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Leader and Health

Stop criticising Ozempic - it could be a solution to more than obesity

Weight-loss drugs are proving their worth against addiction, high blood pressure and even depression, so let’s stop criticising them as a quick fix and start exploring their true potential

12 June 2024

2WG9R61 Ozempic injection pen, ideal for visual content related to diet, diabetes management, insulin therapies, & advancements in pharmaceutical solutions.

Eggy Sayoga/Alamy

Lately, it seems you can’t open a newspaper without hearing about the latest celebrity opinion of Ozempic or the latest condition it is showing promise in treating. But as the popularity of the diabetes treatment turned weight-loss drug turned all-round panacea continues to climb, it is disappointing to see how critical much of the media discourse is.

This medicine – whose generic name is semaglutide and which is also sold under the brand name Wegovy – works by mimicking a gut hormone called GLP-1. After many false starts, it is the first weight-loss drug that is both safe and…

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