Tright here’s no query that the wildly fashionable 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 revealed 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 the next danger of hair loss, particularly amongst ladies.
Dr. Mohit Sodhi, a resident in emergency medication at College of British Columbia, and his colleagues analyzed knowledge from simply over 1,900 individuals who have been prescribed semaglutide and 1,300 who have been prescribed bupropion-naltrexone—an older weight problems remedy referred to 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 obese or weight problems to keep away from any potential confounding results of diabetes on hair loss.
He and his crew then in contrast the diagnoses for hair loss in these sufferers’ medical data and located that these prescribed semaglutide had a 50% larger danger of being recognized 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 Medicine
How Weight Loss Medicine Work
Whereas it’s not clear why semaglutide is linked to higher 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 underneath the affect of semaglutide. The drug contributes to the next share of body-mass weight reduction in comparison with earlier weight-loss medicines, and accomplishes this extra shortly. “As a result of semaglutide causes higher weight reduction and extra speedy weight reduction than Contrave, there may be extra physiologic stress on the physique and subsequently extra hair loss,” he says.
Second, as a result of the drug suppresses urge for food, individuals who take it eat much less and soak up fewer vitamins, significantly protein, which is important for hair development. The gastrointestinal unwanted effects related to the medicine, which result in nausea and vomiting, can additional diminish folks’s need to eat and get the nourishment they—and their hair cells—want.
Is the chance sufficient to discourage folks from utilizing these medicine to shed some pounds? That is dependent upon why they’re taking the medicines—whether or not to deal with diabetes or weight problems—and the way a lot of a well being danger these well being circumstances pose. When you’re attempting to handle diabetes, “you might be extra prepared to simply accept the potential danger of hair loss than somebody who could also be utilizing semaglutide to lose just a few 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 vital to serving to folks steadiness the dangers and advantages of those medicines. “If folks don’t know the potential unwanted effects,” says Sodhi, “then they could be stepping into one thing they didn’t join.”
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