Ozempic is a very simple, once a week, injection that has semaglutide, the weight-loss drug, and helps you lose weight. It’s a pharmaceutical drug initially developed to help people with diabetes controlling and lowering the blood sugar level. However, clinical trials have shown that Ozempic is also a secure and effective treatment for overweight patients in order to assist with weight loss.
How does Ozempic function?
Ozempic mimics a hormone that is naturally produced in your body known as GLP-1. The hormone is created by your digestive system when it is triggered to food intake. It works on both your digestive system and the brain to regulate the feeling of fullness after eating. It also slows the process of emptying your stomach to more of your digestion system.
GLP-1 also regulates insulin production in response to eating meals to ensure that your blood sugar levels can be managed (even lower the levels of blood sugar) and also reduces appetite by signalling to your brain that you’ve eaten the food.
Ozempic acts just like this natural hormone to make you feel fuller for longer which reduces the desire to eat more, while also improving the way your body controls blood sugar levels, and also the weight loss. It can aid patients in losing weight.
Ozempic is a great tool for weight loss
You’ll start on the lowest dosage, 0.25mg, and then gradually increase it over the course of 8 weeks to the 1mg dose. This will help your body adapt to the medication within the first few weeks and decreases the severity of typical adverse effects, like nausea. Ozempic is a pre-filled injection that looks like a pen with single-use needles. It’s only two minutes to fill and comes with complete instructions.
Simply put a new needle onto your Ozempic pen, choose your dose , then press your pen tightly against your stomach, upper thigh or upper arm as you hold down the injector button. After that, put the used needle into the safe sharps container. That’s it!
Ozempic could be used to aid weight loss?
Sure, Ozempic is a great way to aid people in losing weight, even while it was originally developed for the treatment of diabetes.
Ozempic isn’t approved by the UK medicines regulator to treat weight loss in particular, but research studies with a wide range of patients have proven Ozempic is safe to lose weight. We know it’s the most effective drug available for patients with obesity to lose weight in the UK currently.
The drug that’s in Ozempic semaglutide already approved for weight loss treatment for the UK, USA and European Union The newer versions of the product aren’t being used in the UK currently (that’s why we currently use Ozempic as our treatment to lose weight).
We use Ozempic “off-label” that means we’re using it for weight loss even though it’s licensed for use in the treatment of diabetes, as there’s an numerous clinical proofs that Ozempic is secure and effective to lose weight too.
Who can benefit from Ozempic to lose weight?
It is generally recommended for those who are clinically obese or significantly overweight due to a weight-related health problem.
Ozempic is a great option for weight loss as part of a Weight Reset Programme if you’re aged between the ages of 18 and 75, and:
you have a body weight index (BMI) of 30 or more (clinically obese) or
If you’re overweight, you’ve got a body mass index of 27 or higher (significantly overweight) and also a medical condition typically caused, or worse, by body weight.
Who wouldn’t benefit from Ozempic’s weight loss?
The majority of people can use Ozempic for weight loss safely, but there are some drugs and medical conditions that may make it unsafe for you due to increased dangers to safety. Some of the reasons why you should not use Ozempic to lose weight (or we may need to provide you with specific advice) are:
an allergy to any of the ingredients
the diabetes condition and taking insulin or other medication;
kidney problems;
certain digestive system problems;
history of an eating disorder;
either breastfeeding or trying to have a baby.
Ozempic for diabetes
Ozempic was approved by the FDA and was launched in 2019 for the treatment of some people suffering from diabetes who’d failed to effectively control blood sugar enough. This was followed by years of tests in the lab and clinical trials with humans to show it’s safe and effective. Ozempic helps treat diabetes by increasing insulin secretion in order to control blood sugar levels. This has the additional benefit of weight loss – which also helps many sufferers with diabetes control their blood sugar better.
Does Ozempic work for weight loss?
Ozempic was proven to be effective for weight loss. Ozempic was studied in six major trials (called SUSTAIN 1hich involved 7,215 patients. 4,107 patients were treated with Ozempic and the others were in a placebo group with no active drug – or, in some cases, taking another diabetes treatment. Treatment with Ozempic demonstrated meaningful weight loss for up to 2 years when compared to a placebo or the other diabetes treatment. Results were similar across genders, ages, races and ethnicities.
