Semaglutide: must the media slender down its enthusiasm?

“Hollywood’s favorite thin jab is coming to the NHS,” learn BBC Science Center of attention mag, calling it a “weight reduction recreation changer.”1 The Occasions mentioned its arrival “may trim advantages invoice.”2 The Economist’s duvet tale used to be enthusiastic: “Consume, inject, repeat—curing weight problems, international: The longer term results will have to be sparsely studied. However the pleasure is justified.”3

The approval remaining week of the Novo Nordisk drug semaglutide (Wegovy) for weight reduction through the Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Excellence4 ended in a slew of sure headlines. Already to be had at the NHS for the remedy of kind 2 diabetes, semaglutide is now really helpful through NICE really helpful for weight reduction by myself in England and Wales (as a unique emblem and dose). A glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that reduces urge for food, semaglutide isn’t meant to be prescribed through normal follow however through specialist NHS weight control products and services for folks at prime chance of headaches of weight problems.

NICE’s advice lands in a febrile social media panorama. Instagram is filled with posts concerning the drug from “peculiar” folks on their “weight reduction journies,” blended with promotional subject matter from healthcare suppliers, encouraging them to “be the instance that others may well be afraid to be.”5 On Twitter, Elon Musk showed that he makes use of Wegovy,6 whilst different celebrities have felt the want to factor denials that they don’t.7 TikTok—in particular well-liked by more youthful generations—has exploded with emblem identify hashtags through the ones the usage of and prescribing it.

Scientific …