A British Olympian has warned that the rise of weight loss jabs could see a return of an epidemic of scurvy.
Former speed skater Sarah Lindsay, 44, believes injections like Ozempic and Mounjaro are causing users to be malnourished and vitamin deficient.
The now-celebrity personal trainer, whose clients include Piers Morgan, Ellie Goulding, Matt Healy and Christine Lampard, revealed that some people abuse the medication.
She fears the increased use of weight loss jabs could lead to a return of scurvy, a condition is caused by a lack of Vitamin C from fruit and vegetables, which is essential to keep skin, blood vessels and ligaments healthy.
More than 2million sailors, who were known to survive on preserved foods with limited access to fruit and vegetables, died from the condition between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Sarah admitted that some people with certain health conditions could benefit from the jabs, known as GLP-1 drugs.
However, she told the Sun: ‘The level of abuse now is rife — thin people wanting to become even thinner.
‘I’ve had people come in for PT consultations who are desperate to get themselves out of the hole they find themselves in: weak, tired, destroyed digestion, severe hair loss.’
Former speed skater Sarah Lindsay, 44, believes injections like Ozempic and Mounjaro are causing users to be malnourished and vitamin-deficient
Sarah in action in the 500m heatsm during the Women’s Short Track in Turin, Italy, in 2006
She fears the increased use of weight loss jabs could lead to a return of scurvy, a condition is caused by a lack of Vitamin C from fruit and vegetables
Her main two major concerns with the injections are ‘muscle loss’ and ‘long-term effects of being malnourished’.
She warned that the jabs could make people ill or even a cause a ‘comeback of a deficiency disease like scurvy’.
Weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are all injectable GLP-1 receptor agonists, and they work by imitating a hormone in the body that controls the rate food gets processed in the gut – slowing this process down. This reduces appetite and helps people eat less.
Earlier this week, Dr Ben Bickman, a scientist and professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, warned of three harmful consequences of these medications that he believes many are unaware of.
First off, he told the Mail that he fears of widespread frailty due to extreme ‘loss of muscle and bone mass’ linked to the drugs.
While participants in a 68-week-long clinical trial of semaglutide – the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy – lost an average of 23lbs of fat, they also saw a 15lbs decline in lean muscle mass.
This one is much more subjective, but Dr Bickman believes Ozempic could lead to people becoming ‘mentally fragile’.
He highlights anecdotal evidence from patients who say that Ozempic not only dulled their cravings for food, but also for other pleasures in life such as sex, alcohol, coffee and others.
Dr Ben Bickman, pictured, says that people should be weary of the outfall that will come with weight loss medications and he predicts three crippling failures of Ozempic
Dr Bickman’s hope is that weight loss drugs can be used more responsibly to reduce the possibility of any negative repercussions
Next up, Dr Bickman claims that in the long run, weight loss medications have the potential to make people fatter than they were in the first place.
Explaining how people go on to regain weight after taking Ozempic for a period of time, he says: ‘Ozempic is effective at reducing cravings… However well this works, it works until it doesn’t.
‘At around two years of use, people find that the sweet cravings return to normal.
‘Interestingly, this is also when many people decide to quit the drug and about 70 percent of users stop the drug at two years.’
Despite his concerns around the side effects of Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, Dr Bickman highlights that he is not against them but it is more the dosing that he is concerned about.
Adults with type 2 diabetes take Ozempic once per week to lower blood sugar levels, and they usually begin with a 0.25mg dose.
This lower dose allows the body to become accustomed to the medication.
At week five, doctors typically increase the dose to 0.5mg once a week if the patient tolerates the medication.
Weight loss patients typically follow the same dosing schedule, but their doses might may be increased to as much as 2mg once weekly.