In these trials, following one year of treatment up to 63 percent of patients lost 5 percent plus or less of their bodyweight and approximately 27% of patients lost 10% to 10% or more.
In a particular study run over two years, Ozempic 1mg and lifestyle interventions (such as diet modifications as well as exercise) was evaluated against patients who only had lifestyle interventions – patients reduced their weight by an average 4.9kg with Ozempic compared to losing just 0.5kg when they did not take the drug.
The STEP-1 drug study [reference 7] examined higher dosages of semaglutide (up to 2.4mg – Ozempic contains up to 1mg in the UK currently). Over 83% of the people taking semaglutide shed 5% of their body weight, almost 70% of them achieved 10 percent weight loss, 50 percent of them achieved a 15% weight loss, and less than a third of them achieved an average weight loss of 20.
What is Ozempic’s role in losing weight?
Ozempic aids in losing body weight by working with your brain as well as your digestive system to make you feel more full for longer after eating, curb your appetite for food, and regulate the way your body uses the sugar it consumes and store fat.
Ozempic is a pharmaceutical drug. Whilst it’s beneficial to help you start your weight loss journey, lifestyle intervention and healthy lifestyle modifications are essential to ensure that the weight stays at bay once you’ve stopped taking the drug.
How much weight do I lose by using Ozempic?
About a third of people who utilize Ozempic to aid in weight loss lose 10 percent and more in bodyweight. Most people should expect to lose at least 5% of their starting body weight using Ozempic for weight loss.
It is known that people lose weight differently, but those who see the highest weight loss are those who are supported by healthcare professionals and make the lifestyle changes required for sustainable change much more simple. This includes taking care of eating habits, exercising and applying the behavioral sciences to alter your eating habits.
Get in touch when looking for an Ozempic savings card.
Other health benefits from Ozempic
Since Ozempic is able to assist your body to regulate its food, sugar and metabolism of fat, some other health benefits were observed during drug trials:
Ozempic lowers blood sugar levels in 3 ways
Your pancreas releases more insulin when blood sugar levels are high.
Ozempic signals your pancreas that make it more responsive in your blood sugar. This means that when you consume a meal and your blood sugar increases as a result, your pancreas responds more swiftly and is able to release more insulin to reduce and improve blood sugar levels to their optimal levels.
Ozempic usually doesn’t cause low blood sugar because it only triggers insulin when blood sugar rises. Tests have proven this to cause most patients’ long-term blood sugar control to be greatly improved – which may reduce the likelihood that they will develop complications due to diabetes later in life.
It helps prevent your liver from storing too much sugar and fat
When blood sugar levels remain higher than it is and causes your liver to convert it into glycogen. It stores this form of sugar in your liver and muscles. This can then be released when blood sugar levels drop or as a result of intense exercise.
However, it can also trigger your liver to store the excess energy in your body as fat. Ozempic, in conjunction with lifestyle changes like increased fitness, improve blood sugar levels which reduces the likelihood of this happening.
It slows down the process of eating and removing food from your stomach
Ozempic sends signals to your stomach to make it empty into the various areas in your system at a slower rate. This means that as your digestive system is breaking down your food to sugars, it is able to power the cells within your body more easily and slowly too. You will experience a slow, steady increase in your blood sugar levels, not huge peaks and troughs.
In the end, this helps improve the control of blood sugar levels and also reduces the chances of developing diabetes, as well as the health implications of problems with your organs.
Ozempic lowers the risk of heart events
Ozempic has been shown to decrease the chance of having cardiovascular events specifically in those at higher risk with kind 2 diabetes. The SUSTAIN-6 trial [link or footnote to 6 below] specifically examined the effects of Ozempic on major cardiovascular events such as heart attacks. For those with kind 2 diabetes and who already were at risk for heart attack and stroke, the treatment with Ozempic resulted in the rates of death and non-fatal events significantly lower for patients receiving the drug than those taking placebo.
Ozempic options for weight loss
There are many additional weight loss medicines available that can be used to treat patients suffering from obesity prior to the extreme possibility of bariatric surgery. Each one of them should be carefully considered for your individual circumstances and prescribed by a licensed medical expert.
