Wegovy is a weight loss treatment, but its active ingredient was originally developed for type 2 diabetes.
Weight loss
Wegovy helps you lose weight by reducing your appetite and slowing down how quickly food passes through your digestive system. This means you feel satisfied for longer after eating, and should have fewer cravings – which helps you eat less and promotes weight loss.
Losing weight with Wegovy can help improve blood sugar control, and could even help to achieve total remission of type 2 diabetes. Evidence suggests that losing just 5% of your body weight can improve your blood sugar levels, and losing around 33 pounds (15 kg) can often result in total remission of type 2 diabetes – but this isn’t recorded very often right now. This could be because people simply don’t think that remission through weight loss is achievable, but Wegovy can help encourage weight loss while also providing additional benefits for type 2 diabetes.
Improved blood sugar control
Losing weight can help improve your blood sugar control by reducing fat around your liver and pancreas. Too much fat stored in and around these organs increases your risk of insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. While insulin resistance can affect people who aren’t living with overweight or obesity, it’s more commonly linked with those who are. This is where Wegovy can help.
Using Wegovy for weight loss can help to reduce the risk of fat buildup in the liver, and studies report that semaglutide is an effective and well-tolerated treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Increasing your physical activity is also really important when using Wegovy, and upping your activity levels is another way to help treat insulin resistance. Combining Wegovy with a healthy diet and regular exercise should reduce body fat, and increase how sensitive your cells are to insulin. Insulin sensitivity also increases for at least 16 hours after exercising – meaning regular workouts can help improve your blood sugar control in both the short and long term.
Reduced risk of cardiovascular events
The benefits of Wegovy for those with type 2 diabetes don’t just end with improved blood sugar control, either. Clinical trials show that semaglutide can substantially reduce heart failure events and death from cardiovascular events in high-risk populations with type 2 diabetes. In a study where 3,533 people took either semaglutide or a placebo, those who took semaglutide had fewer heart cardiovascular problems compared to those who took the placebo.
Improved quality of life
Using Wegovy to help with weight loss and blood sugar control can lead to improved well-being and overall health, too.
High blood sugar levels can damage your kidneys, so keeping them in check can reduce your risk of kidney disease. This happens because high blood glucose damages your arteries, which increases blood pressure. Increased blood pressure can then damage your kidneys, causing kidney disease and failure. If left untreated, this can create a cycle of damage, where kidney problems further increase your blood pressure, which further damages your kidneys. By helping to manage your blood glucose, Wegovy can relieve pressure on your blood vessels and kidneys and help keep them healthy.
Losing weight with Wegovy can also lower your blood pressure, helping keep your kidneys healthy. It’s really important you make changes to your diet and get in the habit of regular exercise to lose weight with Wegovy. Studies suggest that exercise alone can reduce your blood pressure, and eating a low-fat diet high in sources of fiber (like fruit and veggies) can help improve blood pressure even more. So the same lifestyle changes you’ll be making to help lose weight with Wegovy can improve your cardiovascular health, and lower your risk of kidney disease.
