Anti-obesity drugs can be a godsend, but their non-medical use is alarming

Semaglutides are powerful drugs that carry risks, not tools for rapid weight loss. We don’t know what the long-term health consequences will be

A US survey found 12% of adults had taken Ozempic or similar medicine. Picture: Mario Tama

Since anti-obesity drugs such as semaglutide (branded as Ozempic or Wegovy) have been approved, they have gone from being niche medicines prescribed by doctors to treat people with type 2 diabetes, to being used widely as weight-loss tools. 

In the United States, a survey of adults found that 12% had taken Ozempic or a similar type of medicine — they are known as GLP-1 agonists — and 6% (about 15m people) were on it regularly.