As I found, Ozempic has one incredible side-effect
THERE is no doubt that new weight loss drugs are revolutionising our treatment of obesity. After years of failing to help address the obesity epidemic, medicine finally has something to offer patients which appears to be effective. More drugs to compete with type 2 diabetes medication Ozempic and Wegovy (which contains the same active ingredient - semaglutide - as Ozempic, albeit a stronger dosage and is not yet available in Ireland) — are on the way, with Mounjaro already available from some pharmacies in Britain.
Yet this isn’t the only thing these drugs might be able to help with. There’s increasing evidence that the group of medications that Ozempic and Wegovy belong to, called GLP-1 agonists, might also help people with other things, such as reducing their alcohol intake.
I’ve even had first-hand experience of the effect semaglutide has on people’s desire to drink alcohol, as I’ve taken it. I’ll explain why, as someone who has never been overweight, I ended up taking it.
Several years ago, I fell on cobblestones and broke my foot. It was a complicated fracture and, after five operations and specialist physiotherapy, I was still in pain when I walked.
My surgeon suggested I could try growth hormone injections and I found a doctor who prescribed them. Within weeks, the pain had gone and I was able to walk without limping for the first time in two years.
BUT at a cost. I developed an insatiable appetite. After a meal, I still felt ravenous, and could eat loaves of bread — yes, plural — as a snack.
The doctor thought this sideeffect would likely improve over time, but in the meantime he could give me an injection to curb my hunger. It was semaglutide — the active ingredient. I took it for about eight weeks at a low dose and it worked a treat.
But then I noticed something really odd.
The medication not only stops you feeling hungry (in fact, it makes you feel quite satisfyingly full, even when you’ve eaten very little), it makes chocolate, cake and other treats seem, well, less of a treat. They just lose their appeal.
And it wasn’t just food — it was alcohol too. I don’t drink a great deal, but even a glass of wine with dinner would go entirely untouched. It simply had no appeal. It’s hard to describe, but that little rush of pleasure when you take a sip of alcohol wasn’t there. It was like drinking water.
Since then, several overweight friends have been on semaglutide and reported the same thing happening. People who’ve previously enjoyed a drink can, suddenly, take it or leave it.
And it’s not just alcohol. One patient, who would use cocaine occasionally, commented that she’d noticed she no longer wanted to touch it at all. And a patient who had problems with gambling told me how being on semaglutide appeared to have cured him.
Now, I should emphasise these are anecdotal reports and semaglutide is not licensed for use in the treatment of addiction or dependency. However, this effect has certainly made doctors interested that these medications might have a role outside weight management. In a series of case studies published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in November 2023, patients who had a problem with alcohol and had been prescribed either Ozempic (which is licensed for diabetes) or Wegovy (which is the same medication but for weight loss), reported there’d been an incidental reduction in their alcohol intake. This was so marked that, in follow-up, the patients’ drinking had changed to the extent that they were no longer classed as having a problem with alcohol. So how can something that helps you lose weight also stop you wanting alcohol? It’s a question that has intrigued medics and scientists. We know that these medications don’t just curb hunger, they also work on the brain’s reward pathways. This is why foods such as cake and chocolate, which stimulate these pathways, can lose their appeal for people who take one of these drugs. But these reward pathways are also involved in lots of other things, including those relating to addiction and compulsive behaviours like gambling. GLP-1 medications reduce the release of dopamine — a key chemical in reward pathways — and therefore reduce the buzz people get from previously ‘rewarding’ behaviours such as over-drinking. I have great hopes for these drugs.
For now, though, they are incredibly helpful for those who struggle to control their food intake and are overweight or obese — particularly, I think, those who use food as ‘reward’.
I think such drugs hold the key to helping people finally get on top of their weight and improve their relationship with food.
As a doctor, I feel so passionately about this that, last week, I launched a start-up that offers this medication as part of an online weight management programme. Patients complete an online consultation and, if eligible for the programme, they will be sent semaglutide directly to their door.
Setting this company up has been a real labour of love. There are (quite rightly) lots of regulations around prescribing over the internet and we wanted to ensure that we were fully compliant. There have been a lot of hoops to jump through.
But I think it’s been worth it, because if we can help people improve their relationship with food, their physical and mental health will improve too.
Lots of people really struggle to lose weight through dieting and exercise alone — but until now we had little else to suggest.
THE King is said to be finding peace among 5,000 ‘healing yew trees’ on his estate following his cancer diagnosis. Connecting with nature has been shown to help people feel brighter, less anxious, aid relaxation and provide them with something to focus on outside their diagnosis and treatment.