Wegovy & Ozempic: The Disturbing Hollywood Diet Drug Craze

Wegovy and Ozempic have been used by celebrities like Elon Musk, Khloe Kardashian, Amy Schumer, and Chelsea Handler as part of their journey to look thinner and lose weight. There are major side effects that many people aren't aware of and long-term safety issues.

Inflammation of the pancreas, gallbladder problems, blocked intestines, kidney disorders, serious allergic reactions, increased heart rate, Suicidal thoughts, and changes in vision, you're not just losing body fat, you're losing muscle mass. Your digestive system is the gateway to the health of the rest of your body. Hey, welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Josh Axe.

I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the founder of draxe.com, ancientnutrition.com, and leaders.com. Each and every week, I cover the science behind how to grow yourself. Your health, and so much more. And this week I'm talking about a weight loss drug called Ozempic and another one called Wegovy.

These are weight loss drugs that were prior diabetes drugs, and these have exploded in popularity thanks to celebrity endorsements and promising results. But here's the big thing. There are major side effects that many people aren't aware of and long-term safety issues. Now, as I mentioned, Ozempic and Wegovy are injectable prescription medications used to treat type 2 diabetes.

However, they're also now marketed as weight loss drugs. And the active ingredients known as a semaglutide, known as GLP-1 agonist, or a GLP-1 agonist, works by triggering insulin release similar to your pancreas. Your pancreas releases insulin, blocking sugar production in your liver and making you feel full. Full. So that's the biggest thing.

People are feeling full after they take this injection. Now, essentially, you develop a decreased appetite and the drug slows down the emptying of your stomach. So people feel less hungry and eat less. Now, in 2021, the FDA approved semaglutide for weight management for patients with or without diabetes.

Wegovy and Ozempic have been used by celebrities like Elon Musk, Khloe Kardashian, Amy Schumer, and Chelsea Handler as part of their journey to look thinner and lose weight. Now, this has made the product, which was initially created for just diabetics, a hot commodity for anyone and everyone who's looking to lose weight fast.

In fact, the pharmaceutical sale predictions for this drug in 2023 is a whopping $12.5 billion, and Ozempic demonstrated a sales growth of 23% this past year in the company expects sales to grow another 30% this year. Now, demand for Wegovy and Ozempic is climbing faster than even the supply chain can keep up with.

In fact, the drugmaker CEO has stated that it could take several years before the shortages. And since the demand is so high and with such an increase in this drug, we're just now coming to realize because this drug is so new to the market specifically for weight loss, we're just now learning of the side effects. So one of the first side effects of Ozempic and Wegovy are gastrointestinal issues.

Here are some of the issues a small number of people are experiencing: inflammation of the pancreas, gallbladder problems, blocked intestines, kidney disorders, serious allergic reactions, increased heart rate, suicidal thoughts, and changes in vision.

And people prescribed semaglutide, which is the active ingredient in medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, have a higher risk of developing rare but serious gastrointestinal conditions such as stomach paralysis. Now, listen, I want to be— I want to be transparent here. The number of people— it is a low percentage of people that are having these side effects, but still some people are.

And I think it's important to note that we understand how these drugs work. Again, it makes you feel full, more full, but the big thing is your stomach empties out more slowly. Now, it's known in natural medicine that if your digestive system is not moving very quickly, basically you are decreasing your detoxification capabilities of your digestive system.

Also, you increase your risk of conditions like SIBO. That stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So while this medication may actually help your body lose weight, it actually is causing disease to build up in your digestive system. Now, another surprising side effect of Ozempic is this: many people initially lose muscle mass and fat.

So here's the big thing: you're not just losing body fat, you're losing muscle mass. It was causing something in some patients called sarcopenia, which is a loss in muscle mass often associated with age. So in a way, it's causing your body from a muscular standpoint to age. And muscle in a way is an organ that supports longevity.

Think about it, if somebody ages, one sign that they are healthy is they've maintained muscle mass. It also keeps people's bones from breaking. It makes them look more fit and healthy. And so again, we're seeing people not only lose muscle mass, but they're losing an equal amount of of muscle mass along with body fat.

Now, another side effect of Ozempic and Wegovy, these new weight loss drugs, are something we call facial aging. We're seeing people have more loose and sagging skin and aging skin in many areas of their body, specifically their face. And people using Ozempic have taken to social media to share their stories. In fact, TikTok alone has wrangled 2.3 million views for posts with #OzempicFace.

Many users are complaining that their faces look old and gaunt due to the fat loss and muscle loss in their face. And rapid weight loss affects your skin's elasticity. Losing fat tissue and muscle tissue can make your skin look less full And more saggy. And so we're seeing— again, think about it, you're taking something that you would hope would help you, right?

But people are just doing this for vanity because while again it's making them look thinner, they're losing muscle mass throughout their entire body. They're looking more gaunt and more aged. And so there are definite side effects. So now I want to compare this weight loss drug and Wegovy and Ozempic to another weight loss drug called bupropion-naltrexone.

