Tright here’s no query that the wildly standard injectable weight-loss medicine assist folks drop kilos, decrease heart-disease danger, handle obstructive sleep apnea, and extra. However as extra folks use these medicine, which goal hormones together with GLP-1, medical doctors are studying extra in regards to the potential downsides, as properly.
Within the newest research printed on MedRxiv—a web site that hosts early analysis not but peer reviewed by specialists—scientists in Canada report that utilizing GLP-1 medicine can contribute to a better danger of hair loss, particularly amongst ladies.
Dr. Mohit Sodhi, a resident in emergency medication at College of British Columbia, and his colleagues analyzed information from simply over 1,900 individuals who had been prescribed semaglutide and 1,300 who had been prescribed bupropion-naltrexone—an older weight problems therapy often known as Contrave. Semaglutide is the compound within the medicine Ozempic, which treats diabetes, and Wegovy, which treats weight problems. Sodhi centered solely on folks taking Wegovy to deal with chubby or weight problems to keep away from any potential confounding results of diabetes on hair loss.
He and his staff then in contrast the diagnoses for hair loss in these sufferers’ medical information and located that these prescribed semaglutide had a 50% increased danger of being identified with a hair-loss situation in comparison with these prescribed Contrave. That danger was twice as excessive for girls as for males.
Learn Extra: The Well being Dangers and Advantages of Weight-Loss Medication
How Weight Loss Medication Work
Whereas it’s not clear why semaglutide is linked to larger hair loss than older weight-loss medicine, Sodhi says scientists have some theories. The primary pertains to the physiological stress that the physique goes by way of underneath the affect of semaglutide. The drug contributes to a better proportion of body-mass weight reduction in comparison with earlier weight-loss drugs, and accomplishes this extra shortly. “As a result of semaglutide causes larger weight reduction and extra fast weight reduction than Contrave, there may be extra physiologic stress on the physique and due to this fact extra hair loss,” he says.
Second, as a result of the drug suppresses urge for food, individuals who take it eat much less and absorb fewer vitamins, notably protein, which is important for hair development. The gastrointestinal unintended effects related to the medicine, which result in nausea and vomiting, can additional diminish folks’s want to eat and get the nourishment they—and their hair cells—want.
Is the chance sufficient to discourage folks from utilizing these medicine to drop a few pounds? That will depend on why they’re taking the drugs—whether or not to deal with diabetes or weight problems—and the way a lot of a well being danger these well being situations pose. If you happen to’re attempting to handle diabetes, “you could be extra keen to just accept the potential danger of hair loss than somebody who could also be utilizing semaglutide to lose a number of kilos to look good for an occasion,” Sodhi says.
Outcomes like this, and extra research on the longer phrases results of GLP-1 medicine, are necessary to serving to folks steadiness the dangers and advantages of those drugs. “If folks don’t know the potential unintended effects,” says Sodhi, “then they could be stepping into one thing they didn’t join.”
