Prescriptions for weight reduction drugs have skyrocketed in recent times. By the top of 2024, the market valuation is anticipated to develop to a whopping $21.09 billion.1 In the present day, probably the most widespread choices are GLP-1 agonist medicine which might be offered beneath two names, Ozempic and Wegovy. Each are from the Novo Nordisk drug firm — Ozempic is offered as a diabetes drug, whereas higher-dose Wegovy is accredited for weight reduction.2
The recognition of GLP-1 agonist medicine for weight administration has boomed in recent times, and it reveals — fairly actually. In the present day, extra customers are combating a aspect 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, because of taking these medicine.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 accredited in 2017 to handle blood sugar ranges in diabetics, and, in 2021, the FDA accredited Wegovy to handle weight problems.5 Semaglutide is the lively ingredient in each.
Your physique naturally makes GLP-1 within the small intestines,6 and its main perform 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 remedy, semaglutide mimics the hormone, so the remedy binds to the receptor and triggers the identical results. Because of this, the passage of meals by way of your abdomen slows down, making you’re feeling fuller longer. In keeping with an article printed in El Pais:8
“Ozempic provides the sensation of being endlessly full, so to say goodbye to snacking, and be happy with smaller parts of meals. Quickly, although, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation can seem. After a number 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
Whenever you take semaglutide, it doesn’t simply trigger you to shed fats from particular physique drawback areas; it may well 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, could be severely affected.10 The outcome — sunken eyes, fantastic traces, indents and wrinkles, drooping cheeks, sagging pores and skin (together with beneath the chin) and modifications 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 supplies structural assist; with quantity loss, there’s an accelerated aged look of the face with noticeable traces and wrinkles.”13
These bodily results could also be extra obvious in folks with skinny faces who’ve skilled drastic weight reduction. Aesthetic physician, Mar Mira, explains in an El Pais article:14
“[I]n chubby or overweight sufferers, weight reduction doesn’t often end in vital facial skeletonization.
Nevertheless, shadows beneath the cheeks could also be accentuated by reabsorption of fats compartments, and facial flaccidity can turn out to be extra pronounced across the jowls and jaw line as a result of lack of temporal and preauricular fats compartments, that are often the primary to be reabsorbed in the course of the getting older course of.”
Skincare Corporations Are Taking Benefit of the Ozempic Face
A 2023 examine15 notes how the rising variety of folks with Ozempic face are impacting the sphere of cosmetic surgery. In keeping with the researchers, “As the recognition of Ozempic grows, facial plastic surgeons should pay attention to each the impression on facial look and perioperative issues.”
The examine 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 handle the getting older results brought on by Ozempic.
In a Bloomberg article, skincare agency Galderma’s CEO Flemming Ornskov stated 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 modifications 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 plenty of sufferers for facelifts who’re on Ozempic, and the way in which their tissue behaves shouldn’t be the identical. The pores and skin has extra of a doughy consistency.”
What’s extra, Few feedback that folks of their 20s and 30s at the moment are going past fillers — they’re additionally inquiring about procedures like facelifts, that are often tailor-made for these over 50 years previous.17
Ozempic’s Facet Results Can Be Alarming
However other than the facial modifications, Ozempic and different GLP-1 medicine can produce other extra disturbing unwanted side 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 turn out to be probably the most startling examples of the Ozempic face. Nevertheless, 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’re feeling nauseous. You don’t throw up bodily, however you’ve acquired 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’ll be able to’t keep on it endlessly. I misplaced 42 kilos now and it’s simply sufficient. I didn’t truly wish to go this skinny, but it surely 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 “in search of assist” to get off the drug after followers raised their considerations 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 medicine to handle different well being points have additionally spoken up in regards to the nasty results of Ozempic. In a In the present day article,23 hospital employee Jeannine DellaVecchia stated 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 unwanted side effects had been “simply an excessive amount of.” Other than the noticeable facial modifications, DellaVecchia additionally struggled with urge for food loss, nausea and vomiting.24
Utilizing Weight Loss Medication 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 may well result in well being points, notably gastrointestinal problems. One 2023 examine26 famous that people who find themselves taking GLP-1 agonists had an elevated threat of pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and gastroparesis (abdomen paralysis).
A examine27 utilizing information from Eudravigilance, Europe’s system for analyzing opposed reactions to drugs, additionally discovered that other than gastrointestinal considerations, metabolic, dietary, eye, renal, urinary and cardiac problems additionally occurred in individuals who took semaglutide.
One examine notes28 the consequences on the kidneys happen extra typically in individuals who even have opposed gastrointestinal problems 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 occasions in a day. In keeping with a CNN article:29
“Emily Wright, 38, a trainer in Toronto, began taking Ozempic in 2018. Over a yr, she stated, she misplaced 80 kilos, which she’s been capable of hold off. However Wright stated she now vomits so regularly that she needed to take a depart of absence from her job. ‘I’ve nearly been off Ozempic for a yr, however I’m nonetheless not again to my regular,’ Wright stated.”
As an alternative of Ozempic, Enhance Your GLP-1 Naturally With Akkermansia
Taking drugs to shed extra pounds is one strategy to endanger your well being. Ozempic was designed as a long-term drug. In different phrases, to take care of your weight reduction, you could keep on the drug. One examine30 discovered {that a} yr after stopping semaglutide, contributors 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, contemplate 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 capacity to enhance glucose homeostasis and ameliorate metabolic illness by way of this mechanism. In keeping with 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 enough to induce GLP-1 secretion …”
Restructure Your Microbiome
Akkermansia, extremely helpful micro organism in your giant gut, performs a vital function in sustaining intestine well being and will represent about 10% of the intestine microbiome. Nevertheless, it’s absent in lots of people, doubtless as a result of insufficient mitochondrial perform and resultant oxygen leakage within the intestine.
Consuming meals that assist Akkermansia, resembling polyphenol-rich fruit, and different helpful 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 optimistic approach. You can even use an Akkermansia probiotic complement.
One of many causes Akkermansia is so necessary is as a result of it produces mucin, a thick, protecting gel-like substance that traces 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 overseas particles, that are then expelled from the physique by way of the digestive course of. It additionally accommodates antibodies and antimicrobial peptides that assist battle off infections.
Lastly, mucin serves as a meals supply for different helpful intestine micro organism. This relationship is important for digestive well being, because the micro organism fed by Akkermansia help in digestion, produce important vitamins and assist preserve an total stability of intestine flora.
Avoiding Linoleic Acid Can Assist With Weight Administration
The abundance of linoleic acid (LA) in our eating regimen is another excuse why many are combating weight problems or are chubby. This omega-6 fats is present in seed oils like sunflower, soybean, rapeseed (canola), cottonseed, corn and safflower, and lowering your consumption may also help assist a wholesome weight.
Be certain to keep away from all processed meals, as these additionally include excessive quantities of LA, in addition to grain-fed hen and pork. Ideally, minimize your LA consumption all the way down to beneath 5 grams per day, which is near what our ancestors used to get earlier than persistent well being circumstances grew to become widespread.
LA is present in practically all ultraprocessed meals, quick meals and restaurant meals as properly. This is the reason it’s finest to arrange the vast majority of your meals at dwelling. For extra data on linoleic acid, learn my article “Linoleic Acid — The Most Damaging Ingredient in Your Food regimen.”
