If medicine works, no need to change

I don’t expect to get yesterday’s medicine. If I can help it I’d like to get tomorrow’s medicine.

— Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010) ROSEMARY BOGGS

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see a commercial on TV about a new medication hitting the market. Whether it’s for psoriasis, smoking cessation, an overactive bladder or diabetes, the possibility that the medication might help is a big thing.

I don’t have to deal with psoriasis or bladder problems, but the diabetes meds pique my interest. Unfortunately, the new stuff can also be the expensive. And sometimes, newer isn’t always better.

I saw some information about a diabetes drug from Novo Nordisk — Ozempic. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and should be available in stores by now.

I went online and found the website diaTribe Lean (diatribe.org), a patient-focused online publication whose tagline is “Making Sense of Diabetes.” It has its work cut out for itself. The website covers a wide variety of topics related to diabetes, and many on its team have diabetes.

The site has an informative article on Ozempic, a once-weekly injectable medication that demonstrated significant A1c reductions in clinical trials. The main concern mentioned was a slightly higher rate of retinopathy or eye damage observed in the trial participants. The FDA addressed this problem by ordering the maker to put a warning on the drug’s label; many insulins feature this type of warning too.

Weight loss could be a side effect, but it’s not being marketed as a weight-loss drug. And there are clinical trials being done on a pill version of Ozempic.

I contacted the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and was put in touch with Dr. Irina Lendel who says that semaglutide, with the brand name Ozempic, belongs to a group of medications for diabetes called GLP-1 receptor agonists.

GLP-1 is a glucagon-like peptide hormone produced in the small bowel in response to a meal. It stimulates insulin synthesis and secretion. As an agonist, Ozempic creates a biological response to help lower glucose through improved insulin secretion, slowed gastric emptying and decreased appetite and food intake.

Ozempic is injected under the skin of your stomach, thigh or upper arm, and it is not to be mixed with insulin in the same injection. Possible side effects include pancreatitis, changes in vision, low blood sugar, kidney failure and serious allergic reactions. The most common ones are nausea, stomach pain and bodily function problems.

Ozempic is not recommended as the first choice of medicine for treating diabetes and is not a substitute for insulin, or for use in people with Type 1 diabetes or people with diabetic ketoacidosis, which is when you have had very high blood sugars for way too long.

According to the website GoodRx.com, Ozempic costs about $750 to $770 a month. As with other pharmaceutical companies, Novo Nordisk offers a savings card that lets consumers with insurance pay as little as $25 per prescription. For information on the drug, see novocare.com or call (877) 304-6855. You may also be able to get samples from your doctor, although Lendel says her clinic has no patients on Ozempic.

I in no way endorse or recommend this medication, I just think it’s interesting how many options there are on the market and how confusing it can be to make sense of all the information.