What happens once I stop taking a drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro?

Hundreds of 1000’s of individuals worldwide are stoning up like Ozempic to drop a few pounds. But what will we actually learn about them? This month, The Conversation’s experts explore their rise, impact and potential consequences.

Drugs like Ozempic are very effective at helping most individuals who take them drop a few pounds. Semaglutide (sold as Wegovy and Ozempic) and tirzepatide (sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro) are probably the most well-known in the category of medicine that mimic hormones to cut back feelings of hunger.

But does weight come back once you stop using it?

The short answer is yes. Stopping tirzepatide and semaglutide will lead to weight regain in most individuals.

So are these medications simply one other (expensive) type of yo-yo weight-reduction plan? Let’s have a look at what the evidence shows up to now.

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The rise of Ozempic: how surprise discoveries and lizard venom led to a brand new class of weight-loss drugs

It’s a long-term treatment, not a brief course

If you’ve a bacterial infection, antibiotics will help your body fight off the germs causing your illness. You take the complete course of medication, and the infection is gone.

For obesity, taking tirzepatide or semaglutide can assist your body do away with fat. However it doesn’t fix the explanations you gained weight in the primary place because obesity is a chronic, complex condition. When you stop the medications, the load returns.

Perhaps a more useful comparison is with hypertension, also often called hypertension. Treatment for hypertension is lifelong. It’s the identical with obesity. Medications work, but only while you’re taking them. (Though obesity is more complicated than hypertension, as many alternative aspects each cause and perpetuate it.)

Therefore, several concurrent approaches are needed; taking medication may be a crucial a part of effective management but by itself, it’s often insufficient. And in an unwanted knock-on effect, stopping medication can undermine other strategies to drop a few pounds, like eating less.

Why do people stop?

Research trials show anywhere from 6% to 13.5% of participants stop taking these drugs, primarily due to uncomfortable side effects.

But these studies don’t account for those forced to stop due to cost or widespread supply issues. We don’t know the way many individuals have needed to stop this medication over the past few years for these reasons.

Understanding what stopping does to the body is due to this fact essential.

So what happens once you stop?

When you stop using tirzepatide or semaglutide, it takes several days (or perhaps a couple of weeks) to move out of your system. As it does, various things occur:

• you begin feeling hungry again, because each your brain and your gut not have the medication working to make you are feeling full

• blood sugars increase, since the medication isn’t any longer acting on the pancreas to assist control this. If you’ve diabetes in addition to obesity you could have to take other medications to maintain these in an appropriate range. Whether you’ve diabetes or not, you could have to eat foods with a low glycemic index to stabilise your blood sugars

• over the long run, most individuals experience a return to their previous blood pressure and levels of cholesterolas the load comes back

• weight regain will mostly be in the shape of fat, because it’ll be gained faster than skeletal muscle.

While you were on the medication, you should have lost proportionally less skeletal muscle than fatmuscle loss is inevitable once you drop a few pounds, regardless of whether you utilize medications or not. The problem is, once you stop the medication, your body preferentially puts on fat.

Read more:
Ozempic is not approved for weight reduction in Australia. So how are people accessing it?

Is stopping and starting the medications an issue?

People whose weight fluctuates with tirzepatide or semaglutide may experience among the downsides of yo-yo weight-reduction plan.

When you retain happening and off diets, it’s like a rollercoaster ride on your body. Each time you regain weight, your body has to cope with spikes in blood pressure, heart rate, and the way your body handles sugars and fats. This can stress your heart and overall cardiovascular system, because it has to answer greater fluctuations than usual.

Interestingly, the danger to the body from weight fluctuations is bigger for people who find themselves not obese. This must be a caution to those that are usually not obese but still using tirzepatide or semaglutide to attempt to lose unwanted weight.

Read more:
No, stoning up like Ozempic is not ‘cheating’ at weight reduction or the ‘easy way out’

How are you able to avoid gaining weight once you stop?

Fear of regaining weight when stopping these medications is valid, and wishes to be addressed directly. As obesity has many causes and perpetuating aspects, many evidence-based approaches are needed to cut back weight regain. This might include:

• getting quality sleep

• exercising in a way that builds and maintains muscle. While on the medication, you’ll likely have lost muscle in addition to fat, although this isn’t inevitable, especially when you exercise often while taking it

• addressing emotional and cultural facets of life that contribute to over-eating and/or eating unhealthy foods, and the way you view your body. Stigma and shame around body shape and size isn’t cured by taking this medication. Even if you’ve a healthy relationship with food, we live in a culture that’s fat-phobic and discriminates against people in larger bodies

• eating in a healthy way, hopefully continuing with habits that were formed while on the medication. Eating meals which have high nutrition and fibre, for instance, and lower overall portion sizes.

Many people will stop taking tirzepatide or semaglutide sooner or later, given it is dear and briefly supply. When you do, it is necessary to grasp what’s going to occur and what you possibly can do to assist avoid the implications. Regular reviews together with your GP are also essential.

Read the opposite articles in The Conversation’s Ozempic series here.