Drugs like Ozempic are popular for weight loss. That’s because there’s been little other help: obesity doctors – CBC
New data also shows a reduced rate of cardiovascular problems in some patients
Nov 16, 2023
Despite widely publicized reports of rare but severe side effects, obesity doctors say Ozempic and drugs like it have the potential to improve medical help for a chronic illness that patients have been forced for too long to try to cure on their own.
“There are still some aspects of our health-care community that say, ‘this is not important, weight loss is not important; it’s just cosmetic and you’re really not improving the health of these people,'” said Dr. Daniel Drucker, a physician-scientist whose research helped pave the way for Ozempic, one of several brand names for a drug known as semaglutide. “But now I think that argument will be laid to rest.”
Ozempic and other drugs in its class are known as glucagon-like peptides, or GLPs. Because GLPs act to stimulate insulin secretion, the first was approved for use as a diabetes drug in 2005, said Drucker, who is a senior scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/ozempic-weight-loss-obesity-1.7029033
