
Since diet and exercise alone are often not effective, and surgery is not desired or recommended for many people, the development and use of ‘weight loss’ drugs has grown. While some of these drugs have been shown to be helpful, they are still not quite doing the job. Recently, a new drug to help lose weight has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – called semaglutide.
Since diet and exercise alone are often not effective, and surgery is not desired or recommended for many people, the development and use of ‘weight loss’ drugs has grown. While some of these drugs have been shown to be helpful, they are still not quite doing the job. Recently, a new drug to help lose weight has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – called semaglutide.
Semaglutide is the actual name of the drug marketed as “Wegovy”. It is an injectable drug that is taken once a week, under a doctor’s supervision. Wegovy acts basically as an appetite suppressant, helping the patient to eat less and follow a proper diet. The drug was first used in treating people with diabetes and now has been repurposed for weight loss purposes for treating people with obesity in general.
This repurposed version, Wegovy, uses a stronger strength of the drug than before. After verified clinical studies, it was shown to be very effective in helping people to lose significant amounts of weight and with minimal side effects. After this, it was approved by the FDA.
This drug is intended for people who are medically considered to be obese. It is not meant to be a universal weight loss drug. The measure used for determining being medically/clinically obese is what your Body Mass Index (BMI) is. To be approved to take Wegovy your BMI has to be 30 or more, unless you have a weight related medical condition – such as diabetes and high blood pressure – then you qualify with a BMI of 27 or higher.
Wegovy must be introduced gradually into your body, so the effectiveness and results come over time. This is the case because the drug has a common side effect of causing problems like nausea, diarrhea and stomach pain. These side effects are minimized by starting with a low dose and gradually increasing it. The drug is taken via an injection on a weekly basis. For most patients, the drug will need to be taken on a long term basis.
People who use this drug are able to feel full faster and with smaller portions and thus they are less hungry and eat less, which induces weight loss.
In a 68-week long scientifically-controlled medical trial of nearly 2,000 participants, each with a body mass index of at least 27, the semaglutide group had an average weight loss of nearly 15% versus only 2.4% in the placebo group.
Semaglutide seems to produce more weight loss than has been seen with any of the other currently available weight loss drugs. In comparison, average weight loss with other medications is 4% to 11%.
The mean-average weight loss in the trial group that received semaglutide was almost 15%. So, if you weigh 200 pounds, you might expect to lose 30 pounds by using this drug combined with a healthy diet and reasonable exercise/physical activity.
Besides the side effects mentioned above, people with thyroid, pancreas or gallbladder conditions should be careful in using this drug. It should be noted that this is drug is not a “magic bullet”- it must be used in conjunction with a proper diet and exercise to be fully effective (the drug itself will however make it much easier to stick to a diet).
Unfortunately Wegovy is very expensive and is, at least not currently, covered by Medicare or most private health insurance. This might change in the near future, as the medical community is lobbying the government to cover drugs like this, because lowering obesity will lower the occurrence of health conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and other prevalent health problems.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
crumb | This cookie is set by websites that uses SquareSpace platform. The cookie is used to prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF). | |
elementor | never | This cookie is used by the website's WordPress theme. It allows the website owner to implement or change the website's content in real-time. |
gdpr_status | 6 months 2 days | This cookie is set by the provider Media.net. This cookie is used to check the status whether the user has accepted the cookie consent box. It also helps in not showing the cookie consent box upon re-entry to the website. |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
XSRF-TOKEN | session | The cookie is set by Wix website building platform on Wix website. The cookie is used for security purposes. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__gads | 1 year 24 days | This cookie is set by Google and stored under the name dounleclick.com. This cookie is used to track how many times users see a particular advert which helps in measuring the success of the campaign and calculate the revenue generated by the campaign. These cookies can only be read from the domain that it is set on so it will not track any data while browsing through another sites. |
_ga | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
_ga_XZV5DHF9VD | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. |
_gat_gtag_UA_71463705_9 | 1 minute | This cookie is set by Google and is used to distinguish users. |
_gat_UA-71463705-9 | 1 minute | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | This cookie is used by Google Analytics to understand user interaction with the website. |
_gid | 1 day | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form. |
CONSENT | 16 years 5 months 20 days 12 hours | These cookies are set via embedded youtube-videos. They register anonymous statistical data on for example how many times the video is displayed and what settings are used for playback.No sensitive data is collected unless you log in to your google account, in that case your choices are linked with your account, for example if you click “like” on a video. |
session_depth | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to store the number of pages a vistor visits in a session on the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website. |
B | 1 year | This Cookie is used by Yahoo to provide ads, contents or analytics. |
DSID | 1 hour | This cookie is setup by doubleclick.net. This cookie is used by Google to make advertising more engaging to users and are stored under doubleclick.net. It contains an encrypted unique ID. |
fr | 3 months | The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
id | 1 year | The main purpose of this cookie is targeting and advertising. It is used to create a profile of the user's interest and to show relevant ads on their site. This Cookie is set by DoubleClick which is owned by Google. |
IDE | 1 year 24 days | Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
uuid2 | 3 months | This cookies is set by AppNexus. The cookies stores information that helps in distinguishing between devices and browsers. This information us used to select advertisements served by the platform and assess the performance of the advertisement and attribute payment for those advertisements. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. |
YSC | session | This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__ib2pgses_1186_a | session | No description |
__ib2pgses_1198_a | session | No description |
__ib2pgses_1221_a | session | No description |
__ib2pgses_1253_a | session | No description |
__ib2pgses_1283_a | session | No description |
__ib2pgses_1476_a | session | No description |
__ib2vid | 1 month | No description available. |
_app_session | 1 month | No description available. |
_gfpc | session | No description available. |
A3 | 1 year | No description |
akacd_widgets_routing | past | No description available. |
ans3 | 2 days | No description |
check | 1 day | No description available. |
GoogleAdServingTest | session | No description |
L-y13n2 | 1 day | No description |
outbrain_cid_fetch | 5 minutes | No description available. |
owner_token | 1 day | No description available. |
PP-y13n2 | 1 hour | No description |
r | 7 days | No description |
recs_3e571bd1fd579a0c57cc16aa155ba54b | past | No description |
RL-y13n2 | 1 day | No description |
thirdparty | 1 hour | No description available. |
yt-remote-connected-devices | never | No description available. |
yt-remote-device-id | never | No description available. |