Beth Rubin liked to be thin. And for about 14 years, after losing 40 pounds, she enjoyed a slim physique.
“My happiest day,” the recently retired Wall Street director told The Post, “was when I gave away my ‘big’ clothes.”
Then the pandemic hit. Her calorie intake increased and her weight increased again. After gaining 10 pounds, Rubin knew something had to be done – and traditional dieting had stopped working.
“In December, I told my weight loss doctor that I needed help,” Rubin, 59, said. “I knew what to do [to lose weight] but I always felt hungry. My doctor told me my body was looking for calories. “
On the advice of his doctor, Dr. Katherine H. Saunders, Rubin turned to a new strategy – the diabetes drug Ozempic. It includes a compound, semaglutide, which is intended for the obese and those with type 2 diabetes – but is being used more and more by people who need to lose only 5 or 10 pounds. It is found in both the weight loss drug Wegovy and the injectable Ozempic; the former has been shown to help reduce body weight by 15 percent and the latter by about 10 percent.
“Semaglutide” is a hormone that is produced while we eat; it tells the brain that we are full, “Dr. Saunders, co-founder of Intellihealth, a company focusing on medical treatment for obesity, told The Post. to feel less hungry, to get full faster and to get full longer, but it does when we are actually less full than would be the norm.
And it can be expensive. Dr. Abe Malkin, founder of Concierge MD in Los Angeles, has seen people pay $ 1,300 a month for Wegovy. He understands the appeal.
“Certain patients in LA want to look good and feel good, and this is a way to maximize the gains when you start a weight loss program,” he told The Post. At the other end of it, Dr. added. Malkin: “It can be hard to lose those last few pounds. It’s effective for people, regardless of weight, whether you need to lose five pounds or 50.”
Officially, Wegovy is recommended for patients with a body mass index of 27 or higher, with at least one weight-related medical condition.
But there is a catch: When you stop, hunger returns. So for those who want to stay lean, it can be a lifetime of $ 1,300 payouts each month, which Dr. Saunders describes it as “unaffordable for most people.”
Fortunately for Rubin, who has a family history of diabetes, her insurance provider covers Ozempic. Its effectiveness, via self-injection “in my stomach” every week, exceeded her wildest dreams.
“I wanted to lose 10 pounds – and I ended up losing 19,” said Rubin, who began taking the drug last December. “I have not been so easy since I was in my early 20s. People call me ‘skinny’ and I had not been called ‘skinny’ for a long time. That in itself is a positive reinforcement.”
However, taking the drug can come with complications. Rubin reports that for the first five or six weeks recently, she was plagued by acid reflux and heartburn. Plus the food did not taste so good. In the beginning, where the effects are most pronounced, Rubin told The Post: “I had to push myself to eat. I was not hungry at all. I had to eat slowly and take care of my meals. If I ate too much, said my doctor to me, I would get sick.
“There were times when I ate a little too much and I was not feeling well.”
A testament to the effectiveness of what some call “a miracle cure” is the fact that Rubin managed not to gain weight, even under conditions where she normally would. Five weeks after she started taking Ozempic, Rubin and her husband traveled to Egypt. Rubin said she always puts on weight while on vacation, and mentioned it to the doctor at Dr. Saunders’ office. “Not this time,” the nurse predicted.
She was right. Rubin’s weight remained stable. Maybe, she reckoned, it had to do with the fact that Egypt was not exactly a food destination. Recently, however, she went to what ranks among the most food-intensive localities in the world.
“I was in Paris just two weeks ago,” Rubin said. “I ate bread every day and still did not gain weight.”
But she ate less bread than usual: “If there was food on my plate and I got enough, I stopped. I actually lost half a pound in Paris. “
But there are people who wish non-overweight people would dismiss Wegovy. Due to a supply chain problem and the popularity of the drug, it has reportedly been in limited access for new users. The manufacturer Novo Nordisk (which manufactures both Wegovy and Ozempic) acknowledged the same on its website: “There will be minimal or no delivery of 1 mg strength dose [which is the starter dose] begins as early as May and continues into the second half of 2022, where we expect to stabilize supply. “
This has caused concern among some who are on Wegovy. “It should only be for people who need the medicine for health reasons,” Kelli Deavers Charpentier, who stands five feet and two and now weighs 170 pounds, told The Post. “My body is insulin resistant and I would immediately put on weight again if I could not get hold of it. I was morbidly overweight. “After shedding 12 pounds in seven weeks, she added,” Now I’m overweight.
Dr. Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington DC, described Wegovy as “an amazing drug,” but, he told The Post, “It’s not a miracle cure … and uses it for thin people who want “Losing a few pounds for a wedding would be inappropriate. Obesity is a medical condition. For people who are 100 pounds overweight, this is an appropriate medication. Over-treatment with medication is not medically sensible.”
Rubin and other patients qualify for their medication not by suffering from obesity now, but by having been there in the past and having the potential to get there in the near future. It is a form of treatment that Dr. Kahan generally agrees.
“We’re looking at someone’s body mass,” said Dr. Saunders. “If they were [a BMI of ] 40 and now is 26, we might want to prescribe it because there would be a high probability of taking on the weight again that they lost. It’s not only where they are now, but where they were before they got lost. Our bodies have evolved to not starve. That’s why people lose and win, lose and win. 74 percent of this country is overweight or obese. Our bodies sabotage our best efforts. Medicine can help. ”
Although that means taking Ozempic for the rest of her life, the bulge battle is not a war that Rubin will easily lose.
“I have no intentions of stopping,” she said. “If I stop, I’m going to be hungry again.”