For People with Eating Disorders, the Buzz About Ozempic Is a Nightmare

While scrolling Twitter late one recent night, Nylah Burton, a 27-year-old writer in Chicago, clicked on an article about Ozempic, the diabetes drug that’s increasingly prescribed off-label for people who want to lose weight. Only when she hit the website’s paywall did she pause to realize she actually had no desire to read the article. Burton struggled with disordered eating for more than a decade, starting at age 11, and says media portrayals of thinness and extreme diets contributed to her eating issues. Her eating habits have been stable for the last year, and Burton felt no need to challenge that progress by reading about a diabetes drug taken, often unnecessarily, for weight loss. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I was just thinking to myself, ‘You’re actually at a good place and there’s no need to revisit that,’” she says. “I don’t need to read more gory details.” These days, it’s hard to avoid reading about Ozempic, one brand-name for the drug semaglutide. It has been covered by numerous national news outlets (including this one) and regularly trends on social media—not because of its efficacy for Type 2 diabetes management, but because it’s become cool, in certain circles, to take the medication to lose weight. Other, similar drugs like Wegovy (another semaglutide drug, this one approved for weight management among adults with weight-related health conditions) and Mounjar...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Drugs healthscienceclimate Source Type: news