What is Ozempic®?

Ozempic® is an FDA-approved semaglutide injection proven to aid in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The active ingredient, semaglutide, has traditionally been used to treat type 2 diabetes – and it’s also proven effective for non-diabetics with treatments like Wegovy®.

Both Ozempic® and its sister medication, Wegovy®, are manufactured by Novo Nordisk, who are thus far the first and only company to maintain a patent on semaglutide.

While similar injectable medications exist, such as Saxenda® (liraglutide) and Mounjaro® (tirzepatide), Ozempic® and Wegovy® are the only semaglutide-based medications among them. Though they share some fundamental actions, Ozempic® works a little differently than other medications, ultimately distinguishing itself from competitors in both efficacy and outcomes.

What does Ozempic® do?

Semaglutide works by modulating the hunger centers in the brain to reduce appetite and slow down gastric emptying, which in turn helps keep your stomach feeling full. This helps the pancreas release appropriate levels of insulin to address high blood sugar levels. The insulin then helps move sugar from the blood into other body tissues where it is used for energy. This helps mitigate some of the fat storage that occurs when caloric intake is disproportionate to activity.

Semaglutide-based injections like Ozempic® and Wegovy® are GLP-1 receptor agonists, meaning that they imitate the glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) hormone. GLP-1 is a natural hormone released from the gut that ultimately sends a signal to the liver, telling it to stop dumping sugar into the bloodstream (in this way it shares a similar therapeutic action to Metformin). This is no trivial matter, as the liver is a glorified “glucose factory”, pumping sugar into the blood for the rest of the organs in our body (especially for our brain).

However, semaglutide has another important effect on us that has propelled it into stardom: it acts on the digestive system to delay gastric emptying (delaying release of food from the stomach) and modulates brain activity (hypothalamus) to suppress appetite.

What does Ozempic® help with?

Semaglutide works to stabilize our blood sugar levels by way of insulin secretion and control. On a cellular level, this also results in lower A1c levels, reduced blood pressure, and improved cholesterol.

But semaglutide also acts on our digestive system to keep us feeling full longer, as well as the hunger centers in our brains to curb cravings, all of which can help promote healthy eating habits and lower your BMI.

Though not all of these benefits can be seen with the naked eye, the cumulative effect is a reduction in our long-term risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other age-related diseases.

What are the top benefits of Ozempic®?

Perhaps the most important potential outcome of semaglutide medications is reduced risk for diseases.

Semaglutide helps to improve all 5 metrics of metabolic syndrome – cholesterol, blood pressure, fasting glucose, triglyceride levels, and weight. By addressing these factors, Ozempic® may also help lower your risk for cardiovascular disease, pre-diabetes, and certain cancers.

Further, maintaining these metrics can not only improve our daily energy and overall vitality, but these are also crucial factors to living healthier, longer. As such, perhaps the most vital but often overlooked benefit is improved quality of life.

Is Ozempic® a safe alternative to Wegovy®?

You’ll notice that we never mentioned Ozempic® when we discussed the benefits above. Instead, we framed these as the benefits of semaglutide. Why?

That’s because Ozempic® and Wegovy® are both semaglutide medications, which means they’re fundamentally the same medication with the same chemistry and mechanism of action. The only difference is that Wegovy® is available in a higher target dose than Ozempic® to amplify the weight loss benefits.

Thus, Ozempic® is a perfectly safe alternative to Wegovy®. In fact, Ozempic® has often been prescribed to patients in the event of Wegovy® supply shortages to avoid lapses in treatment.

Are Ozempic® outcomes similar to Wegovy®?

Because both Ozempic® and Wegovy® are semaglutide, all of the benefits mentioned above apply to both medications.

Sometimes, though, when a patient is prescribed Ozempic® as an alternative to Wegovy®, their first concern is whether they’ll lose as much weight on Ozempic® as they do with Wegovy®.

It’s true that Wegovy® does have a higher target dose of 2.4mg, compared to 2.0mg with Ozempic®. But this doesn’t mean you’re missing out on an extra .4mg of results by using Ozempic® – so long as you’re taking the target dose for either, the outcomes should be largely indistinguishable.

