As celebrities and social media influencers popularize the use of type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic for weight loss, some health experts are warning against the practice.
The diabetes drug, which works to control blood sugar levels, cannot solve weight problems, according to nutritionist and behavioral specialist Carrie Lupoli, co-founder of PFC3, the “Formula for Food Freedom.”
“This will not solve the problem that is causing almost 90 percent of today’s deaths: Metabolic disease,” Lupoli said. “Weight gain is a symptom of health and hormones and is representative of a pandemic of another kind. Losing weight via a weight loss drug doesn’t make people healthier or solve the actual problem.”
A drug that only works as long as the patient continues using it “is not a sustainable solution based on healthy long-term habits,” Lupoli said.
“Our bodies require a relationship of trust,” Lupoli said. “If they go off the medication and gain the weight back, that yo yo is incredibly unhealthy both physically and mentally. It’s abusive.”
Lupoli decried the tendency to prescribe medication to “fix” symptoms rather than getting to the root cause of the problem.
“It’s not fixing the longer, more deeply rooted issues of the fact that this country is the most unhealthy in the world and yet we are spending time developing false hope drugs instead of working to develop comprehensive campaigns to develop true change for the long term,” she said.
“I work with thousands of women who have been debilitated by a dieting mindset and a value of weight loss defining them,” Lupoli said. The dieting mindset, she says, wrongly values weight loss as the measure of success, not health.
“We have to take this beyond just how to eat. Our thoughts and beliefs dictate our actions,” Lupoli said. “Getting to the root cause of this epidemic, which is killing people at a rate much higher than COVID, requires education and a true mindset shift about what it means to be healthy and why, and this weight loss pill will continue to exacerbate the problem.”
TMX contributed to this story.
