Why are people microdosing Ozempic?

To converts sharing the gospel online, "microdosing" Ozempic is a crafty way to lose pounds without enduring the weight-loss drug's "eggy burps", constipation and other suboptimal side effects, said Harriet Walker in The Times. But some experts are warning that this viral weight-loss trend is likely to be ineffective.

'Massive spikes' in interest

Ozempic is the brand name for an injectable, semaglutide-based drug that helps regulate blood-sugar levels. It's currently only prescribed on the NHS to treat Type 2 diabetes – although, under certain conditions, GPs can now prescribe another semaglutide-based drug, Wegovy, for weight-loss. In recent months, however, Ozempic has become the private-prescription weight-loss drug of choice among the rich and famous in the UK and the US.

Microdosing, more commonly associated with hallucinogenics, is the practice of taking tiny amounts of a drug, in the hope of feeling some of its benefits, without risking the full side effects. The craze for microdosing Ozempic, or a similar drug called Mounjaro, "started in Silicon Valley", said Walker, and now it's "everywhere".

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People are microdosing Ozempic as a weight-loss "hack", having heard "horror stories" of the side effects of the standard dose of the drug, including "nausea, vomiting" and "intense constipation", said The New York Times,

"Off-label usages" of Ozempic aren't tracked, said the US science-and-tech news site Futurism, so "we can't say for sure" how many people are microdosing, but online influencers are "preaching the practice's benefits" and trying to flog "expensive courses on how to hack" dosages. And, according to Google Trends keyword analysis, there have been "massive spikes" in interest in the practice over the past year.

For now, "the micro-zempic crowd" is "limited to a small (and wealthy) elite", said Walker. Indeed, the private-prescription use of Ozempic is ushering in "a new age of class disparity", trend forecaster Dan Hastings-Narayanin of The Future Laboratory, told The Times journalist. "Obesity will become a sign of the working class," he said.

'Placebo effect'

The jury's out on whether microdosing semaglutide drugs works. Some experts believe that people who lose weight in this way may be "super responders" to the drug, said The New York Times. Or they may simply be enjoying a placebo effect, which encourages them to make other changes to their lifestyle that can lead to weight loss

After microdosing Mounjaro, said The Times's Walker, "half a stone is gone" – weight that "I've been trying to lose for as long as I can remember". Jeans "I haven't been able to sit down in for a year" fit again, and my "sciatic pain" has disappeared.

Tiny doses of Ozempic "could curb hunger somewhat", Daniel Drucker, a medical researcher who has consulted for Ozempic's maker, Novo Nordisk, told the New York Times. But people "don't typically get weight loss if we go to such a low dose", Mir Ali, medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center in California, told Women's Health.

Is microdosing safe? Getting the dose right "requires complicated maths and conversions", Dr Alexandra Sowa, author of "The Ozempic Revolution", told the health site. Prolonged use of tiny amounts of medication also increases the risk of consuming it once its use-by date has expired.

But, even if the benefits of microdosing Ozempic are so far unproven, those following the trend are unlikely to come to harm, said Drucker. "I'm not concerned that they’re going to grow three arms or have something horrible happen to them," he said.