The Science of Fasting
My Wife is on a Maintenace dose. She's lost about 50 pounds on it. She cut drinking wine way back when she first got started. Ozempic helps curb her appetite and slows down how quickly her body metabolizes food. She has slowly ramped back up her wine consumption, but does still eat a lot less. She is more active and has more energy since the weight loss. While she was never pre-diabetic, her fasting blood sugar was high normal and now is comfortably in the normal range.
Her grandfather is a diabetic, and her father was pre-diabetic and got on ozempic, lost 40 or 50 pounds, and now his fasting blood sugar is in the normal range, the insurance will not pay for his meds anymore, so he pays out of pocket.
Both her and her father has GI issues initially, but learned diet influenced that side effect (fried and greasy food + Ozempic) and as long as they moderate/remove those foods don't have the GI side effects.
I do agree that being skinny does not mean you are healthy, but obesity really is a killer, so skinny people with bad lifestyle habits are less unhealthy than heavier people with bad lifestyle habits.
I really feel like the ozempic and alcohol consumption are separate issues though. However, I totally agree there are a lot of people with moderate alcohol dependence.
I would speculate that you don't see as many [middle-aged] men on ozempic, because they are on Testosterone, which helps increase their metabolism and lose weight/maintain current weight.
My point is that too many people are taking it for weight loss - not because they have a legitimate medical condition. No offense but it seems like your wife is no exception and science and logic tell me that if she had made significant lifestyle changes (cut back on drinking and choosing high quality foods and exercised) she would have had normal blood sugar levels in lieu of the high-normal she was experiencing.
Obesity is of course an issue in this country. Most people live on ultra processed foods and sugar. Animals that are used for meat are pumped full of hormones. Fruits and veggies have pesticides sprayed all over them. There are food deserts and lack of education on what healthy food actually is and we live in a society that is built around a very sedentary lifestyle.
Ultimately though, even with proper education around food and access to better quality foods, Americans are lazy af and refuse to make necessary lifestyle changes that got them in the predicament they are in. They reach for something easy so as not to interrupt their unhealthy ways. Like oh this injection will allow me to lose weight while continuing to eat like crap; just less amounts of it and keep up my alcohol consumption - which is concerning because as I mentioned, we still don't know long term side effects in people who do not have a metabolic condition that requires the medication.
Plus, you either stay on it permanently or have to make significant lifestyle changes - which I haven't seen the data and even if I did, I wouldn't believe it - most people aren't willing to do which is why they are on the med for weight loss in the first place. The reason I wouldn't believe the data is because it's self-reported and everyone I know who isn't a diabetic that is on this crap won't even be honest now about why they aren't losing weight; i.e. refusing to give up eating out several times per week, refusing to cut back significantly in their drinking and increasing movement and exercise.
Most people who are on it, aren't eating enough protein and ensuring they are lifting weights to maintain muscle mass and muscle accounts for a LOT of the weight they are losing and that's not good - particularly for aging women. Drinking and Ozempic are not separate issues when your chief complaint is that you 'can't lose weight' yet fail to correlate the caloric intake from your heavy alcohol consumption as a major contributing factor to why you can't lose weight.
I also get sick of hearing from fat people that they "can't control their appetite" .... news flash! Not eating whatever the fork you want is hard for everybody who isn't blessed with a phenomenal metabolism. It's called self-discipline. It's not easy for anyone.
The people I know who are on it that aren't diabetic (I know 5 people currently on it), not a single one had more than 10 lbs to lose. Like 2 of them could lose 5lbs and still be okay before looking like they have an eating disorder (though one of them already looks that way)
Sorry for the tangent but the way this country peddles drugs to people without addressing the underlying issues AND requiring real lifestyle changes before ordering up some ish they don't need is out of control and why 80% of citizens in this shirt hole country are so sick.
Has anyone ever asked themselves why Ozempic (manufactured by Novo Nordisk - a Danish company) is not available to people in Denmark who don't have diabetes? Or why it's not being pushed as a first treatment option in those who do have diabetes?
There's a reason drug manufacturers seek to get their treatments approved in the US over other countries. Diversity in population and because the FDA can be bought and the people will take anything thrown at them.