Ozempic, Wegovy, and its cousins have become the pharmaceutical darlings of the 2020s. These drugs help people lose substantially more weight than diet and exercise alone, while studies have begun to find that their benefits may extend even further. But what exactly makes them tick, and why do they seem to affect so many different aspects of our health? The connection between poorer health and higher weight has always been more complicated than commonly portrayed.
But people living with obesity do face a greater risk of some health problems, and many people do want to lose weight for understandable reasons, such as being able to walk with less knee pain or to sleep more soundly without apnea . Unfortunately, as most anyone who’s tried to trim the pounds can tell you, it’s incredibly difficult to lose a large amount of weight and to keep it off over the long term. The advent of Ozempic and its ilk has significantly changed that reality, but despite their effectiveness, there’s still lots of misconceptions and mysteries surrounding how these drugs work.
Potent mimics The active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy is semaglutide, which formally belongs to a group of drugs known as glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1RAs for short. GLP-1 is one of several hormones that play a key role in regulating our metabolism and hunger. It accomplishes this through several mechanisms.
When we eat, for instance, our blood sugar begins to increase. In respons.