Patients taking semaglutide report about 10-20lbs of weight loss on average, up to a maximum of 30lbs in some cases. This normally equates to about 15% of body fat.

How long does it take to start seeing results from Ozempic®?

When starting out with Ozempic®, it’s important to understand ahead of time that everyone experiences medication differently, and that your outcomes may Most Ozempic® users can expect to start seeing noticeable results after about 3 months.

What is the best way to take Ozempic®?

The primary delivery method for Wegovy® is via self-administered injectables. Novo Nordisk has gone to lengths to make this process somewhat more approachable than traditional injectables by providing single-use injection pens that are pre-loaded with your prescribed dose.

The spring-loaded plunger helps to provide what many of our users describe as a relatively painless injection, and the injection sites themselves are focused on fleshy areas of the body that tend to be more tolerable.

Further, the user instructions are straightforward and accessible:

1. Line the pen straight against your chosen injection site
2. Push firmly on the pen’s plunger until you hear a click
3. Ensure that the bar in the pen’s window begins moving
4. Maintain this position until you hear a second click

It’s worth mentioning that oral semaglutide has been FDA approved to treat type 2 diabetes since 2019. Early trials for semaglutide pills have suggested that they may at least be as effective, if not more effective than, than Ozempic®.

What is the difference between Ozempic® and Wegovy®?

Ozempic® and Wegovy® both belong to the same class of medications known as semaglutide, which works as a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. Both are also developed by Novo Nordisk.

The big difference is that, while Ozempic® is FDA approved to treat type 2 diabetes, Wegovy® is FDA approved for weight management in adults with a BMI of 27 or greater. Though both start at an initial dose of 0.25mg/week, the target dose for Wegovy® is higher, usually at 2.4mg/week, so as to amplify the weight loss benefits.

Another difference is in the injection pens themselves. Novo Nordisk designed injection pens that were unique to each medication. For example, Wegovy® has single-use pens that already have the doses predialed, from 0.25mg to 0.5mg, 1mg, 1.7mg, and finally 2.4mg. Ozempic® also has injection pens with predialed doses, but with additional utility that allows users to slightly adjust their dose if desired.

Fundamentally, both Ozempic® and Wegovy® operate in the same way, which means they can both help you lose weight. This is why some patients may receive Ozempic® from their prescriber if Wegovy® is unavailable. But because Wegovy® is available in higher doses, it may be the more effective weight loss treatment.

What is the difference between Mounjaro™ and Ozempic®?

While Ozempic® is a semaglutide, Mounjaro is a tirzepatide. Both are GLP-1 receptor agonists, but in addition, tirzepatide also acts as a glucose-dependent insulinotrophic polypeptide (GIP) agonist.

GIP has a similar overall function as GLP-1. Both GLP-1 and GIP are released from the gut in response to food intake, resulting in increased insulin and lower blood sugar levels.

As such, both medications are FDA approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, with Mounjaro receiving approval as of May 2022.

What is the cost of Ozempic®?

AgelessRx currently offers Ozempic® at $1,350/month, which is about what you can expect to pay (or more) when buying Ozempic® without insurance.

If you and your healthcare provider believe that your insurance will cover most or all of the cost of Ozempic® treatment, we encourage you to explore this option. However, you should be cautiously hopeful, as this is by no means a streamlined process and it’s not guaranteed that your insurance will cover Ozempic® treatment. You could wait weeks or even months just for a negative response from your insurance, when you could have already been approved and awaiting delivery from sources like AgelessRx.

Further, you should be careful when approaching sources that do offer Ozempic® at a suspiciously low price, or those that don’t tell you their price outright.

Why do some websites advertise “access to” Ozempic®, but not the actual prescription?

We mentioned above that some sources purportedly offer Ozempic® at suspiciously low prices, if they advertise the price at all. These sources tend to use misleading language to suggest that you could receive Ozempic® at a much lower price (think double digits, rather than quadruple). But diving into the fine print exposes the truth.

