Weight-loss: Are injections the answer to tackling obesity?

Jan, from Kent, was one of the first people in the world to take part in the trials of semaglutide. It is sold as Wegovy for weight-loss and as Ozempic for diabetes, although some people have been buying this version to lose weight.

We all know somebody like Jan, who has tried every diet, and she has been battling her waistline her whole life.

Semaglutide mimics a hormone that is released when we eat. It tricks the brain into thinking we are full and dials down appetite so we eat less.

Once Jan started having the injections, her relationship with food was so transformational that she told me it was either down to the drug or “I’ve been abducted by aliens”.

For the first time she could go into a cafe, see some millionaire’s shortbread and not have her body screaming, “I need one”.

Instead it was, “I don’t feel hungry… my body was saying you don’t want it, it wasn’t me using willpower,” she says.

The results of semaglutide are undeniable – at least for a while.

On average, people who were obese lost about 15% of their body weight, external when taking semaglutide alongside healthy lifestyle advice in a trial. Note this is not a “skinny jab” – 15% takes you from 20 stone down to 17.

That study showed the weight came off over the first year and then stabilised for the remaining three months of the trial. We do not know what happens when people take the drug for years.

Jan lost 28kg (more than four stone). It meant she could finally enjoy her 60th birthday present – a flight in a Tiger Moth aeroplane, having been over the maximum weight limit before. “I was flying in more ways than one, and boy did I enjoy it.”