What is Ozempic?

Ozempic is a very simple every week, injection that contains the weight loss drug semaglutide and helps you lose weight. It’s a prescription drug that was initially created to aid people with diabetes manage and reduce cholesterol levels. However, clinical trials have demonstrated that Ozempic is also a reliable and effective treatment for obese patients to help them lose weight.

What is Ozempic operate?

Ozempic mimics a hormone that is naturally produced in your body known as GLP-1. This hormone is produced by the digestive system in response to food intake. It works on both your brain and the digestive system to regulate the feeling of fullness after a meal. It slows down the emptying of your stomach into the rest of your digestive system.

GLP-1 also regulates insulin levels in response to eating meals , ensuring that blood sugar is better controlled (even decreasing glucose levels) and can reduce your appetite by signalling to your brain that it’s been an entire meal.

Ozempic is a natural hormone, making you feel fuller for a longer period, reducing your cravings for more food, enhancing the way that your body manages blood sugar levels, and also the storage of fat. This can help patients lose weight.

How do you make use of Ozempic to aid in weight loss

Start with the lowest dosage, 0.25mg, and then gradually increase the dose over the course of eight weeks to the 1mg dose. This allows your body to adjust to the medication within the initial few weeks and lessens the risk of side effectslike nausea. Ozempic comes with an injection pre-filled that appears like a pen, along with needles that are single-use. It takes only 2 minutes to fill and comes with all the instructions.

Simply place a brand new needle onto your Ozempic pen, select your dose , then press the pen firmly against the skin of your tummy, upper thigh or upper arm as you press the injector button. Finally, pop the used needle into the safe sharps container. That’s it!

Ozempic can be used to aid in weight loss?

Yes, Ozempic is a great way to help people lose weight, even when it was designed for the treatment of diabetes.

Ozempic isn’t a licensed product by the UK medicines regulator for weight loss in particular, but studies conducted on a variety of patients have proven Ozempic as safe to lose weight. We know it’s the most efficient drug for people who suffer from obesity and want to lose fat in the UK currently.

The drug in Ozempic semaglutide is already licensed for weight loss within the UK, USA and European Union The new versions of the product aren’t yet available for use in the UK yet (that’s why we’re using Ozempic as our treatment for weight loss).

We use Ozempic “off-label” that means that we’re using it to aid in weight loss even when it’s licensed for diabetes. This is because there’s an ample evidence from clinical studies that it’s secure and effective for weight loss too.

Who is able to benefit from Ozempic for weight loss?

It is generally recommended for those who are overweight or clinically overweight with a weight-related health issue.

Ozempic can be used for weight loss as part of a Weight Reset Programme if you’re aged between the ages of 18 and 75, and:

If you have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher (clinically obese); or
you have a body mass index of 27 or higher (significantly overweight) and you are also suffering from a medical condition usually caused or made worse, by excess body weight.

Who should not use Ozempic for weight loss?

Most people can take Ozempic for weight loss safely However, there are some medications and medical conditions that might make it unsuitable for you due to increased safety risks. The main reasons why you should not use Ozempic for weight loss (or it may be necessary to give you specific advice) are:

an allergy to one or more ingredient;
the diabetes condition and taking insulin or other medication;
kidney problems;
certain digestive system problems;
An eating disorder’s history;
either breastfeeding or trying to have a baby.

Ozempics for diabetes

Ozempic was approved and launched in 2019 for the treatment of diabetes for some patients where other medicines did not regulate their blood sugar enough. This was followed by years of laboratory tests and clinical trials on humans to confirm that it’s efficient and safe. Ozempic works to treat diabetes by increasing insulin production to regulate blood sugar levels. It also has the added benefit of weight loss as well as helping people suffering from diabetes manage their blood sugar better.

Does Ozempic help with weight loss?

Ozempic has been proven to be effective for weight loss. Ozempic was tested in six key studies (called SUSTAIN 1hich involved 7,215 patients. 4,107 patients were treated with Ozempic, while the rest were in a placebo group , with no active drug or at times, taking a different diabetes treatment. Treatment with Ozempic resulted in significant weight loss for up to two years compared to a placebo or other treatment options for diabetes. Results were similar across different race, gender, age and ethnicities.

