The 12 changes that happen to your body when you start taking ‘miracle’ slimming drug Ozempic – from burps and wrinkles to skinny fingers (but it CAN stop snoring)

Wegovy is one of a new generation of slimming drugs that are proving so popular that Britain is facing a shortage just months after they hit the market.

It’s easy to see why those struggling with their weight are desperate for Wegovy (which also comes in a lower-dose version known as Ozempic): in studies, some volunteers lost a fifth of their body weight in a year time. The drug is taken in the form of a self-administered injection administered once a week.

But what exactly does it do to the body? Here, leading expert Wasim Hanif, professor of diabetology and endocrinology at University Hospital Birmingham, reveals some of the positive – and negative – effects it can have…

HUNGER PANCES DISAPPEAR

First and foremost, you will stop feeling hungry. This is one of the first things Wegovy patients notice: their desire to eat even their favorite foods disappears within weeks.

The drug mimics the effects of a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is released by the intestines after we eat to tell the brain that we are full.

The drug activates GLP-1 receptors in the brain, which register a feeling of fullness in the stomach after minimal amounts of food. As a result, people feel full even after half a plate of food.

One of my patients says he now always eats his favorite parts of a meal first and takes Wegovy, just in case he gets too full later.

YOUR DIGESTION SLOWS DOWN

The drug also slows the speed at which food passes through the intestines, helping people feel full longer. So while it normally only takes five to ten minutes for the food you ate to leave your stomach, with GLP-1 medications it can take an hour or more.

But there may also be a downside: Research shows that about one in a hundred people who take the drugs develop gastroparesis (or stomach paralysis), in which the contractions of the stomach muscles become too weak to digest food and pass it to the intestines; this can cause nausea and vomiting. About half of those who develop gastroparesis also become constipated.

YOU BURN MORE CALORIES

Wegovy also appears to slightly increase the number of calories burned at rest, but it is not entirely clear why.

HEART HEALTH IMPROVES

Losing significant amounts of weight is obviously good for the heart. But Wegovy is thought to do something else: it reduces inflammation in the blood vessels that can clog them, reducing the risk of clots forming that can cause a heart attack or stroke.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine last year found that there were 20 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes and deaths in overweight or obese patients taking the drugs than in comparable patients given a placebo.

What surprised the researchers was that most patients did not achieve their maximum weight loss until about a year after treatment, while the rates of heart attacks and strokes began to decline within weeks of starting the GLP-1 drugs.

It is thought that the weekly injections lower blood sugar levels and this in turn reduces inflammation in the blood vessel walls.

These medications appear to have a direct effect on the heart, reducing the risk of heart attack.

REDUCES YOUR TRUST FOR ALCOHOL

Some people find that Wegovy curbs their desire to drink alcohol. A study at Oklahoma State University involving 80 heavy drinkers looked at the effect of weekly injections of semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy) or a fake drug on consumption over a twelve-week period.

It follows a similar study at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden last year, which found that rats given the drug drank 60 percent less alcohol than those not injected with semaglutide.

The drug is thought to work in a similar way to obesity: it dampens the ‘reward hit’ the brain gets when alcohol is consumed, thus reducing the urge to keep drinking.

BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS ARE DOWN

Although primarily a weight-loss drug, Wegovy – like Ozempic – can significantly lower blood sugar levels by promoting the release of the hormone insulin from the pancreas.

Insulin takes sugar from the bloodstream into the cells to use as energy, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

But at the same time, the drugs block the effects of another hormone, glucagon, which is released when you have low blood sugar and tells the liver to release stored sugar and fat to fuel the body.

By controlling the release of both hormones, Wegovy can stabilize blood sugar levels.

CAN LEAD TO UNFORTUNATE BURPS

Anecdotal reports from the US – where Wegovy-style drugs for obesity and type 2 diabetes have been used for much longer than in Britain – suggest some users may develop smelly ‘rotten egg’ burps.

It’s not clear exactly why this happens, but one possibility is that Wegovy increases the number of sulfur-producing bacteria in the gut, by changing the microbiome (the community of bacteria, viruses and other microbes that live there), or because food sticks around longer . than normal – which causes more unpleasant aromas – because the drug slows the stomach emptying process.

YOU CAN GET OLDER FASTER

While Wegovy may benefit your waistline, it can have the opposite effect on your face.

There have been reports of accelerated facial aging – more wrinkles, sagging skin – after a few months of using the drug due to the rapid, significant weight loss.

Facial fat softens wrinkles and protects the skin; When it disappears, the skin can appear sagging due to reduced levels of collagen – the fibrous tissue that gives the skin its strength and flexibility.

It’s one of the things people notice when they’ve lost about 15 percent of their body weight.

YOUR LIVER IS SLASHING

You won’t necessarily notice it, but injecting Wegovy once a week will probably do your liver a lot of good.

That’s because there is evidence that it also fights fatty liver disease, a build-up of fat around the liver that kills around 10,000 people in Britain every year.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (where dietary fat, rather than drink, damages the liver) has become a major health problem in Britain in recent years and is now responsible for a significant number of liver transplants due to sudden liver failure.

AND YOU FEEL MORE ENERGIZED

Once the excess weight starts to decrease, Wegovy patients begin to experience getting up much more.

Energy levels are often very low in overweight or obese people, and this is partly because the oxygen level in the blood is reduced.

This is thought to be due to the fact that breathing in obese people is affected by the extra weight, reducing the amount of oxygen entering the bloodstream and increasing carbon dioxide levels.

People may not notice much of a difference in the first three months, but once they start losing weight, they tell me their energy levels improve.

Say goodbye to snoring

Heavy snoring is a common complaint in obese people.

Excess fat around the neck can put pressure on the airways when a person is sleeping and can lead to a condition called obstructive sleep apnea – where breathing is repeatedly interrupted every few seconds, waking people up and making them excessively sleepy during the day. become. Sleep apnea is linked to an increased risk of heart attacks.

Wegovy helps by reducing the fat around the neck.

EVEN YOUR FINGERS GET SKINNIER

Many find that even wrists and fingers can fall off. Last summer, social media was full of stories of former obese patients seeking adjustments to wedding and engagement rings that no longer stayed in place due to their radical weight loss with Wegovy or similar medications.

POSSIBLY RELATED TO SUICIDAL THOUGHTS?

Since Wegovy and similar drugs first hit the market, there have been concerns about its possible psychological effects in some people.

In July 2023, the European Medicines Agency announced it had received 150 reports of patients taking the drugs and having thoughts of suicide or self-harm.

Shortly afterwards, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – the body that monitors the safety of medicines in Britain – revealed that it too had received several similar reports.

But it is still not clear whether the drugs are the cause or whether this is due to pre-existing conditions in some patients.

A major study by researchers at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio – published last week in the journal Nature – looked at data from 1.8 million people who have taken these types of drugs and concluded that there is no evidence that they are linked to an increase in suicidal thoughts.

In any case, depression can occur with severe weight loss, as some patients struggle with not being able to eat what they want.