Mayo Clinic Minute: What’s the skinny on weight-loss drugs?
Want to lose weight? It’s actually simply fundamental math. Burn extra energy than you absorb. The finest method to do this is by eating a healthy weight loss program — lowering your calorie consumption — and being bodily energetic, which will increase the variety of energy burned.
While it seems to be easy, many individuals discover it difficult to successfully lose weight and hold the kilos off. Now, Mayo Clinic specialists say there’s a new instrument to assist in the battle towards weight problems, a prescription treatment that may curb your urge for food. And a recent study at Mayo Clinic exhibits it may be efficient for weight loss.
Journalists: Broadcast-quality video (1:07) is in the downloads at the finish of this submit. Please courtesy: “Mayo Clinic News Network.” Read the script.
It’s a medicine known as semaglutide — higher recognized by the model names Ozempic and Wegovy. Ozempic is accepted by the Food and Drug Administration to deal with Type 2 diabetes. Wegovy is now accepted to assist with weight loss.
“These drugs have been shown to help people lose, on average, about 15% of their body weight,” says Dr. Meera Shah, a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist.
It works by tricking your mind and abdomen into feeling full, so you do not overeat.
“It’s really changed how we think about these weight-loss medications,” says Dr. Shah.
It’s a prescription treatment. The FDA advises it just for folks with a body mass index, or BMI, better than 30 — or a BMI of 27 or extra with a weight-related health situation. A typical aspect impact is nausea.
“These are injections, and you give them once a week to yourself, typically in the belly, so much like an insulin injection would be,” she says.
They’re additionally costly and oftentimes not lined by insurance coverage. So verify together with your supplier.
“I think it’s a great tool,” says Dr. Shah. “I think for a lot of people, it certainly makes a significant difference to how they feel about food and how they feel about their own hunger signals and their ability to control that. And that’s very powerful.”