In these trials, following one year of treatment up to 63% of patients lost 5% to 10% or more from their weight. Additionally, as high as 27% of patients lost 10% or more of their body weight.

In one study which was carried out over two years Ozempic 1mg in conjunction with lifestyle modifications (such such as diet adjustments and physical activity) was evaluated against patients who did not have lifestyle interventions . The patients were able to lose an average 4.9kg using Ozempic as opposed to losing just 0.5kg in the absence of the medicine.

The STEP-1 drug trial [reference 7] examined higher doses of semaglutide (up to 2.4mg Ozempic has up to 1mg in the UK currently). Over 90% of the participants who took semaglutide lost 5percent percent of bodyweight, more than 70% experienced a 10 percent weight loss, 50 percent experienced a 15% weight loss, and less than a third of them achieved 20% weight loss.

How can Ozempic aid in weight loss?

Ozempic aids in losing body weight by working with your brain as well as your digestive system to make you feel fuller longer after meals, reduce your food cravings, and control how your body processes glucose and stores the fat.

Ozempic is a prescription drug. While it’s helpful to help you start your weight losing journey, lifestyle adjustments and permanent lifestyle changes are required to ensure the weight stays off when you stop taking the medication.

What amount of weight can I lose with Ozempic?

About a third of people who use Ozempic for weight loss will lose 10 percent or more of their body weight. The majority of people can expect to lose at 5 percent of their starting body weight using Ozempic in weight loss.

We are aware that different people lose weight differently, but those who see the highest weight loss have healthcare professionals backing them and make the lifestyle changes required for sustainable change much more simple. This means addressing the diet, exercise and utilizing the behavioral sciences to alter your food habits.

Other health benefits associated with Ozempic

As a result of the way that Ozempic functions to help regulate its food, sugar and metabolic process, additional health benefits were discovered during drug tests:

Ozempic lowers blood sugar levels in three ways

Your pancreas releases more insulin when your blood sugar is high

Ozempic communicates with your pancreas making it more responsive in blood sugar levels. This means that when you eat food and your blood sugar levels rise as a result your pancreas reacts more rapidly and produces more insulin in order to lower and improve blood sugar levels to their optimum state.

Ozempic usually doesn’t cause low blood sugar because it only triggers insulin when blood sugar rises. Studies have demonstrated that this triggers most patients’ long-term blood sugar control to be significantly increased – which may lower the risk for developing the disease or complications from the disease later in life.

Aids in preventing that your liver is storing excessive sugar and fat

If your blood sugar remains high for longer than necessary and causes your liver to turn it into glycogen and store this form of sugar in the muscles and the liver. This can then be released when your blood sugar drops to a low level or during an exercise that is vigorous.

However, it may also trigger the liver to accumulate the extra energy as fat. Ozempic, in conjunction with lifestyle changes such as increased exercising, help improve blood sugar levels, which prevents the likelihood of this happening.

It slows down the process of eating and removing food from your stomach

Ozempic transmits signals to your stomach that make it empty into the other areas of your digestive system more slowly. That means that, as your digestive system converts your food into sugars, it can power the cells in your body more efficiently and gradually. You will experience a slow, steady increase in your blood sugar, instead of large peaks and troughs.

Overall, this improves the control of blood sugar levels and can reduce the likelihood of developing diabetes and the health risks associated with issues with your organs. For help with the Ozempic assistance program, click here.

Ozempic Reduces the risk of heart-related events

Ozempic has been shown to decrease the likelihood of heart attacks especially in people who are at higher risk with kind 2 diabetes. The SUSTAIN-6 study [link or footnote 6 below] specifically focused on the impact of Ozempic on major cardiovascular events, such as strokes and heart attacks. For patients suffering from kind 2 diabetes and who already were at a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, treating patients with Ozempic led to mortality rates and the risk of non-fatal events were significantly lower among patients taking the drug compared with those who received placebo.

Ozempic options for weight loss

There are additional weight loss medicines available which offer a way for people suffering from obesity prior to the extreme possibility for bariatric surgical intervention. All of them must be carefully considered for your personal circumstances and then prescribed by a licensed medical expert.