If you find yourself on one of these sites, the company is likely selling “access to” Ozempic®, not the actual treatment. What does this mean? Essentially, sites that sell “access to” Ozempic® are simply allowing you the opportunity to speak to a doctor about potentially receiving Ozempic®…and that’s it. Access to Ozempic® is never guaranteed, and many users never actually receive Ozempic®..
In fact, most “access to” sites have you pay a flat fee of around $99. But by access, they really mean that they “help” to potentially have an Ozempic® prescription by sending you to a third party that will actually fulfill the prescription at a different price point – usually $1,600+. So what your $99 pays for is nothing less than a middleman who provides an insurance consultation, not the prescription itself.
Now let’s compare this process to AgelessRx. The price of Ozempic® is clearly advertised on the main page, with a list of everything you will receive for that price point. This includes a free virtual visit with a licensed US prescriber, who will tell you expeditiously whether or not you could be approved for Ozempic® (which is precisely the service these other sites are charging for). From there, AgelessRx will notify you of your potential approval, and ship the medication to you directly.

If you were buying from one of these other sources, you would’ve paid hundreds for an otherwise free virtual visit, just to be potentially denied. This is something you could get with more transparency at a lower price point from your regular prescriber. Whereas with AgelessRx, you could know within a couple of days whether or not you could be approved for Ozempic®, without spending any money.

The key here is to set your expectations before starting the process, just as you would for your potential outcomes if you were using Ozempic®. You should expect to pay around $1,350/month for Ozempic® itself, plus the cost of consultation and other fees. But with AgelessRx, the full price of the medication as advertised includes consultation and delivery, so you’ll never be surprised by what you receive for the price.

I’ve never heard of semaglutide, how does AgelessRx know so much about it?

Our expert medical team has been prescribing semaglutide such as Wegovy® since it first became FDA approved to treat weight loss. Not only have we poured over the myriad literature for semaglutide, but we’ve also been on the front lines of its clinical application as well. We’ve seen firsthand how transformative this medication can be, and helped countless patients introduce Wegovy® into their longevity plan.

If you haven’t heard of semaglutide, you may at least be familiar with Ozempic® or Wegovy®. Both are manufactured by Novo Nordisk, and both have been touted in headlines as the new, go-to weight loss medication in media headlines, despite only one product being FDA approved for weight loss.

The primary difference is that Wegovy® is manufactured with a higher dose of semaglutide to amplify its weight loss benefits, but Ozempic® allows patients to dial in smaller doses, allowing prescribers to more carefully adjust titration plans.

Though Ozempic® is only FDA approved to treat type 2 diabetes, it can still be prescribed off-label (at the discretion of your healthcare provider) to help patients find their ideal dose, or even because of supply shortages caused by the increasing popularity of Wegovy®.

How can Ozempic® increase your life expectancy?

There has not been any direct evidence revealing Ozempic®’s role in increasing lifespan because it is a fairly new drug and has not been around for long enough to be validated for lifespan enhancing effects in longitudinal studies. This being said, the promise of its lifespan enhancing effects is clear. Ozempic® has been shown to be one of the most effective interventions available today to reduce weight, prevent and remedy type 2 diabetes, and significantly reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events. What sort of lifespan benefits does this translate to ? Being overweight has been shown to cut life expectancy by 6 years and obesity by up to 13 years, which is equal to the effects of lifelong smoking. Having type 2 diabetes cuts lifespan by 6 years, those with heart failure lose 10 years of life compared to those without, and more than 16 years of life are lost for those that suffer a heart attack.

Taken together, Ozempic® has significant potential to extend lifespan for individuals with (or at risk for) excess weight, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In America, that is the vast majority of the population – especially when considering the risk of developing these conditions increases by several magnitudes with each decade that passes after 50 years old.

How does Ozempic® affect your healthspan?

Healthspan is the period of life lived in good health without disease, frailty, or disability. Hence, the most salient factor that leads to a decline in Healthspan is the presence of disease. The average individual spends 25% of their lives with chronic disease or multi-morbidity. As average lifespan improves, so does the proportion of time spent with chronic disease. But healthspan is much more than just the presence or absence of disease.

