabolismfollowed 336 participants for two years.
Of that group, 232 received weekly injections of semaglutide – the base drug in both Ozempic and Wegovy.
The other 104 people who were part of the placebo group only lost about two percent of their weight over the 68-week period.
While the first half of the study demonstrated Wegovy’s remarkable effectiveness, the final phase disturbingly showed that it can be challenging to maintain your weight.
Participants who were on Wegovy threw off the drug the following year and continued living on diet and exercise alone.
At 52 weeks, their weight was only six percent lower than where they started.
However, not all users know that weight loss is not permanent.
Two women DailyMail.com spoke to who are on the drug, Mandy Sasser Fitez and Ana McKenna, both said they’ve seen success with the drug but plan to drop it when they reach their goal weight.
The weight-loss pills have flown off the shelves in recent years, as many doctors see them as a magic bullet to combat America’s obesity crisis.
Their popularity, combined with production problems, led to months of shortages of both Novo’s Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic at the start of the year.