With the so-called wonder drugs getting so much hype, here’s a look at the negative and positive side effects of taking them. There has been meteoric demand for the weight-loss drug Wegovy since it was approved in Britain 11 months ago, fuelled by eye-popping trial results that revealed obese patients lost an average of 15 kilograms in a year – equivalent to one-and-a-half car tyres of fat. Backing from famous faces only increased the appetite for the medication, which scientists have compared to the furore around Viagra when it was approved in the late 1990s.
“I cannot think of another condition as widespread as obesity that is so intimately associated with body image and self-esteem as well as health,” says Dr Simon Cork, a senior lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University in England. “Anyone who has tried to lose weight through diet and exercise will appreciate how difficult it is, so the introduction of a safe and effective drug will of course be in demand.” However, as with any new drug, scientists are still learning about it.
As well as triggering weight loss – a result of the active ingredient semaglutide making users feel full – studies have also linked the drug with a myriad of side effects, good and bad. Dramatic drops in the risk of cancer and heart problems have been reported but so have digestive problems and blindness. Read More: ‘Ozempic babies’: Can weight-loss drugs make birth control, Plan B less effective?.
