Wendy Haaf answers your questions about health, nutrition, and well-being
What’s all the hype about Ozempic? Should I be concerned? I’ve been taking it for a year for my diabetes.
Given the press—both positive and negative—Ozempic has received, it’s understandable that people might be confused.
This medication (semaglutide) and others in the same class—GLP-1 receptor agonists—are generating legitimate excitement, according to Dr. Stewart Harris, medical director of the Primary Care Diabetes Support Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London (in London, Ont.) and a professor and Diabetes Canada Chair in Diabetes Management at Western university’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
“Semaglutide is game-changing for three reasons,” he says. First, “it’s very effective for treating type 2 diabetes [T2D].” Then there’s the drug’s effect on the twofold increased likelihood of developing and dying from cardiovascular disease that comes with T2D. Randomized controlled trials have shown over and over that this class of drugs reduces the risk for heart attack, stroke, and death from heart disease, he says. In one 2016 study, for instance, Ozempic was linked with a 26 per cent reduc- tion of such major adverse cardiac events over two years. This is why guidelines recommend considering Ozempic or a similar drug for people with T2D who have cardiovascular disease, “even if their diabetes is in good control,” Harris says.
Finally—and perhaps the main reason for all the hype—because it suppresses appetite, “semaglutide facilitates weight loss that is not insignificant,” according to Harris.
“It can be five to 10 per cent of body weight.” However, Health Canada has not approved the drug for treating obesity.
Like all medications, semaglutide can have side effects—mainly gastrointestinal issues such as nausea and vomiting. Consequently, “some people cannot tolerate it and some can tolerate it only at a low dose, so you have to be careful,” Harris explains. In trials, roughly five to 10 per cent of people fell into that first category and another five to
20 per cent fell into the second. according to Harris, the much bigger problem is that Ozempic is “being prescribed without appropriate clinical care in lots of circumstances.”
For example, to minimize side effects, ideally “we start with a low dose” and increase it slowly, he says. “We educate as we prescribe, and we monitor.” (If you’ve been taking the same dose of medication for a year without problems, you’re not likely to suddenly develop side effects.)
In addition, prescribing doctors and pharmacists can help patients navigate global shortages of Ozempic—a problem that will hopefully be resolved later this year.
Supply issues aside, Ozempic represents a significant step forward in diabetes treatment, and it’s just the first trickle in a burgeoning torrent. “There’s a whole bunch of drugs in this class coming, each more potent than the last,” Harris says. “It’s a very rich pipeline.”
