What to Expect With Wegovy

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Recently, the FDA approved a promising new drug for weight loss, called Wegovy.

But is it really a game-changer for weight loss? And how does it compare with other drugs that cause weight loss like Saxenda?

Let’s take a look at how it works and how it performed in trials, to shed some light into what you might expect if you end up trying it yourself.

What is it?

Wegovy is the drug semaglutide. Semaglutide is actually already being used off-label for weight loss by many clinicians, under the brand name Ozempic, which is officially a drug for type 2 diabetes.

Semaglutide actually started as a drug for diabetes, and was found to have very potent weight loss effects.

So Novo-Nordisk, the current owner of the drug, jacked up the dose, and marketed it as the weight loss drug Wegovy.

This is very similar to the marketing of the drug liraglutide.

While it was first being used for diabetes under the name Victoza, it was found to have good weight loss effects as well. So they cranked up the dose and marketed it for weight loss. We now know this drug under the name Saxenda.

How does it work?

Semaglutide is a GLP-1 agonist. These drugs work by mimicking the effects of a hormone called Glucagon-like peptide-1 or GLP-1.

This hormone stimulates the release of insulin, and also makes us feel full. So Wegovy works primarily like an appetite suppressant.

Like most other GLP-1 agonist drugs, it needs to be injected. However, Wegovy only needs to be injected once per week.

Side effects of Wegovy

The most commonly reported side effects from trials are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which is pretty typical of GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic. From research studies, an outline of the common and rare side effects associated with Wegovy is as follows:

Common side effects (reported in more than 1% of patients):

• Nausea (84-91%)
• Diarrhea (28-34%)
• Vomiting (23-27%)
• Constipation (12-16%)
• Abdominal pain (7-12%)
• Headache (6-9%)
• Fatigue (4-7%)
• Dyspepsia (3-6%)
• Dizziness (2-4%)
• Gastroenteritis (2-4%)

Rare side effects (reported in less than 1% of patients):

• Acute pancreatitis (frequency unknown)
• Gallbladder disease (frequency unknown)
• Renal impairment (frequency unknown)
• Hypersensitivity reactions (frequency unknown)
• Medullary thyroid carcinoma (frequency unknown)
• Diabetic retinopathy (frequency unknown)

The higher dose given in Wegovy likely produces stronger side effects than in Ozempic. So if you’ve tried Ozempic and couldn’t tolerate it, you probably won’t enjoy Wegovy either.

Studies on Wegovy showed that about 5% of people dropped out due to the side effects.

It’s important to note that Wegovy is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, which means it can increase the risk of thyroid tumors and pancreatitis. As a result, it is contraindicated in patients with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or a history of pancreatitis. So you’ll need to check with your doctor if you decide to try it.

Wegovy diet plan

Although there is no specific diet you need to follow with Wegovy, you might want to implement a stricter dietary plan, since Wegovy will make it easier to follow such plans.

Combining other appetite suppressing strategies such as having more protein and fat or consuming a soluble fiber supplement like glucomannan before meals might also help improve Wegovy’s effects.

But avoid extreme diets. You should make sure your dietary plan has a good variety of macronutrients, like protein and fat, and micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals, for example by following a calorie controlled Mediterranean Diet.

All these nutrients are necessary for proper fat metabolism, and inadvertently depriving yourself of these nutrients by following too extreme a diet, will make it harder for your body to burn fat, and potentially cause long-term problems like increasing your risk of weight rebound once you stop the drug.

How effective is Wegovy?

In one clinical trial, participants who took Wegovy for 68 weeks lost an average of 16.0% of their initial body weight, compared to an average weight loss of 5.7% in the placebo group.

Studies that compare semaglutide and liraglutide also seem to show that semaglutide is slightly more effective for weight loss than liraglutide. This would suggest that Wegovy may be more effective than Saxenda, although exactly how much is unknown.

Altogether, this makes Wegovy one of the stronger weight loss medications we have seen to date.

A game changer?

Although it’s great to hear about a drug that seems to show a lot of promise, I’m not sure if I’d call it a game-changer.

Wegovy is not really a new drug, and semaglutide was already being used as Ozempic off-label for weight loss.

It seems Novo-Nordisk just took Ozempic, more than doubled the dose, and called it Wegovy.

The significantly increased dose makes it a better appetite suppressant, but is likely to come with increased side effects, and decreased drug tolerability.

But the larger problem for patients will likely be the cost. Wegovy is being priced at around $1400 per month, similar to Saxenda.

That’s almost $17,000 a year. That’s about the cost to do lap band surgery.

So it’s not cheap by any means, and like Saxenda, many patients end up turning to cheaper alternatives, especially when their insurances refuse to cover these weight loss medications.

So while it might be a game changer in research trials, whether it will be in real life remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, a big upside of Wegovy is really being able to have more options of FDA approved weight loss drugs.

It’s good to see the FDA taking obesity more seriously, and this latest approval for an effective weight loss drug will continue to help clinicians and patients in the fight against obesity.

Should you try Wegovy?

Wegovy is best used if you have a hard time with controlling hunger and tend to overeat and snack too often.

Focus on developing good dietary and lifestyle habits whenever you take weight loss medication of any kind, as it will produce more permanent results if implemented properly.

That being said, here are a few things to keep in mind before you try Wegovy.

1. The way it works as a weight loss drug is not much different from other GLP-1 agonists. This means that if you’ve tried any of the other GLP-1 agonists, particularly Saxenda or Ozempic before, and it didn’t work for you at all, Wegovy may not work too well for you either.
2. Stalled weight loss and rebound weight gain upon discontinuing the drug is common in most weight loss drugs if you don’t control your diet. While Wegovy appears to have slightly stronger effects, it’s not immune to these problems. I recommend doing your best to develop good dietary and lifestyle habits while on the drug, to minimize these issues.
3. Wegovy is quite expensive if paid entirely out-of-pocket, around 1-2 thousand dollars per month depending on your dose, and is not often covered by insurance. So might want to consider trying Ozempic first if you have the chance to do so, since it might tell you if Wegovy would be effective for you in the first place.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most patients opted to try the much cheaper and identical drug Ozempic first, just to get an idea of how Wegovy might work for them.

Learn more about

• Ozempic vs Rybelsus vs Saxenda vs Victoza for Weight Loss
• Other Forms of Semaglutide
• Comparing GLP-1 Agonists for Weight Loss
• 5 Things To Know Before Starting Weight Loss Medication
• Other weight loss medications

See also

• 
  Bupropion vs Contrave vs Naltrexone
  Contrave is a synergistic combination of buproprion and naltrexone, which can be replicated to some degree using the generics individually.
• 
  New Obesity Drugs in 2024
  New obesity drugs target more than just GLP-1 and do much more than suppress appetite for a more nuanced approach to weight loss.
• 
  Mounjaro: Who Loses the Most Weight?
  White or Asian younger women who use metformin and have lower sugar and lipid levels tend to experience more weight loss with Mounjaro.
• 
  How does Oforglipron compare?
  Orforglipron, Semaglutide, and Danuglipron are oral GLP-1 agonists that are all similar enough that cost may end up being the winning factor.
• 
  Retatrutide vs Wegovy vs Mounjaro
  Eli Lilly’s retatrutide has shown stronger weight loss effects than others we’ve seen so far. However, it may have additional heart risks.