And patients on these GLP-1 agonists, which is the Wegovy and Ozempic, are 9 times at a higher risk of pancreatitis, 4 times higher risk of bowel obstruction, and 3 times higher risk of stomach paralysis. So we're seeing here pancreas, that's your digestive system and blood sugar. Bowel, that's obviously your digestive system. That's where your probiotics live.

Stomach, obviously part of the digestive system. We are seeing many more damaging side effects when you take this weight loss drug compared to others. Remember, your digestive system is the gateway to the health of the rest of your body. If you're not absorbing nutrients properly and your digestive system is not in a healthy state, it's going to cause side effects throughout the rest of your body.

And these conditions limit the passage of food from the stomach to the small intestine and then to the colon and result in symptoms like vomiting, nausea, and abdominal pain. Now, again, I wanna let you know, only a small percentage of people are noticing these side effects or being hospitalized with issues like blockages of the stomach and colon. Most people don't realize this with medications.

They think to themselves, well, if I don't have a major side effect, Then it's not doing my body any harm. And that's simply not true. We know that for sure you're losing muscle mass according to these studies, and that is definitely doing your body harm and likely will long term.

And we know even if it only damages your digestive system by 20%, where you don't notice symptoms now, uh, you might notice them 10 years from now. It's like smoking. Well, I just smoked for 5 years when I was younger, but then I quit. And, you know, and I, within 5 years I didn't have lung cancer. Yeah. But what is it gonna do to your body when you created that level of damage?

When your body is in your 60s or 70s or later on in life, those things catch up to you. It's like, have you ever had a, an injury from a sports injury from high school or college? Like for myself, I remember, you know, injuring my ankle really badly. You know what? I still feel that ankle. I didn't feel it actually for 10 years after, but I hit my 40s. Then I started feeling it.

That's how more people need to think about the side effects of medications and other things we can do that harm our health when we're younger. Now, study authors note that these problems are not mild. Bowel obstructions, for example, can be medical emergencies.

And although these side effects are rare, the study's authors said because millions of people around the world use these drugs, it could lead to hundreds of thousands of— hundreds of thousands of people experiencing these conditions. In summary, here's what you need to know. Wegovy and Ozempic may help some people struggling with obesity in the short term. It may help them lose weight.

But these are serious side effects that celebrities are not telling you about. Lifestyle changes like improving your diet and nutritional habits, increasing physical activity, reducing stress, and getting enough sleep remain the healthiest approach for sustainable weight loss management and to burn fat the healthy way. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

So, hey, leave a comment in the video section here and let me know your thoughts on weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. And I want to mention this. If you are a person watching this and you want to lose weight the healthy way, here's what I'd recommend. Number one, you want to balance your blood sugar the way you eat your food. Your diet should consist mostly of Organic meat and vegetables.

If you can eat mostly organic meat and vegetables, that's the ideal. That's the, that's the bulk of your diet. And then a small amount of healthy fat from things like coconut, and then some low glycemic, nutrient-dense berries like blueberries and raspberries and blackberries and strawberries.

That's a good— but if you really keep that as the mainstay of your diet, and then here and there, hey, you maybe have some rice and oatmeal and quinoa, you have some healthy grains and Some other healthy fat and dark chocolate, that's fine as well. But again, that's, that's the best diet. Meat, vegetables, meat, vegetables, meat, vegetables throughout the day as much as you can.

And then getting calories, a lot of protein, 30 to 50 grams per meal. That, that's what an ideal weight loss diet looks like. For breakfast, you're going to have maybe a collagen smoothie with, you know, collagen protein and a plant protein. So 40 grams of protein, a little bit of coconut milk or water and some berries, half a cup or full cup. That's your breakfast.

For lunch, maybe you do a grass-fed burger with— or maybe a big salad with chicken. And for dinner, you're doing a grass-fed burger with loads of vegetables and an avocado. And for dessert, you're doing dark chocolate. Like, if you follow a diet like that, you will lose weight quickly.

And then for exercise, even if you just walked 20 minutes twice a day, just go on a walk, or just once a day, just get out and move regularly. Now, if you can lift weights, the most effective way to exercise and lose weight is, is to weight train for 30 minutes and do interval cardio for 15 minutes. And if you worked out 45 minutes, 3 days a week, it would help you lose weight.

And then for cravings, probiotics can help a little bit, chromium can help a little bit. But generally, if you just ate cleaner and exercised, it would really help you in losing weight and help others. So again, hey, let me know your thoughts about these weight loss drugs in the comments section. People need to know the truth.

And if you have a friend you know who is on one of these drugs, please share this video with them so they're at least educated on the truth of the side effects of these weight loss medications. Hey guys, thanks so much for watching another episode of the Growth Lab Podcast. Hey, if you haven't watched some of our previous episodes, you've got to watch them.

I did an episode on the side effects of things regarding myocarditis. We talked about— I did an interview with— Carrie Underwood. We've got one coming up with Dave Ramsey, Vonnie Hari. We have some amazing interviews coming up as well with people like Will Cole and Tim Tebow and Max Lugavere. So again, hey, don't miss out. Subscribe. Thank you everyone who's sharing this information.

I'll see you here on the next show.