GLP-1 Agonists, Ozempic, and Weight Loss

One major reason I started this challenge was to see whether I could lose weight at my age as or near as effective as people losing weight on GLP-1 Agonists like Ozempic, Wagovy, and Mounjaro. It felt like everywhere I looked, someone was trying these seemingly miracle cures and dropping a massive amount of weight, including people I knew personally.

I am generally apprehensive to try pharmaceuticals, especially ones that felt too new and too much of a miracle cure. But I read more about GLP-1 Agonists, I wanted to stay open minded about their value in the market and for health while also being clear eyed about the potential side effects.

As described in 'Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor: mechanisms and advances in therapy' , GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone in the body that is usually secreted in response to nutrient intake. This hormone does a number of things, but primarily triggers hunger satiety. Semaglutides like the brands described above mimic this hormone and largely drive weight loss through appetite suppression. Although the drugs were originally created for people with type II diabetes, trials on obese and overweight populations showed these drugs were wildly effective for those adults as well. This study saw a mean weight loss of -14.9% vs -2.4% against placebo in 68 weeks.

The impact of these drugs seem remarkable and anecdotally people say it truly reduces the "food noise" for them. Alongside of the weight loss are significant benefits in cardiovascular health, skeletal muscle-related diseases, obesity management, and neurodegenerative conditions as described by Zhikai Zheng et al. Though it's not clear to me how much of these additional benefits are equivalent to other means of weight loss or reversal of metabolic diseases.

So my last major question is about the risks of these drugs? This meta-analysis of 23 studies showed the:

The meta-analysis revealed that the adverse event associated with semaglutide is gastrointestinal in nature (nausea and vomiting). No significant differences were observed between semaglutide and comparator groups...Semaglutide appears to have a favorable safety profile across diverse patient populations and treatment durations, supporting its continued use in the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity

I remain cautious as this drug still needs long term studies before we can draw conclusions on its long term impacts especially for non-diabetic individuals. However, at this point it does seem these drugs are as "miracle drug" as I've seen.