Healthspan is all about living a high quality life, in both the present moment and the future. Healthspan also encompasses your physiological health, functional capacity and perhaps most importantly, subjective health and wellbeing.

Carrying excess fat can compromise future health by predisposing to several chronic diseases of aging and significantly impair quality of life by leading to fatigue as well as physical and emotional role limitations. Ozempic® enhances healthspan by helping you lose excess fat which in turn gives you more energy, enhances emotional wellbeing and improves everyday functioning.

Further, reduction of fat around organs (known as visceral fat) with Ozempic® has been shown to reduce inflammation and promote overall metabolic health. Intriguingly, Ozempic® has been shown to be effective at preventing and treating several diseases that compromise healthspan including diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and major adverse cardiovascular events (heart failure, heart attack, stroke).

The active ingredient in Ozempic®, semaglutide, is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. This means that it has an effect on all organs/tissues that have this receptor. GLP-1 receptors are present on many different cell types and Ozempic® has garnered a lot of attention from researchers for its immune boosting, anti-cancer and neuroprotective effects (addressing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease), further strengthening its promise as a healthspan enhancing longevity drug.

Improving healthspan by increasing the number of years spent in good health and compressing the period of morbidity is the ultimate goal of longevity medicine. Ozempic holds immense promise to improve the multiple facets of healthspan, adding more life to years and more years to life.

Why are so many celebrities talking about Ozempic® and Wegovy®?

Celebrities have historically taken interest in cutting-edge medical interventions, whether it’s athletes receiving top-of-the-line treatment after an injury or tabloid regulars promoting the latest health supplements. Perhaps it’s their status that affords them early access; perhaps it comes with the job.

Whatever it may be, it’s clear that the rich and famous embraced the introduction of Ozempic® and Wegovy® as potentially the new weight loss fad. Where it started is up for debate, but people as diverse as business magnate Elon Musk to reality TV star GG Gharachedaghi all became unwitting semaglutide influencers by announcing publicly that they use medications like Ozempic®. Gharachedaghi even went so far as to post a video to her social media account showing how she administers her injections.

But this isn’t to suggest that semaglutide medications are only for the rich and famous. Ozempic® and Wegovy® have broken out of the Hollywood bubble and into the mainstream, likely due in part to celebrity influence. Semaglutide has since escaped the fad threshold and proven itself as a legitimate treatment, a step well beyond some other celebrity recommendations that have gone around social media in recent years, thanks largely to the continued effort of researchers worldwide.

Can Ozempic® help with high blood pressure?

Ozempic® is FDA approved to treat type 2 diabetes which often goes hand in hand with high blood pressure. Ozempic® has potent blood pressure lowering effects which has been demonstrated in several clinical trials.

There are several different mechanisms through which Ozempic® indirectly lowers blood pressure which includes: lowering blood sugar, improving health of endothelial cells (line blood vessels and play an important role in blood pressure regulation), and weight reduction.

Some evidence suggests that Ozempic® directly lowers blood pressure by acting on the central nervous system (i.e. brainstem and hypothalamus) which is the operator that monitors and counter-balances blood pressure when it is too high or low. Evidence suggests that the active ingredient in Ozempic®, semaglutide, modulates hormones (angiotensin and aldosterone) that act on the kidney, the main organ relied upon to change blood pressure.

Ozempic® has been shown to remedy several cardiometabolic risk factors including cholesterol, hemoglobin A1c, and triglycerides. Importantly, Ozempic® significantly and consistently reduces blood pressure in individuals with normal blood pressure and has even more pronounced effects in individuals with hypertension. This demonstrates its utility for application across a broad population including individuals without diabetes.

Can Ozempic® reduce the risk of diabetes?

Ozempic® is a semaglutide that is FDA approved to treat diabetes. A recent study published by the American Diabetes Association concluded that semaglutide-based medications like Ozempic® may reduce the 10-year risk for type 2 diabetes.

What are Ozempic® side effects?