Rybelsus
Rybelsus is a tablet form of semaglutide (the ingredient in Ozempic) that must be taken daily, rather than a weekly injection. The drug is not licensed to treat obesity in the UK. While it has been proven to be effective in weight loss, tests [Reference 8 below] showed that it was about 30-40% less effective for weight loss than Ozempic.
Wegovy
Wegovy is an injection with a higher dose of semaglutide (the identical active ingredient used in Ozempic) and has been shown that it is more efficient for losing weight than Ozempic during studies due to the higher dose [reference 77. It’s been approved by the FDA as safe and reliable in weight loss by medical regulators within the USA, UK and EU. It was launched by the USA in 2021. It is not currently available in the UK at the time of writing.
Metformin
Metformin is a medicine that has been used to treat diabetes for several years and helps your body produce and use insulin more effectively. It’s been demonstrated to have beneficial effects for weight loss in some studies, however, the results and side effects are highly variable and unpredictably. This means metformin will not be a good choice for a healthy and safe weight loss treatment.
Trulicity
Trulicity contains dulaglutide , and is injected weekly, like Ozempic. Trulicity works in a similar way to Ozempic and has broadly similar results for weight loss in several studies, however there’s less evidence available for weight loss than for Ozempic. It’s currently licensed in the UK to treat diabetes, but not for weight loss.
Saxenda
Saxenda has liraglutide in it, which works in the same way as semaglutide (the ingredient in Ozempic) but requires an injection every day since the drug is much shorter-acting. Saxenda is approved for weight loss in the UK, but research results from a clinical trial in weight loss indicate that Saxenda is a little less effective than Ozempic.
Orlistat
Orlistat is a medication that inhibits certain enzymes that reside in your gut which normally work in breaking down fats from foods you eat, and allows them to enter your bloodstream. The blockage of these enzymes will mean that you absorb fewer calories from the fats you eat, and this leads to weight reduction.
Orlistat is much less efficient than Ozempic and patients often experience several unpleasant digestive system adverse effects (include moderate to severe digestion discomfort) which may lead to patients stopping treatment before they see results with weight loss.
Other medications for diabetes that can cause weight loss
Certain other diabetes-related medications include ones that boost the amount of sugar removed from your body through your kidneys ‘ urinary tract (e.g. canagliflozin, dapagliflozin, empagliflozin) have been shown to result in slight weight loss. However, the weight loss results are too small to consider this to be particularly effective.
Does Ozempic cause massive weight loss?
But not always. Weight loss that is extreme is usually unhealthful weight loss.
Because of the way that Ozempic is able to mimic a hormone in your body GLP-1 (rather as older drugs that focus on heavily suppressing appetite) excessive or unsuitable weight loss has not been observed in clinical tests. Ozempic helps you lose weight at a much more sustainable rate.
What is the dosage of Ozempic that will help you lose weight?
The Ozempic dose for losing weight begins at 0.25mg and then gradually increases to 1mg over a number of weeks. This gives your body the chance to slowly adjust to the effects of Ozempic. Additionally, it reduces the severity and likelihood of adverse effects once you begin treatment.
Ozempic starting dose
Ozempic therapy for losing weight begins at 0.25mg once per week. You should stay on the lower dose for the first four weeks of treatment as your body gets used to the drug.
Ozempic maintenance dose
Following the initial start of Ozempic low dose, you’ll rise to 0.5mg for a further 4 weeks and then move onto the 1mg weekly maintenance dose for the remainder of your treatment plan , when everything is working according to the plan. It is possible to increase the dose above 1mg if you healthcare professional team and the prescriber for your medical condition think it appropriate for your needs.
Before taking Ozempic
Before using Ozempic it’s important to always read the leaflet from the manufacturer inside the package prior to starting your first dose. Take note that because we are using Ozempic “off-label” and not on the label, the leaflet talks a lot about how to use it to treat patients who suffer from diabetes. This is acceptable since the method you actually use Ozempic injections is the same.
The leaflet contains full instructions, including images of how to use the pen properly, how to store and dispose of your pens, and what side-effects to look out for.