Jump to: Who are weight-loss injections for? | Are injections for weight loss safe? | Take home message
You shouldn’t take weight-loss injections if you’re not living with obesity or an obesity-related comorbidity such as type 2 diabetes or hypertension.
It’s also not recommended to take weight-loss injections if you’re living with or have a family history of thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, or type 1 diabetes.
It’s also not recommended to take weight-loss injections if you’re pregnant or planning for pregnancy in the next month. This is because losing weight and eating in a calorie deficit puts extra strain on your body and can make it challenging to support pregnancy.
Additionally, weight-loss injections shouldn’t be used for aesthetic purposes or to ‘lose that extra pound for the holidays’.
Weight-loss injections are only approved for people living with obesity or type 2 diabetes in the UK, so if you receive a prescription for a weight-loss injection and your BMI is below 27, this would be considered a clinically inappropriate prescription.
People with a lower BMI are more likely to experience adverse side effects associated with weight loss, such as losing lean mass and fatigue.
Programmes like Second Nature provide weight-loss injections like Wegovy and Mounjaro only for people living with obesity and meet other strict eligibility criteria.
If you meet our criteria, you can purchase Wegovy and Mounjaro privately with Second Nature as part of our Wegovy and Mounjaro weight-loss programmes.
Who are weight-loss injections for?
Weight-loss injections are developed for people living with obesity who have made several failed attempts to lose weight and keep it off in the past.
They can help kickstart weight loss while you commit to developing healthier habits.
Mounjaro and other weight loss injections, like Saxenda and Wegovy, can allow you to make lifestyle changes to support long-term weight loss.
These medications can help silence food-related thoughts and give you a boost of confidence with more immediate weight-loss results.
They can also buy you the time and headspace to understand why your body may have struggled to lose weight and build new long-term healthy habits.
Weight-loss injections are also approved for people living with type 2 diabetes due to the positive effect they have on blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity.
Are injections for weight loss safe?
Research suggests that injections for weight loss, like semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro), are safe and effective for most people.
Firstly, GLP-1 medications have been around since 2004. No long-term research has suggested that they do more harm than good.
As technology improves, so does our ability to produce more effective and safer medications. With each new iteration of weight-loss injections comes better outcomes and safety profiles.
This is supported by a recent systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials analysing the impact of the weight loss injection semaglutide on weight loss, which showed that 9.4% of participants experienced a serious adverse event that led to them stopping the medication.
The rate of serious adverse events in the placebo group was 6.6%. So, the in-treatment difference was just 2.8%.
This small difference in adverse events is likely due to individuals living with obesity already having a lower health status, and the risk of serious adverse events occurring, medication or not, is higher than those not living with obesity.
There are other concerns around thyroid cancer and pancreatitis, which are mainly based on animal models and research on the older generation of weight-loss injections like liraglutide and dulaglutide.
Additionally, recent reports suggested that semaglutide may increase the risk of mental health disorders and suicidal ideation.
However, research indicates that people taking semaglutide have a lower rate of suicidal ideation compared to those not taking the medication.
Correspondingly, some researchers are investigating the potential use of weight-loss injections in treating depression, given their prospective role in supporting the central nervous system’s normal functioning.
Furthermore, other effects, like their ability to reduce inflammation by lowering body fat, could potentially alleviate depressive symptoms.
So, weight-loss injections are safe and effective for most people prescribed the medication, and there’s no reason to suggest that people couldn’t stay on them for the long term if they choose to.
Take home message
The celebrity slimming culture, primarily promoted on social media in the United States, has seen interest in weight-loss injections over the past couple of years.
However, clinical guidelines are very strict in the UK, and weight-loss injections like Wegovy and Mounjaro can only be prescribed safely in individuals living with obesity or type 2 diabetes.
At Second Nature, we have extremely strict eligibility criteria for our medication weight-loss programmes.
We believe that weight-loss injections are most effective when combined with developing healthy habits.
If you want to check your eligibility for our Wegovy or Mounjaro weight-loss programmes, click here to take your health quiz.
