Search Here

Weight loss drugs are basking in the spotlight nowadays after Hollywood and many other personalities have come out to credit them for their rapid body transformations. Among these medications is Wegovy, Ozempic's sibling drug that isn't strictly prescribed for diabetes patients.

However, there is growing concern about the effectiveness of Wegovy, as many fear that its promised weight loss effect may have an expiration. A recently published large and long-term trial is shedding light on the issue after reporting that people who used the semaglutide drug lost weight for the first 65 weeks or one year and three months before hitting a plateau.

The researchers called the plateau the "set point" since this is when patients start to notice minimal to no weight loss at all. Despite this, however, they said that early weight loss was guaranteed for up to four years as long as the patients continued taking the weekly doses of Wegovy. Beyond this point, it's not clear how long the weight loss will last once patients stop taking the injectable drug, according to Wired.

Per the drug's website, Wegovy is effective when used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity. It is said to guarantee weight loss and help keep it off. But there's no mention of its effect regressing when patients no longer take the drug.

Additionally, Wegovy's official website says it's been approved to lower the risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attack, stroke, and early death. However, it also warns that the medicine is not free from serious side effects, such as thyroid tumors and cancer.

Despite the risks, many are drawn to it after seeing what Wegovy, Ozempic and similar drugs did to celebs like Kelly Clarkson, Tori Spelling, Mama June, Tracy Morgan, Whoopi Goldberg, and Oprah Winfrey, among others.

The recent study, published in Nature Medicine, focused on the weight loss trajectories and endpoints of 17,604 participants from 41 countries. At least 72% of them were male, 84% were white, and the average age of the participants was 62 years old.

The research team found that on average, people taking semaglutide lost 10.2% of their weight. On the other hand, the placebo group lost 1.5%, showing an 8.7% difference in their outcomes. They also noted that those who took the drug recorded meaningful weight loss regardless of their sex, body size, and geographic location.

Even though the study appears promising for those who want to lose weight fast, Wired cautioned that the study mostly enrolled older white males. Thus, the findings could not be generalizable. Additionally, for now, there's still no solid data on how long Wegovy's effect could last once people stop taking the drug.