A drug designed to treat type 2 diabetes and which can lead to significant weight loss in a short time is causing a stir on social media. On TikTok as on Facebook, stories about Ozempic are multiplying, most often ignoring the undesirable side effects of this injectable drug.
Its most common side effects are nausea, vomiting, constipation and severe diarrhea. And they are sometimes so intense that they push some patients to abandon treatment, indicates a Montreal specialist in endocrinology.
This doctor requested anonymity by speaking to the To have tobecause she prescribes Ozempic for weight loss, a use that is not indicated by Health Canada. “Ozempic is in a gray area”, she explains, because the use for this purpose of a drug in all respects identical, Wegovy, was approved by the federal authorities in 2021. The latter will not be on the other hand marketed only as from this autumn.
This is why doctors like this endocrinologist prescribe Ozempic off-label, a legal practice, but which follows “very strict measures”, she specifies. The doctor also insists with her patients on the importance of the risks associated with her prescription. “Ozempic is not like a diet for a few weeks. […] Patients who have no symptoms, I have rarely seen that, ”she says.
Ozempic is so used to control obesity that a shortage of the drug recently hit Australia. However, Quebec is not in a similar situation, learned The duty.
“I never thought it was going to go viral,” says Pascal Chrétien. This 46-year-old entrepreneur published a video on TikTok last May in which he explains that he lost around thirty kilos in nine months thanks to Ozempic, he who had a body mass index of 37 (severe obesity).
His publication, with more than 100,000 views, and those that followed now attract dozens of messages from Internet users seeking advice. The messages he receives concern the dosage of Ozempic, its side effects or its coverage by insurance plans. Questions that “must be asked of a doctor,” says Mr. Chrétien. Some Internet users go so far as to ask him which doctor to consult in order to obtain a prescription.
“People are looking for easy solutions,” he says. A woman has also told him of her wish to lose a few pounds for her wedding.
This is also an observation made by the moderator of a Facebook group supporting Ozempic users, who requested anonymity for reasons of confidentiality. The group she founded in 2019 gave her a front-row seat to the growing popularity of the drug. According to her, it has acquired the reputation of a miracle cure, especially among people who hope to lose weight.
On a few occasions, she found netizens desperately looking for a clinic to get a prescription. She also reports the case of a Frenchwoman who claimed to sell Ozempic pens on the black market. “It’s sad to see someone who has 10 pounds to lose come and take a drug designed for people who need it,” she laments.
“We show too much of the good side of this drug and not enough of the side effects,” she adds. Indeed, the one who took Ozempic for two and a half years to lose weight and fight her insulin resistance had to deal with severe fatigue and an olfactory disturbance which led her to stop the treatment. “It’s not an easy method. It is not nothing, to take that. »
Popularity and backlash
The craze for this drug has had major repercussions in Australia. Last April, the manufacturer of Ozempic, Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, warned the country’s drug regulatory agency (the Therapeutics Goods Agency) of a potential shortage that could stretch until the end of the summer. Then, in May, the TGA announced that it was “prioritizing” giving the drug to people with type 2 diabetes.
According to the Australian agency, an unexpected increase in demand and prescription of the drug is in question. Also in May, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners asked its members to exercise restraint on off-label prescriptions for Ozempic — prescriptions for off-label use, such as weight management — in order to provide diabetic care.
In Quebec, the situation is not as worrying, according to the president of the Professional Council of Diabetes Quebec, Dr.r Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret. Demand for Ozempic, which has grown steadily since its approval by Health Canada in 2018, remains sustainable to this day. Data from the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) obtained by The duty show that the number of people with a prescription, for all reasons, has increased from 3 in 2018 to 36,500 today.
According to him, Quebecers would be less likely to pay for a drug, unlike Australians, who would be more inclined to pay the $400 per month that the coveted shot costs. The RAMQ only reimburses Ozempic in certain specific cases of type 2 diabetes.
This endocrinologist from the Montreal Clinical Research Institute, however, calls for caution when the time comes to predict the evolution of the situation. According to him, the combined effects of social networks and advertisements of the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk are “not insignificant”.
“I haven’t seen a lot of it in my career, but it’s one of the drugs where the patient comes into the office saying, ‘I want this.’ Usually to convince someone to inject [un traitement], you have to use a lot of saliva. It’s a surprise to see a patient say, “I wish I had that medicine.” »
A boiling science
Ozempic is not the only treatment to be so effective for weight loss. Several laboratories are interested in GLP-1 receptor agonists — a wide range of molecules that act on the intestine and pancreas to increase insulin secretion and send satiety signals to the brain.
“These molecules are in the crosshairs these days. Science is really in turmoil,” says Alexandre Caron, professor of pharmacology at Université Laval.
While the first treatments, designed more than 10 years ago, resulted in weight loss of around 5%, the most recent, such as Ozempic, would reach the 15% mark, according to the manufacturer Novo Nordisk. A Chinese meta-analysis carried out in 2021 rather concludes that the weight loss caused by Ozempic would be around 11%.
According to Professor Caron, this performance is comparable to that of bariatric surgery, while being less intrusive. He sees a game changer for people with obesity, but reminds us that it is not a “magic pill”. The Dr Rabasa-Lhoret believes that this type of drug is above all an “additional tool in the doctor’s arsenal”, which could promote the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits.
Like the Ozempic users encountered by The duty, the two researchers also deplore the fact that obesity continues to be stigmatized in our country. “Quebec remains the only province not to recognize obesity as a chronic disease,” recalls Professor Caron.