On the Rebound

The obesity management drugs mentioned by Childhood Obesity News include Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and others based on molecules that imitate glucagon-like peptide-1, known familiarly as GLP-1.

Writer Lisa Rapaport composed a list of the five things that happen when a person stops taking (in this case) Ozempic, but all drugs of this type are all based on the same chemicals, so the same results can be expected. The person’s blood sugar will become elevated, indicating the medical necessity for a different medication to be prescribed. The drug’s side effects, including the phenomenon known as “Ozempic Face,” will fade.

But the first two caveats, so eloquently phrased by Rapaport, are the most relevant:

1. Your Appetite Will Return
2. You Will Regain Weight

Such a reversion to the previous state is known as the “rebound effect,” and it is brutal. Here are only a few of the many available opinions about that, from diverse sources.

Writer Taylor Andrews quotes the Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics which revealed that patients who quit the weight-loss drug regained two-thirds of the fat they had started out with. On another front, addressing 2.2 million TikTok followers, Remi Bader…

[…] recently opened up about her experience gaining “double the weight back” once she stopped treatment… And when she decided to stop taking the drug, her binge-eating disorder almost immediately returned.

These drugs are not a substitute for conscious eating, nor for giving the body the motion and challenges it needs in order to remain viable. It now appears obvious that anybody who starts on them has made a lifetime commitment, because of a little seven-letter word: rebound.

Meredith Schorr, a young nurse who had gained 50 pounds during the worst of the COVID crisis, successfully shed the unwanted weight by taking Ozempic for 11 months. It caused so much internal discomfort, her doctor also prescribed something to alleviate nausea and vomiting. After a while, in hopes of starting a family, she very responsibly stopped taking the weight-loss drug, and for a short time things seemed okay. Then, after about five weeks, she began to feel ravenously hungry, and guess what?

Within two months of stopping Ozempic, she regained 10 lbs of the 50 she had lost.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “5 Things That Can Happen After You Stop Taking Ozempic,” EverydayHealth.com
Source: “Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension,” Wiley.com, 04/19/22
Source: “Nurse Who Took Ozempic for COVID Weight Gain,” People.com 03/14/23
Image by Shal Farley/CC BY-SA 2.0

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OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
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Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources