Ozempic, Wegovy and other weight loss drugs present holiday challenges

Lifestyle

Written by Aislinn Murphy, Fox Business

For many people, celebrating the winter holidays means buying gifts, arranging travel, and planning fancy menus for meals with loved ones.

But this year, those preparations may include cutting back on drugs commonly used to promote weight loss.

According to , for a variety of reasons, from a desire to consume more food during the holidays without feeling uncomfortable after eating, to the purpose of saving money, some people choose to cut back on their intake in the lead up to the festival. It is designed to do so. Good morning, America and other media coverage.

Still, people who are considering cutting back on weight-loss drugs should be careful when restarting them later, experts told FOX Business.

Common types of drugs used for weight loss include Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.

The last one contains tirzepatide and the other two are semaglutide.

Obesity Physician, True You Weight Loss Associate Research Director Dr. Dan Maselli told FOX Business that such a reason is “completely understandable.”

Some of his patients want to interrupt their dosing schedules to avoid biased judgment from loved ones who didn't know they were taking such drugs. , he added.

“If you stop taking the medication you're taking to lose weight, you're not harming yourself for the time being,” Maselli said.

He pointed out that while skipping meals can cause hunger, drugs like Ozempic and Munjaro do not cause withdrawal symptoms.

What people need to be careful about is restarting their medication, Maselli said.

“These drugs are meant to be taken continuously over a long period of time, and one of the problems that can arise if you miss one dose, or actually two or three doses, is that “It's something that our bodies may not be able to adapt to as well. We're concerned about these drugs, especially the gastrointestinal side effects of those drugs,” Maseri said.

“Resuming the original dose and starting the medication may be unwise and may be dangerous in extreme circumstances.”

When using similar drugs such as Ozempic and Munjaro for weight loss, doctors and patients should start with a low dose and increase the dose slowly over time, he explained.

This process can take up to 20 weeks.

“So if you're on that maximum dose, or you've exceeded it like the first two doses of this drug, if you stop taking this drug for two to three weeks and then try to go back to the same dose, you're really pushing yourself. “You can recover from being uncomfortable,” he said.

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, cramps, and heartburn are symptoms a person may experience.

Dr. Maselli said people who forget or skip a dose should contact their prescribing doctor rather than simply restarting, as the doctor may need to reduce the dose.

In some cases, depending on how much time has passed, you may need to start over.

With more people turning to Ozempic, Wegoby and Munjaro for weight loss help, more people are deciding to temporarily stop taking drugs over the holidays.

Novo Nordisk, which produces Ozempic and Wigoby, has seen a significant rise in the phenomenon, with its stock price up nearly 51% since the beginning of 2023.

Shares in Eli Lilly, the company behind Munjaro, rose more than 56%.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has gained nearly 25% this year.