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Ozempic works to combat the urge to eat, and reduces the “inner noise” we hear in our heads that urge us to eat even though we are not hungry.
But this effect may include things other than food.
Desire - for food or anything else - is something that gives us motivation and can bring excitement and joy, and even give life purpose.
But cravings are the seed of addiction and unhealthy eating habits, and here the question arises as to whether Ozembic is effective in controlling desires that drive other harmful habits such as drugs, alcohol, and smoking.
Uncontrolled cravings lead to overeating and drug addiction, according to researchers.
A solution that has eluded researchers for a long time is a trick to help people rebalance.
It's a trick that reduces the level of desire enough to be effective, but not too much, and keeps us motivated, and it's a treatment that can work for a wide range of problems, including substance use disorders and overeating, according to an article by Brian Resnick in the "Fox website" ( Vox).
Attention is drawn to Ozambik, a diabetes drug that leads to weight loss.
It contains the active ingredient semaglutide.
Insulin
Ozempic belongs to a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists, which work by binding to GLP-1 receptors, which stimulate Secretion of insulin from the pancreas when you need insulin.
It also helps reduce the amount of sugar secreted by the liver, and slows the exit of food from the stomach. The combination of these effects helps reduce levels of HbA1C and blood sugar, and may also help reduce appetite.
We don't fully understand how GLP-1 agonists work.
But it seems to affect the brain's desire system.
Why do we desire what harms us?
Let's take this example: You are sitting at home and in front of you is a plate of pistachio maamoul that your wife prepared. You are not hungry, and you do not like your wife's maamoul because it is a little dry, yet you eat the first piece, then the second, then the third, until you finish the entire dish.
You weren't hungry, and after that it would be time for dinner and you would eat as usual.
You didn't want to eat maamoul, and yet, something inside you - a silent one - forced you to eat more.
What happened is the result of the work of a system we have in the brain called the mesolimbic system, which is the reward pathway in the brain that is facilitated by the neurotransmitter dopamine.
It is a system that has been trained over time to influence our decisions.
It is the system that pushes you towards Sudanese maamoul and also towards other things, such as continuing to watch clips on Tik Tok or Instagram even though you have an exam tomorrow, you have not studied yet.
Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter.
It is made by the body and used by the nervous system to transmit messages between nerve cells.
Dopamine plays a role in the feeling of pleasure, and in the ability to think and plan, as it helps to focus and find interesting things.
Out of consciousness
The main thing about the desire system—and arguably its most frustrating aspect—is that it often exists outside of our awareness.
Alexandra DeFelicesantonio, a nutritional neuroscientist at Virginia Tech, says that a particular food may be sought out due to conscious choice, such as because it is healthy and beneficial.
But it is also possible that there are unconscious processes taking place to train the brain's reward system.
For example, there is supposedly a pathway in the nervous system that connects our guts to our brains, which tells the brain's reward system about the nutritional content of food, creating a desire for it.
Why do we like eating pistachio maamoul more than an apple?
This may be because your craving system has learned to associate maamoul with too many nutritious calories.
“There are actually two pathways that transmit signals to the brain,” says Dana Small, a neuroscientist at Yale University who studies the food choices we make. One pathway is what you typically think of when you think of a food reward: the taste, the smell, and maybe what it looks like. And then there is Another pathway is that it transmits signals that are generated during the digestion process and that you are never aware of.”
The noise of desire
Sometimes desires seep into the conscious part of our brains, screaming intrusive thoughts.
But awareness of it does not mean that we can control it.
Sarah - her name is a pseudonym, an overweight woman - says that what she hears is “food noise.” She hears messages from her brain as she resists eating, and these messages scream at her: “You are dying, you are starving, you are dying.”
She adds that the more progress she made in losing weight, the more intense the "food noise" in her brain became.
She adds, "When I try to do anything, there is a constant thought about food... as my body tells me: I need this."
Sarah explained that it was impossible to ignore, and it was very difficult to sleep when her brain was telling her “you need food now” even when she was not hungry.
Stories like Sarah's confirm that asking people to engage in sheer willpower to subdue powerful urges is a recipe for failure.
Just look around.
The obesity crisis around the world continues to grow.
Studies consistently find that dieting and exercise are, in fact, ineffective solutions for weight management.
It's not that diet and exercise can't work.
There are success stories.
But, arguably, if you evaluate the effectiveness of diet and exercise as a prescription for weight loss alone, you will find that they do not help many people.
The unconscious mind wins
When people engage in self-control to reduce behaviors, they are fighting to use their conscious mind against their unconscious mind, and the unconscious mind usually wins.
Interestingly, GLP-1 drugs - including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro - can help us, as they mimic a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1.
This hormone does a lot of work in the body, but in twisted ways.
Primarily, it stimulates the pancreas to release insulin, which lowers blood sugar.
From there, it suppresses appetite through some mechanisms, including increasing the amount of time it takes the stomach to empty, which leads to a feeling of fullness, and produces a feeling of early satiety.
These medications are not ideal when it comes to weight loss.
Many people experience side effects, such as nausea, or see their weight plateau.
So far, GLP-1 drugs have been studied mostly in people with diabetes, heart disease and obesity, so little is known about their effects in other populations.
Like any medication, it comes with some risks.
It is known to increase the risk of thyroid cancer, for example, and should not be taken during pregnancy.
However, safety data from diabetes cases more than a decade ago shows that these drugs are, for the most part, very safe.
Puzzle
But a curious piece of the puzzle lies in the brain.
GLP-1 drugs appear to act directly in the brain as a neurotransmitter, affecting neurons in the brain's reward system and in the hypothalamus, which regulates the body's metabolism.
It is possible that the drugs do not primarily affect the dopamine neurons themselves, but they act on the neurons that the dopamine neurons speak to.
So, it's complicated.
But no matter how effective the drugs are, they seem to do a wonderful trick.
“I still love food,” says Sarah, whose doctor prescribed Mongaro a few months ago after learning she had diabetes. “Food tastes great to me. All I have to do is experience it in a way I haven’t tried it before.”
Most importantly, she is currently eating without the noise of food in her head.
Sarah says, "About 24 hours after taking the first dose of Monjaro, there was calm in my body and in my mind. I wasn't thinking about food."
Finally, she was able to eat at mealtimes and no longer have intrusive thoughts in between.
“It's a completely different way of living than I've lived for most of my life,” she says.
Sarah lost 65 pounds with the medication.
She says this is great.
But the part about peace and the absence of food noise is the most important.
Ozambik to soothe cravings beyond food
Researchers are now exploring whether the calming of the mind induced by GLP-1 drugs extends beyond food.
It is noteworthy that this class of drugs has shown promising results in reducing cravings for other substances, such as alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine.
In theory this makes sense.
“We only have one reward system,” DeFeliceantonio says. “There is no special reward system for food, and there is no special reward system for drugs.”
So, tapping into the reward system to control appetite should influence cravings for other things.
There is evidence that GLP-1 medications may reduce cravings for drugs and alcohol.
There are further human trials underway for a variety of substances, including alcohol and nicotine.
While scientists in this field feel that these drugs could be a breakthrough, they urge caution, and we must wait for trial data to emerge.
5 Benefits of Ozambik
We conclude with the results of a 2021 study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that obese or overweight participants who received a 2.4 milligram dose of semaglutide once weekly with lifestyle changes experienced the following benefits over the course of 68 weeks:
Losing 5% to 20% of body weight, according to a report in Forbes
Reduced waist circumference.
Improving blood sugar levels.
Improve blood pressure.
Improve cholesterol levels.
Source: Al Jazeera + Agencies + Forbes + Fox