Prescriptions for weight reduction medicines have skyrocketed lately. By the top of 2024, the market valuation is anticipated to develop to a whopping $21.09 billion.1 Right now, one of the crucial well-liked choices are GLP-1 agonist medication which can be bought beneath two names, Ozempic and Wegovy. Each are from the Novo Nordisk drug firm — Ozempic is bought as a diabetes drug, whereas higher-dose Wegovy is authorized for weight reduction.2
The recognition of GLP-1 agonist medication for weight administration has boomed lately, and it exhibits — fairly actually. Right now, extra customers are battling a facet impact dubbed the “Ozempic face”3 — a situation that happens when an individual loses an excessive amount of facial fats, resulting in a hollowed, gaunt look, on account of taking these medication.4
How Do GLP-1 Mimetics Work?
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists work by boosting the hormone GLP-1. The drug was first authorized in 2017 to handle blood sugar ranges in diabetics, and, in 2021, the FDA authorized Wegovy to handle weight problems.5 Semaglutide is the energetic ingredient in each.
Your physique naturally makes GLP-1 within the small intestines,6 and its main operate is to decelerate digestion, improve satiety, block glucagon secretion (a hormone used to manage blood sugar ranges) and set off the pancreas to launch insulin.7
When used as an injectable medicine, semaglutide mimics the hormone, so the medicine binds to the receptor and triggers the identical results. In consequence, the passage of meals via your abdomen slows down, making you are feeling fuller longer. Based on an article printed in El Pais:8
“Ozempic offers the sensation of being eternally full, with the intention to say goodbye to snacking, and be glad with smaller parts of meals. Quickly, although, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation can seem. After a couple of months, the ‘Ozempic face’ might present up within the type of prematurely aged pores and skin.”
Trims Inches Off the Waist, however Provides Years to Your Face
If you take semaglutide, it doesn’t simply trigger you to shed fats from particular physique downside areas; it might additionally deplete your facial fats leading to misplaced quantity.9 When your physique slims down very quickly, the elasticity of your pores and skin, particularly on the face, might be severely affected.10 The outcome — sunken eyes, superb strains, indents and wrinkles, drooping cheeks, sagging pores and skin (together with beneath the chin) and adjustments within the dimension of the lips and chin.11,12
Semaglutide has helped some to slim down, however at the price of ageing pores and skin, notably in your face. In a Forbes article, Mojgan Hosseinipour, D.O., a board-certified dermatologist, says, “Subcutaneous facial fats gives structural assist; with quantity loss, there may be an accelerated aged look of the face with noticeable strains and wrinkles.”13
These bodily results could also be extra obvious in individuals with skinny faces who’ve skilled drastic weight reduction. Aesthetic physician, Mar Mira, explains in an El Pais article:14
“[I]n obese or overweight sufferers, weight reduction doesn’t normally lead to important facial skeletonization.
Nonetheless, shadows beneath the cheeks could also be accentuated by reabsorption of fats compartments, and facial flaccidity can develop into extra pronounced across the jowls and jaw line as a result of lack of temporal and preauricular fats compartments, that are normally the primary to be reabsorbed through the getting old course of.”
Skincare Firms Are Taking Benefit of the Ozempic Face
A 2023 research15 notes how the growing variety of individuals with Ozempic face are impacting the sphere of cosmetic surgery. Based on the researchers, “As the recognition of Ozempic grows, facial plastic surgeons should concentrate on each the impression on facial look and perioperative concerns.”
The research additionally mentions that strategies like dermal fillers, pores and skin tightening strategies and surgical procedure could also be wanted to handle extra pores and skin and restore a affected person’s facial quantity. This has prompted some skincare corporations to arrange for the surge of people that might wish to deal with the getting old results brought on by Ozempic.
In a Bloomberg article, skincare agency Galderma’s CEO Flemming Ornskov mentioned their Sculptra pores and skin therapy, which boosts collagen manufacturing, and different fillers may also help “restore” sufferers’ facial options.16
Some physicians have additionally commented on the adjustments they see amongst individuals who took Ozempic. In an article printed in Attract, Julius Few, MD, a Chicago-based, board-certified plastic surgeon, says, “I’ve seen various sufferers for facelifts who’re on Ozempic, and the best way their tissue behaves shouldn’t be the identical. The pores and skin has extra of a doughy consistency.”
What’s extra, Few feedback that individuals of their 20s and 30s are actually going past fillers — they’re additionally inquiring about procedures like facelifts, that are normally tailor-made for these over 50 years previous.17
Ozempic’s Aspect Results Can Be Alarming
However other than the facial adjustments, Ozempic and different GLP-1 medication can produce other extra disturbing unintended effects. A Girl’s World journal article,18 for instance, demonstrated the drastic weight reduction that Sharon Osbourne underwent after taking Ozempic. The 70-year-old TV character misplaced a whopping 42 kilos.
The change to her facial look is noticeable and has develop into one of the crucial startling examples of the Ozempic face. Nonetheless, the article quotes an interview with Piers Morgan that Osbourne did again in September 2023, the place she additional shared her disagreeable expertise after utilizing the drug:20
“At first, I imply, you are feeling nauseous. You don’t throw up bodily, however you’ve obtained that feeling. It was about two, three weeks the place I felt nauseous the entire time. You get very thirsty and also you don’t wish to eat. That’s it.
You possibly can’t keep on it eternally. I misplaced 42 kilos now and it’s simply sufficient. I didn’t really wish to go this skinny, nevertheless it simply occurred, and I’ll in all probability put all of it on once more quickly.”
