Two New Names For Weight Loss Effects

Let’s face it. “Ozempic face” wasn’t going to be the only possible effect of rapid weight loss from taking semaglutide, the diabetes medication marketed as Ozempic by Novo Nordisk. The bottom line is that your butt may be affected as well as other parts of your body such as your fingers and wrists. That’s because the big “but” with taking Ozempic injections for weight loss is that you can’t really control where exactly you may lose body fat and weight. As a result, people have been combining the medication’s name and various parts of your body to form names such as “Ozempic butt” and “Ozempic finger.”

Yep, various Ozmepic terms have been trending for a while after a Phase III randomized clinical trial showed that once-weekly subcutaneous injections of semaglutide along with lifestyle modifications led to an average 14.9% loss in body weight compared to an average 2.4% loss among those taking placebo combined with lifestyle modifications as described in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2021 and Nature Medicine in 2022. Such findings put a lot of weight behind the use of semaglutide for weight loss.

Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. Versions of semaglutide such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelus initially received approval as diabetes medications because the medication can stimulate your pancreas to produce more insulin, which in turn can lower blood sugar levels. But one key action of semaglutide is that it can also make you feel full of it, so to speak. It may delay the rate at which food leaves your stomach so that you feel fuller and thus end up consuming fewer calories. It could potentially suppress you appetite in other ways. All of this can lead to fat and weight loss, potentially very rapid fat and weight loss.

Some of that fat loss can occur in your face, leading to a gaunt, hollowed-out, and aged appearance with sagging, wrinkled skin that’s earned the unofficial term “Ozempic face” on social media. It may be difficult to prevent such a possibility unless you were to separate your face from the rest of your body, which would bring other problems. Some have recommended reducing the dosage of semaglutide, which may reduce the amount of fat and weight loss that you experience in general. Drinking more water and increasing your protein intake could help. Of course, there’s always dermatological fillers and various types of cosmetic surgery. But that’s a whole another ball of wax.

In hindsight, another possible effect of rapid weight loss is what’s been deemed “Wegovy Butt” and “Ozempic Butt.” It’s where your butt looks deflated and looser. Not in an emotional or moral way but in a physical appearance way. This can be deflating emotionally if you like big butts and cannot lie. In general, such rapid weight loss can throw you a curve ball of sorts by making you lose some of your curves. Again, this can occur with any type of rapid loss and is not specific to Wegovy or Ozempic. That’s why the labels for these medications do not say, “May cause butt loss.”

Then there’s “Ozempic finger.” This is not where you give the middle finger to someone telling you that you should take Ozempic. Instead, it’s where rapid fat loss is occurring your fingers, which apparently has led to a number of rings and other jewelry no longer fitting because they are too large for the new smaller diameters of fingers and wrists. Adriana Diaz recently wrote for The New York Post that jewelers have been reporting a 150% increase in customers requesting down-sizes in rings and bracelets compared to last year. Now, it’s not clear how much of this increase was due specifically to the use of semaglutide. Regardless, such things may not have a completely positive ring to it, since such re-sizing will cost money.

These are just three of the complications that may result from rapid weight loss. Your skin is elastic but not quite like Spanx. While over time, your skin can stretch and expand to fit the size and shape of underlying body tissue, if your skin has covered a larger area for a while, it may not readily return to its original size once the underlying body tissue shrinks. This is why many patients who have undergone bariatric surgery and experienced substantial weight loss may subsequently undergo plastic surgery to remove flaps of skin on their limbs and torso.

All of this is a reminder that weight loss can be much more complex than initially realized. It’s not as if you can simply photoshop different parts of your body off of you. Weight loss can be unpredictable. Plus, there can be number of mental and emotional health effects since unfortunately you can be treated by others very differently depending on your body weight and appearance. After all, surprise, surprise, society can be really, really superficial. It can make you really want to give others the finger.