Diabetic weighs in on Ozempic

Ozempic is the latest craze in the cycle of body modification. It’s a drug made for Type 2 diabetics to help manage blood sugar levels and fullness cues. It stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin, slows digestion and causes rapid weight loss. The latter side effect has come back into vogue in lieu of the exaggerated hourglass figure. Being super skinny is in, regardless of which drugs celebrities are taking from disabled people, and the side effects of misuse. 

However, rapid weight loss can have some unintended consequences. When most people talk about losing weight, they mean to shed a few inches off their midsection. Some celebrities have taken to misusing Ozempic to cut corners and achieve such a look. Unfortunately, you cannot spot reduce fat. When you lose weight, especially quickly, the fat deposits in your face are typically one of the first places to show it. It’s called facial wasting, and it gives your face an aged, gaunt look. This warp-speed “diet” of Ozempic produces zombies with hauntingly starved faces, robbed of their youthfully full cheeks. They look unnatural, sick, and have fallen victim to “Ozempic face”.  

Some people enjoy that look. They reminisce over the 90s and early 2000s fad of “heroin chic,” where appearing sickly thin is dubbed effortlessly cool. And good for them, if they genuinely enjoy maintaining a trim figure. But the problem lies in which drugs they are taking to sustain such an unsustainable body type for most people.  

Whenever you take medication, your eyes may glaze over at the long list of warnings on the side of the box. It may warn you to “use as prescribed” and say that it’s for “single patient use only.” But nobody really reads these messages; the “Terms and Conditions” of drugs are mind-numbingly dull — unless you start getting those symptoms.  

The side effects of Ozempic use may include muscle loss, intestinal disruptions, pain and hypoglycemia, to name a few. These risks are carefully weighed by a doctor against the risks of uncontrolled diabetes. It is a calculated choice for a diabetic to start using Ozempic, under the watchful eye of a physician — unless you have enough money to circumvent this life-saving system of bureaucracy.  

What further concerns me is that this is done to fit a body trend. What comes next? What will happen when the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, back to fuller figures? No matter how morally reprehensible it may feel, different body types have always cycled in and out of fashion. But diet pills and weight gain shakes have always been a hot and readily available commodity. The difference now is that disabled people are having their medications sold to the highest bidder, leaving us to suffer in poverty.  

What someone else is doing to their body is none of my business. I try to live by the idiom “to each their own.” Unfortunately, in this case, there is not enough “own” to go around. Ozempic is a life-saving drug for many Type 2 diabetics. It could vastly improve the quality of life for so many people. It is also in short supply. There is not enough to support recreational use, even if the side effects weren’t injurious for non-diabetics.  

Type 2 diabetes can be managed. It can be caused by excessive weight and food intake, and/or by lack of muscle to process said food intake. The leftover glucose that cannot be processed moves into the bloodstream, causing hyperglycemia, or in layman’s terms, diabetes. Ozempic can reverse this type of diabetes. Type 2 diabetics can still produce some insulin, but not enough. Under the right circumstances, such as Ozempic, they may jumpstart their insulin production and take control of both their blood glucose and their lives back.  

I am a Type 1 diabetic. I have exactly zero pancreas function, and this will most likely never change. I need synthetic insulin several times a day in order to eat food, ergo live. Even if I or other Type 1 diabetics took Ozempic, it would not cure our diabetes. Take it from me, diabetes is a miserable disease. It’s the art of balancing unpredictable and unsteady blood sugar; mood, amount of exercise and time of day all have to be taken into account when calculating my next dosage of insulin. I can’t usually eat food if I don’t know the nutritional information, and sharing meals is basically out of the question. I have to be wary of the very thing that gives me life and energy: food.  

When I first heard about Ozempic a few years ago in a diabetic forum, I was excited. A win for Type 2 diabetics is a win for the greater diabetic community. I was cautiously hopeful that medicine would advance to the point of curing any type of diabetes. Fast forward to a few years later, I see celebrities flaunting their thin new (recycled) body standard. It’s followed up by whispers of a drug called “Ozempic”, one that could’ve healed my siblings-in-glucose-management. But it never will, because they cannot afford it. To hear that people bought a life-saving drug out from under us just for vanity’s sake is gutting.  

There is only so much Ozempic to go around. When pharmaceutical companies see that they can upcharge rich people to maximize their profits, they will do so. It’s simple economics; supply is low and demand is high, so the price goes up. And prices will continue to inflate. Diabetics will ration their doses (if they are even lucky enough to afford any), and their quality of life will continue to be lower than necessary. 

I encourage you to ruminate on its causes the next time you see a suspiciously rapid weight loss transformation by a public figure. I implore you to consider the diabetics who are living in misery. Be skeptical. We may be looking up to model-thin celebrities now, but within our lifetime, the relationship between the scales of beauty and weight will tip in the other direction. Ozempic may sound like a cool new wonder weight loss drug, but there are people who actually need it, and it may add to your list of problems. Don’t be selfish. If you want to lose weight, do it like the rest of us mere mortals the old-fashioned way: with diet and exercise.