Actuality TV character Scott Disick has additionally spoken up about his dramatic weight reduction courtesy of Ozempic, and that he’s “looking for assist” to get off the drug after followers raised their issues over his alarming transformation, together with his gaunt face and sunken eyes. He has stopped taking the drug and is now working with a nutritionist to handle his weight.21
Others who’ve been prescribed GLP-1 agonist medication to handle different well being points have additionally spoken up in regards to the nasty results of Ozempic. In a Right now article,23 hospital employee Jeannine DellaVecchia mentioned she took the drug to “deal with signs associated to insulin resistance brought on by congenital adrenal hyperplasia and polycystic ovary syndrome.”
Regardless of shedding 30 kilos, she opted to cease utilizing Ozempic as a result of the unintended effects have been “simply an excessive amount of.” Apart from the noticeable facial adjustments, DellaVecchia additionally struggled with urge for food loss, nausea and vomiting.24
Utilizing Weight Loss Medicine Can Have Disastrous Penalties on Your Intestine Well being
The issue with GLP-1 agonists is that in the event that they trigger meals passage to gradual an excessive amount of, it might result in well being points, notably gastrointestinal issues. One 2023 research26 famous that people who find themselves taking GLP-1 agonists had an elevated danger of pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and gastroparesis (abdomen paralysis).
A research27 utilizing knowledge from Eudravigilance, Europe’s system for analyzing hostile reactions to medicines, additionally discovered that apart from gastrointestinal issues, metabolic, dietary, eye, renal, urinary and cardiac issues additionally occurred in individuals who took semaglutide.
One research notes28 the consequences on the kidneys happen extra typically in individuals who even have hostile gastrointestinal issues when taking the drug. And, as with DellaVecchia’s expertise famous above, many individuals developed “cyclic-vomiting syndrome” — a situation the place an individual vomits a number of instances in a day. Based on a CNN article:29
“Emily Wright, 38, a trainer in Toronto, began taking Ozempic in 2018. Over a yr, she mentioned, she misplaced 80 kilos, which she’s been capable of maintain off. However Wright mentioned she now vomits so regularly that she needed to take a go away of absence from her job. ‘I’ve virtually been off Ozempic for a yr, however I’m nonetheless not again to my regular,’ Wright mentioned.”
As an alternative of Ozempic, Improve Your GLP-1 Naturally With Akkermansia
Taking medicines to drop some pounds is one solution to endanger your well being. Ozempic was designed as a long-term drug. In different phrases, to keep up your weight reduction, you have to keep on the drug. One research30 discovered {that a} yr after stopping semaglutide, members gained again two-thirds of the load they misplaced — a situation referred to as the “Ozempic rebound.”31
As an alternative of counting on GLP-1 agonists, take into account colonizing your intestine with Akkermansia muciniphila to spice up your GLP-1 ranges naturally. Akkermansia is a kind of bacterium that naturally secretes a GLP-1-inducing protein, which raises systemic ranges of GLP-1. Analysis32 confirms its potential to enhance glucose homeostasis and ameliorate metabolic illness via this mechanism. Based on the researchers:33
“A. muciniphila will increase thermogenesis and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion … by induction of uncoupling protein 1 in brown adipose tissue and systemic GLP-1 secretion … [An] 84 kDa protein, named P9 … is secreted by A. muciniphila. [We] present that purified P9 alone is adequate to induce GLP-1 secretion …”
Tips on how to Restructure Your Microbiome
Akkermansia, extremely useful micro organism in your massive gut, performs an important position in sustaining intestine well being and will represent about 10% of the intestine microbiome. Nonetheless, it’s absent in lots of people, doubtless on account of insufficient mitochondrial operate and resultant oxygen leakage within the intestine.
Consuming meals that assist Akkermansia, reminiscent of polyphenol-rich fruit, and different useful micro organism, and avoiding meals like linoleic acid — present in vegetable and seed oils in most processed meals — that destroy these micro organism, will assist to restructure your microbiome in a constructive method. You may also use an Akkermansia probiotic complement.
One of many causes Akkermansia is so essential is as a result of it produces mucin, a thick, protecting gel-like substance that strains numerous elements of the physique, together with the gastrointestinal tract. Mucin types a protecting barrier on the intestine lining, shielding the epithelial cells of the intestinal wall from mechanical harm, chemical irritation from abdomen acids and digestive enzymes, and pathogenic organisms like micro organism and viruses.
Mucin additionally helps the immune system by trapping potential pathogens and different international particles, that are then expelled from the physique via the digestive course of. It additionally accommodates antibodies and antimicrobial peptides that assist struggle off infections.
Lastly, mucin serves as a meals supply for different useful intestine micro organism. This relationship is crucial for digestive well being, because the micro organism fed by Akkermansia help in digestion, produce important vitamins and assist keep an total stability of intestine flora.
Avoiding Linoleic Acid Can Assist With Weight Administration
The abundance of linoleic acid (LA) in our weight loss program is another excuse why many are battling weight problems or are obese. This omega-6 fats is present in seed oils like sunflower, soybean, rapeseed (canola), cottonseed, corn and safflower, and decreasing your consumption may also help assist a wholesome weight.
Be sure that to keep away from all processed meals, as these additionally include excessive quantities of LA, in addition to grain-fed hen and pork. Ideally, reduce your LA consumption right down to under 5 grams per day, which is near what our ancestors used to get earlier than continual well being circumstances grew to become widespread.
LA is present in almost all ultraprocessed meals, quick meals and restaurant meals as nicely. For this reason it’s finest to arrange the vast majority of your meals at residence. For extra info on linoleic acid, learn my article “Linoleic Acid — The Most Harmful Ingredient in Your Food plan.”
