A young teenager is one of hundreds of Aucklanders who have had recent bariatric weight-loss surgery. Video / Getty
“Everybody looks so great. When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder ‘Is Ozempic right for me?’”
It was just a joke, but in making it last year comedian Jimmy Kimmel said aloud what everyone in Hollywood - and on TikTok - had been questioning for months. Was everyone taking it?
A year on, stars including Amy Schumer, Oprah Winfrey and Elon Musk have opened up about using weight loss medication, and the buzz around drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Saxenda has now hit our shores. While the ever-popular Ozempic, a Semaglutide medication, is not yet approved in Aotearoa for weight loss, clinics spoken to by the Herald have been struggling to keep up with the demand for Saxenda - a daily injectable Liraglutide medicine designed to make you feel fuller sooner.
Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Amy Schumer have admitted to taking Ozempic. Photos / Getty Images, 123RF, Herald montage
One clinic said inquiries about the drug had increased 10 to 20-fold in the past few years, and another provider approached by the Herald declined to be interviewed because the medication was “taking over” the clinic’s work and they had decided to wind down the weight loss programme.
Although these drugs are currently in the spotlight, University of Otago pharmacology associate professor Hesham Al-Sallami said weight loss medication was not new, and pointed to amphetamines being a “very, very big thing” in the weight loss space in the 1960s.
“Some of them were added to sports supplements, and because it’s a stimulant, it caused issues like heart disease, palpitations, heart attacks.”
Oprah Winfrey is one of a host of celebrities who have spoken publicly about their use of weight-loss medication. Photo / Kayla Oaddams, WireImage
He believed the recent surge in popularity was due to a combination of how effective the new medicines were - and social media fame.
“I’ve seen in the past 18 months [Saxenda] getting popular, and it works. But like all these weight loss medications, if it’s not associated with a change in diet and physical activity that weight loss is not sustainable.”
While Al-Sallami was not opposed to people learning about weight loss medications on social media, he said it could make it harder for health providers.
“The patients should actually get context about how things work, how effective things are and what side effects to actually expect.”
Ozempic, a widely-popular drug for treating type 2 diabetes and long-term weight management, is not approved for use in New Zealand but demand for similar drugs has spiked.
Al-Sallami warned that people taking these medications for weight loss needed to take higher doses than those taking the same drugs for diabetes, so may experience more side effects.
Over the past 12 to 18 months weight loss clinic Tailor Clinics’ director Andrea Schroeder has also seen inquiries about the Saxenda spike, following social media and celebrity endorsements
Her clinic primarily offers surgical weight loss interventions but began providing the weight loss medication two years ago.
It was just a joke, but comedian Jimmy Kimmel said aloud what everyone in Hollywood - and on TikTok - had been questioning for months. Was everyone taking weight-loss drugs? Photo / Getty Images
People were keen to try it for a combination of health and appearance reasons, she said, but there were concerns that some who are ineligible (not having a BMI over 30 or a BMI over 27 with associated medical conditions) could misuse the medication for aesthetic reasons.
Schroeder also said that social media-driven popularity had led to global supply shortages - causing people who needed the medication to control their diabetes to miss out.
Tailor Clinics director Andrea Shroeder. Photo / Supplied
Alongside the social-media-driven increase in interest, she believed the cost of undergoing bariatric surgery during a cost-of-living crisis was also pushing people toward the medication.
“Sometimes people can’t afford surgery, and so if they want to have some sort of treatment maybe the only thing they can do is go down that medical route because it’s more affordable, however it’s expensive as well.”
She said people can find it easier to come up with $125 a week for the medication than $28,000 for surgery.
On top of this, Schroeder said KiwiSaver providers have removed the option for people to use their funds for bariatric surgery.
Although Saxenda doesn’t work for everyone - and can have side effects such as nausea, vomiting and headaches, when it does work, Schroeder says it can be very effective.
“Saxenda is designed to work on physical hunger, if people are emotional eaters it’s not always going to work. Because the drive to eat when you’re fulfilling an emotional need is quite high. So if you’ve got a drug that just works on physical hunger, it’s not necessarily going to overcome emotional hunger.”
The medication also needs to be injected daily and she noted people could regain the weight once it was stopped.
“You might get yourself into a really good pattern, but unfortunately what happens, just from my 25 years in the weight loss industry, is what we know is all it takes is a crisis, like some sort of trauma, for a patient to go back to their default.”
Bariatric doctor Chaey Leem says inquiries about weight loss medication have also risen sharply at Medical Weight Loss Clinic. He said they are now coming in at 10 to 20 times the rate they were a few years ago.
He noted social media may be a contributor to the increase in inquiries, but because of the price of Saxenda, he said his patients were usually in their 40s, 50s and 60s and were influenced more by word of mouth than social media.
Leem promotes a chronic disease model of obesity, where patients are not blamed. He viewed the medication as a long-term life-changing solution for some people, “it will just save lives”.
“They finally feel understood about the problem they’ve been suffering.”
Medical Weight Loss Dr Chaey Leem. Photo / Supplied
Leem predicted that in 50 years obesity would be a disease people would not hear about anymore.
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers social issues including sexual assault, workplace misconduct, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.
