Miracle new slimming jabs may leave you with jowls

Miraculous new weight-loss incentives are fueling a wave of facelifts, leaving Britons ’emaciated’ after overcoming the bulge.

Cosmetic doctors in London have reported an influx of patients demanding tightening of their sagging skin after taking Ozempic or Wegovy, and such rates have tripled within months.

Both once-a-week injections contain semaglutide, a hormone-mimicking drug that tricks the body into thinking it is full, helping people eat less and lose weight.

But the flaccid drug does not discriminate on which weight it targets, which means that it not only slims the waist, but also eliminates facial fat.

This causes some patients to complain of looking sick, worsening wrinkles and causing skin sagging.

The trend has been dubbed “Ozempic face,” with social media users posting dramatic before and after images of the drug’s effects.

One medic, who took the drug himself, described how people thought he looked like a “chemo patient” because it melted away his facial fat.

Originally designed to help type 2 diabetes patients lose weight, the “groundbreaking” drug has also been approved by regulators in the US and UK specifically as a weight loss weapon.

It’s already taken the celebrity world by storm, used by the likes of Elon Musk and Jeremy Clarkson to combat the flab. Even Kim Kardashian has faced claims that she took Ozempic.

But such buzz has its price.

Surgeons have said such patients are asking for fillers to replace lost facial fat in their cheeks, as well as surgery to cut away loose skin from their necks, jawlines and eyelids.

Rajiv Grover, a consultant plastic surgeon in London, claimed demand for such procedures has tripled in the past six months because of how the drug works.

“There is a difference between the weight loss on the face that you get from Ozempic and weight loss that you get naturally or from gastric band surgery,” he said. The times.

“Even in patients with small amounts of weight loss from Ozempic — 5-10 lbs (2.2-4.5 kg) — they come to me with loose skin. It affected their lower face and neck, which wouldn’t happen if they lost weight naturally.”

Dr. Jennifer Doyle, a cosmetic surgeon and chief operating officer at The Clinic in Holland Park, said the fact that non-obese patients took the drugs as a “quick-fix” weight loss solution led to them experiencing extreme facial expressions. Effects.

“Ozempic is designed to address obesity,” she said. “But you get people using it who might be a little bit overweight.

“Many people turn to it as a quick-fix option to lose weight quickly and keep it off.”

Patients taking semaglutide in the US, where it is more readily available, have been reporting ‘Ozempic face’ for months.

One of them is Dr. Jonathan Zelken, a California plastic surgeon who used it for weight loss.

While he managed to lose 22lns (10kg) during the injections, a result he was happy with, he also documented the toll the medication took on his facial structure.

In a YouTube video describing his experience, he said, “This came at the price of a so-called ‘Ozempic face.'”

He recalled how people initially praised his weight loss, but then became concerned when he began to lose facial fat.

“At first it was neighbors and friends and family who said, ‘You look like a chemo patient’ or ‘You have something,'” he said.

Dr. Zelk said it was important to remember that “Ozempic face” isn’t a new condition or disease, but rather another name for facial fat loss, a well-known consequence of rapid weight loss.

“It’s the price we pay for medically induced weight loss and it may be worth it to some, but not to others,” he said.

He added that it was likely that other jabs, such as a rival Mounjaro, would also likely see a similar facial fat side effect.

Cosmetic clinics in America also treat patients who want to fix their skinny ‘Ozempic’ faces with fillers and other non-surgical cosmetic treatments.

Jennifer Wilson, co-owner of The Aesthetics Lounge & Spa in Florida, posted on Instagram a shocking transformation of a client who had lost facial volume.

“Losing weight through exercise or injections like Ozempic can cause volume loss and sagging of the face, which can make you look older,” she said.

But some users say that the fear of the Ozempic face is exaggerated.

One was a woman on TikTok using the username smyers45 who posted a before and after comparison of her face while using Ozempic.

Acknowledging the concerns she’d heard, she countered, “I think my face looks great, so I guess it’s a bunch of hooey.”

Other TikTok users talked about getting filler and Botox to deal with their facial fat loss or asking for advice on how to fix “turkey neck” when the skin on their throats started to sag.

Clinical studies have suggested that people taking semaglutide can lose about 11 percent of their body weight, about 38 pounds (17 kg), in 68 weeks.

The drug’s maker, Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, sells it in two brands, Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy, which differs by having a higher maximum dosage, for patients who are losing weight.

Wegovy only received NHS approval in March and is not yet available in the UK.

But British people looking to lose weight have been able to get Ozempic prescriptions ‘off-label’ from some private clinics and some online sellers.

Health chiefs pinned their hopes on weight-loss prods as a crucial tool to tackle the UK’s obesity crisis.

NHS figures show that 64 per cent of British adults are overweight, and more people are expected to gain weight in the future.

As well as increasing the UK’s waistline, obesity is costing healthcare, with the NHS spending an estimated £6.1 billion between 2014 and 2015 on the treatment of weight-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

In the US, about 42 percent of people are obese.