Why Everyone Is Raving About Losing Weight With Semaglutide Injections

Losing weight can sometimes seem like a battle of yo-yoing weight, small successes, and big failures. And, for some people, even a healthy diet and plenty of exercise don’t make a dent.

Fortunately, there’s a new class of medication that’s hit the market within the last few years: GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonists. Semaglutide is one example of this class. Originally used to treat diabetes, it’s been repurposed for weight loss to help those struggling to shed the pounds.

At Revive Health Clinic, our expert team of men’s and women’s health providers offers semaglutide injections as part of a medically supervised weight loss program. As the drug is relatively new to the market, and many people don’t know how or why it works, the team’s put together this guide to get you in the know.

Why is being overweight or obese a medical problem?

People with obesity, having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, are more likely to develop a number of serious health problems, including:

• Cardiovascular disease and stroke
• Elevated cholesterol levels
• Type 2 diabetes
• Certain cancers
• Digestive problems, including heartburn, gallbladder disease, and liver problems
• Obstructive sleep apnea
• Osteoarthritis, because extra pounds stress weight-bearing joints and promote inflammation
• Fatty liver disease
• Severe COVID-19 symptoms

Obesity can also diminish your overall quality of life, leading to depression, shame or guilt, disability, social isolation, lower work achievement, and becoming subject to discrimination due to stigma.

How does medically supervised weight loss work?

It’s hard to lose weight when you go it alone. What should you eat and what shouldn’t you? What happens when you get hungry? What about the days you don’t feel like exercising at all?

A medically supervised weight loss program provides you with an individually tailored plan to eat the right foods in the right way, exercise regularly and at your level, and all the accountability you need to stay on track.

We schedule you for regular follow-ups and weight checks, ask you where your trouble spots are, and adjust your plan to compensate for any new factors. We serve as physicians, nutritionists, and cheerleading coaches — whatever you need to keep heading toward your goal weight.

One of the other things we can do is prescribe medications like appetite suppressants to curb your hunger cravings.

What is semaglutide, and how does it help?

Semaglutide, already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, is a synthetic version of the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone. It reduces blood sugar levels, and it also acts on appetite centers in both the brain and gut, producing feelings of fullness.

As part of the Endocrine Society’s STEP 1 study, researchers clinically assessed participants’ body composition to monitor the effects of the medication on total body fat and fat around the stomach area, the latter of which causes the increased disease risk.

They discovered that weekly injections of semaglutide improved body composition by reducing excess body fat, including abdominal fat; the injections also increased the proportion of lean body mass, or the amount of weight you have that isn’t body fat. The more body weight a participant lost, the greater their improvement in body composition.

In February 2021, the researchers published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine. The data showed that patients who used semaglutide lost close to 15% of their body weight, on average, compared with 2.4% among those who got the placebo.

Even better, more than one-third of participants using semaglutide lost more than 20% of their weight and experienced improvements in risk factors for heart disease, blood sugar levels, and quality of life.

If you’re looking to lose weight and want to ensure you stay on track and meet your goals, Revive Health Clinic in Lady Lake, Florida, can help. To schedule a consultation, call our office at 352-290-0896, or book online with us today.