Does it end at “Ozempic face”?

Surely you’ve heard of this widespread phenomenon of “Ozempic face,” the appearance of deep wrinkles, sagging skin, and accelerated aging of the face that occurs with use of the GLP-1 agonist drugs to lose weight. Of course, the effect is not unique to Ozempic, one of the first GLP-1 agonist agents to come to market, but is an effect shared by all of the agents in this class. Yes, people lose substantial quantities of weight but then appear 10, 20 or more years older. Not surprisingly, this has been embraced by dermatologists, aestheticians, plastic surgeons and others who come to the rescue with injectable fillers, microneedling, platelet-rich plasma, surgical reconstruction and other “solutions.”

Unfortunately, Google “Ozempic face” and you will see that 99% of the “authorities” who purport to explain this phenomenon claim that it is due to losing weight too quickly and the loss of facial fat. They are quick, also, to offer cosmetic procedures to remedy the effect. So let’s be clear on precisely what happens when you take any GLP-1 agonist and discuss why the LEAST of someone’s problems is the accelerated facial aging. People who engage in this strategy to lose weight also program themselves for deterioration in health should the drug be stopped, as well as hastening death. Let’s put aside the near-term side-effects that appears with these drugs that have, to date, prompted over 3000 lawsuits for unintended side-effects that include blindness from optic neuritis, intractable gastroparesis (stomach paralysis) that makes eating and digestion nearly impossible, bowel obstruction (a surgial emergency that requires partial removal of intestines), thyroid carcinoma, among others. Let’s instead focus on what happens to your body on these drugs and the long-term consequences of being exposed to them. In other words, Ozempic face is just the tip of the iceberg of “Ozempic body.”

First of all, yes, you lose weight on GLP-1 agonists. But what kind of weight? We know with abundant evidence that:

• Fat loss occurs preferentially from subcutaneous stores, i.e., fat just below the skin. This occurs in the face, as well as thighs, buttocks, neck, etc. Subcutaneous fat is a more benign form of fat compared to abdominal visceral fat that is the source of most health problems associated with being overweight or obese: insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, increased potential for cognitive impairment, increased cardiovascular risk, increased risk for cancer, especially breast cancer. Some abdominal visceral fat can be lost, but fat loss from subcutaneous stores dominates, meaning that metabolic benefits are therefore limited.
   
• Around 25% of weight lost is muscle—For example, if 40 pounds total is lost, 10 pounds of that lost weight will be muscle. This loss of muscle compounds the loss of muscle that is expected with aging. Loss of muscle results in a reduction of basal metabolic rate, BMR, that persists for many years after weight loss. Reduced BMR virtually guarantees that weight will be regained once the drug is stopped even if a low-calorie lifestyle and vigorous exercise program are maintained.
   
• Regain of weight will be primarily abdominal visceral fat, not subcutaneous fat nor muscle. This means that insulin resistance and risk for all weight-associated health conditions such as dementia, cancer, and heart disease are now greater than they were prior to losing weight. The large STEP 1 human clinical trial, for instance, that followed 2000 participants demonstrated that, once the drug is stopped, weight regain is prompt and results in more people with type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension, etc. compared to before starting the drug. This makes sense when you realize that these people lost huge amounts of muscle and mostly lost subcutaneous fat, then regained weight as the more problematic abdominal visceral fat.
   
• We now know that, as shown in large databases of people who lost weight (nearly always by reducing calorie intake by some method), mortality is increased, causing people to die several years younger than they should have. A woman losing, say, 18 pounds from a starting weight of 180 pounds, or a male who loses 24 pounds from a starting weight of 240 pounds—both common situations—have programmed their bodies to die several years sooner. Such databases revealing these phenomenon now total around 60,000 participants tracked over many years, as long as 20 years.

Pharma wins big, healthcare practitioners enjoy substantial windfalls, but the consumer ends up, once again, paying the financial and health price because misinformation is either withheld or the eagerness to make money causes doctors to ignore the evidence. Yes, there are ways to lose weight from abdominal visceral fat as well as subcutaneous fat, to preserve muscle, and not be subject to accelerated aging and mortality, but it will involve no injections, no pharmaceuticals, no surgical reduction of stomach volume, no deprivation diet, no extreme exercise and—a blessing and a curse—can be pursued at little cost, thereby yielding no pot of gold for anyone. Key strategies to do better than flawed conventional solutions include:

• Follow a diet and supplement program that reduces or eliminates insulin resistance
   
• Restore factors that influence muscle mass such as collagen, microbes that support the gut-muscle axis
   
• Rebuild a healthy gastrointestinal microbiome and eradicate small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, SIBO, that drives insulin resistance

In other words, just engage in all the strategies that I have detailed for many years and thereby selectively target abdominal visceral fat, preserve or increase muscle, obtain metabolic improvements that reduce, even eliminate, risk for all the conditions I’ve mentioned, and not experience reduced BMR. By the way, you may also notice that nearly all the strategies that I have discussed over and over again are those lacking in modern life but whose need is programmed into your genetic code. You think that need for Ozempic is programmed into anyone’s genetic code? Fat chance.

You can piece together all the strategies by going back over my many blog posts, my hundreds of YouTube videos, my Defiant Health podcast, or you can find the entire approach outlined in my latest Super Body book.

The original IHB post is currently found on the: ⎆Infinite Health Blog, but accessing it there can require an unnecessary separate blog membership. The copy of it above is complete, and has been re-curated and enhanced for the Inner Circle membership.