Rybelsus

Rybelsus is a tablet version from semaglutide (the ingredient in Ozempic) which must be taken daily instead of an injection once a week. It’s not yet licensed for the treatment of obesity in the UK. Although it has been proved to be effective for weight loss, tests [Reference 8 below] demonstrated that it was around 30-40 percent less effective for weight loss than Ozempic.

Wegovy

Wegovy is a high-dose infusion of semaglutide (the same active ingredient as Ozempic) and has been proved to be more effective in reduction in weight than Ozempic in tests due to the greater dosage [reference 77. It has already been approved to be safe and efficient for weight loss by medical regulators throughout the USA, UK and EU. It was first introduced by the USA in 2021. It is not currently accessible in the UK at the time of writing.

Metformin

Metformin is a prescription drug that was used in the treatment of diabetes a number of years. It assists your body to produce and utilize insulin more effectively. It has been shown to have some benefits on weight and body mass in some clinical trials. However, the effects and results can be extremely variable and unpredictably. This implies that metformin is not an ideal choice for healthy and safe weight loss therapy.

Trulicity

Trulicity is a dulaglutide-based drug and is administered weekly, just like Ozempic. Trulicity works in a similar way to Ozempic . It has broadly similar results for weight loss in several drug trials, but there’s less evidence available for weight loss than for Ozempic. It’s currently approved in UK to treat diabetes but not for weight loss.

Saxenda

Saxenda is a source of liraglutide that performs the same function in the same way as semaglutide (the ingredient in Ozempic) however it is required to inject every day due to the fact that it is much less effective. Saxenda is approved for weight loss in the UK However, the research results from a clinical trial for weight loss show that Saxenda is slightly less effective than Ozempic.

Orlistat

Orlistat is a drug which blocks certain enzymes in the gut that are normally used to breakdown fat in the food you eat and permit them to get into your bloodstream. Inhibiting these enzymes makes you consume less calories from the fats you consume, which leads to weight reduction.

Orlistat is much less effective than Ozempic and patients often experience uncomfortable digestive system negative side effects (include mild to moderate digestion discomfort issues) which may lead to people stopping treatment prior to achieving the weight loss benefits they desire.

Other medications for diabetes that can cause weight loss

Other diabetes medications, such as those that increase the quantity of sugar eliminated from your body through your kidneys ‘ urine (e.g. dapagliflozin) have been shown to produce small reductions in body weight. However the weight loss outcomes aren’t significant enough to be considered this particular effective.

Do Ozempics cause extreme weight loss?

But not always. Weight loss that is extreme is usually an unhealthy form of weight loss.

Due to the way Ozempic acts to mimic a hormone in your body , called GLP-1 (rather than other drugs that focus on heavily suppressing appetite) excessive or inappropriate weight loss hasn’t occurred in clinical tests. Ozempic helps you lose weight at a much more sustainable speed.

What is the dose of Ozempic in order to reduce weight?

The Ozempic dose that helps you lose weight begins at 0.25mg and then gradually increases to 1mg over a period of weeks. This ensures your body has time to gradually adjust tho its effects and lowers the chance of side effects after starting treatment.

Ozempic starting dose

Ozempic treatment for weight loss starts at 0.25mg once per week. It is recommended to stay on that low dose for at least 4 weeks during the initial phase of treatment as your body adjusts to the medication.

Ozempic maintenance dose

Once you’ve started on the Ozempic low dose you will gradually increase the dose to 0.5mg for four weeks. Then you will move to the weekly 1mg maintenance dosage for the remainder of your treatment program – when everything is working according to the plan. It is possible to increase the dosage above 1mg, if you healthcare professional team and clinical prescriber consider the dosage appropriate for you.

Before taking Ozempic

Before you use Ozempic it’s important to always study the instruction leaflet of the manufacturer which is included inside the box prior to beginning the first dose. Keep in mind that because we’re using Ozempic “off-label” it is important to read the leaflet explains a lot about how to use it to treat patients with diabetes. It’s fine since the method used to utilize Ozempic injections is similar.

The leaflet comes with full instructions and pictures that show how to use the pen correctly as well as how to store and eliminate your pens and what possible side-effects to keep an eye out for.