The most common side effects of Ozempic® include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, abdominal (stomach) pain, headache, fatigue, dyspepsia (indigestion), dizziness, abdominal distension, eructation (belching), hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) in patients with type 2 diabetes, flatulence (gas buildup), gastroenteritis (an intestinal infection) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (a type of digestive disorder).

Recently, the EU began an investigation into GLP-1 medications like Ozempic® for the potential risk of depression or suicidal thoughts. While reports are still new, and Novo Nordisk hasn’t listed these as side effects just yet, you should still be aware of any potential changes to your thoughts or mood while taking Ozempic®. If you do experience such changes, stop using Ozempic® immediately and contact your prescriber, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

Does Ozempic® have any long-term side effects?

Remember how we said that semaglutide is a fairly new medication? Ozempic® only acquired FDA approval in late 2017. With less than a decade of data available, researchers can’t conclusively assess long-term risks associated with its use.

Ozempic® may be associated with more serious side effects. These include diabetic retinopathy, thyroid c-cell tumors, hypoglycemia, kidney dysfunction, and gallbladder issues. While these side effects are not always long lasting, they may cause long-term complications if left untreated. It’s worth noting that these more serious side effects typically occur in patients with a personal or family history of these conditions, in which case your prescriber will most likely suggest alternative solutions.

But when we read “side effects,” it’s easy for us to understand that as negative side effects. However, that leaves out one of the most important aspects of a medication: its long-term positive side effects. While we can’t definitively pinpoint whether Ozempic® causes long-term complications, we do have enough evidence to say that Ozempic® has desirable long-term effects like improved brain health and heart health!

Will I lose muscle while on Ozempic®?

Weight loss is a common side effect when taking Ozempic®. The truth of the matter is that just about any significant weight loss caused by nearly any method will cause some loss of muscle mass as well. A study published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society reported as early as 2021 that participants lost about 9-10% of their lean muscle mass while taking semaglutide. However, they also lost close to 20% of their body fat. While users shouldn’t be under the impression that more exercise will completely prevent loss of muscle mass while taking Ozempic®, maintaining a regular exercise plan and eating plenty of protein can certainly help.

If I stop taking Ozempic®, will I gain weight?

It’s not necessarily the case that you’ll gain weight back when you stop using Ozempic®. What will happen, though, is that your hypothalamus will try to revert back to its previous state before you started using Ozempic®, meaning that your appetite will come back in full force.

It’s important to have a plan in place to help you maintain your healthy habits when you stop using Ozempic®. Without the help of semaglutide, you’ll need to stick to a dedicated meal plan and eating schedule to retrain your brain.

If you’re planning on ending your journey with Ozempic®, ask your prescriber what they would recommend to help you maintain your outcomes.

Does the semaglutide shortage impact Ozempic®?

Novo Nordisk reported that consumers could expect a limited supply of Ozempic® to continue through the end of 2023, signaling the high demand for the type 2 diabetes treatment. This may be a result of previous Wegovy® shortages, as Ozempic® was sometimes prescribed to Wegovy® patients when supply of the weight loss medication was low.

Where can I buy Ozempic ® online?

There’s certainly no shortage of online retailers that sell Ozempic®. Aside from the nefarious choices out there (such as sites that sell “access to” Ozempic® as mentioned above), many retailers don’t offer the convenience and streamlined experience that one would expect from a typical online shopping experience.

Enter AgelessRx, a first-of-its-kind longevity platform.

AgelessRx makes the price of Ozempic® transparent to you, so you always know exactly what you’re going to get for the price. Before committing to any payments, you’ll have a virtual doctor visit to determine whether Ozempic® is right for you.

Once approved, you’ll not only have each delivery shipped right to your door, but you’ll also receive access to a slew of tools and resources to help you optimize your health beyond weight management, so you can extend your healthspan and enjoy more healthy years.

Plus, even if you aren’t approved for Ozempic® or you decide not to purchase, all of the above is free and accessible to anyone interested in optimizing their health.

If you’re interested in Ozempic®, AgelessRx.com is among the best choices for purchasing Ozempic® online. To get started, simply navigate to the AgelessRx Ozempic® page to schedule a virtual visit and see if you qualify.