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as the fattest person in the office, every time i go back to my hometown in the county, my relatives always criticize me for my weight:

"your belly is so big, it must be due to excessive dampness. you should do more moxibustion."

"your face is getting rounder again. it must be because of the takeout you eat, which makes it too oily."

i usually ignore these words. i can’t lose weight for a reason i know clearly:

i am too lazy.

however, when i went home this year, my relatives said to him mysteriously at the dinner table:

"why don't you try an injection of semaglutide? just one injection will make you lose more than 20 or 30 pounds."

"one injection can help you lose 20 pounds"

semaglutide was developed by a danish pharmaceutical company in 2012. it was initially used for type 2 diabetes, but was later used for weight loss and weight management. it quickly became the "magic weight loss drug" in the eyes of countless people.

from the upper-class celebrities in beverly hills, usa, to the ordinary fat people in small towns in china, the popularity of semaglutide can be said to have spread across the world in a very short period of time.

for example, in october 2022, someone asked musk how to lose 18 pounds in 30 days and become extremely thin in a short period of time. the billionaire's answer was:

fasting and semaglutide.

in addition to boss ma, talk show queen oprah winfrey, former british prime minister boris johnson and other celebrities have also been loyal users of semaglutide.

with the endorsement of celebrities, simei has successfully become a kind of magic drug for weight loss, and its popularity has quickly spread through channels such as the internet, micro-business, and medical beauty.

during the interview, xiao zhang, who is from a fourth-tier city in the southwest, told us that semaglutide was first made popular in their country by a group of doctors.

these doctors are more familiar with the efficacy and principles of sime, so some of them asked their colleagues who were studying in other big cities to bring some back.

"but this kind of medicine is quite expensive. you have to buy it through the cold chain. some of it has been left in the express delivery station for a long time, and it is said that the effect is much worse."

later, simi's reputation gradually spread to the local "diabetes circle". when the elderly heard that this medicine only needed to be injected once a week and could help them lose a lot of weight within a few days after the injection, they all wanted to give it a try.

xiao zhang said that although his aunt only had primary school education, she heard other old ladies say that she lost more than 20 kilograms in a month by taking the simi, so she also went home and asked for the treatment.

"for a long time, semaglutide was hard to come by through regular channels here. even patients with diabetes couldn't get it...now you can buy it online, but back then, if you wanted to get it here, you had to use connections."

according to xiao zhang's recollection, the price of semaglutide in his city was as high as more than 2,000 yuan per dose, but now the price has fallen back to 800 yuan.

"one shot costs 800 yuan, and it can be used four times, which is just enough for a month. there are also wechat merchants who say they can teach you how to use it, but that is more expensive, usually around 1,200 yuan per shot."

and in the process of dissemination, semaglutide has gradually been transformed from a new type of weight-loss injection to a technological miracle drug that "can fight cancer and aging while losing weight", and its efficacy has become more and more miraculous.

this top-down acupuncture weight loss craze has also created a huge money-printing machine for pharmaceutical companies that have benefited from it.

last year, novo nordisk's three semaglutide products (oral rybelsus, injectable ozempic, and wegovy specifically for weight loss) achieved total sales of us$21.2 billion, increasing the company's net profit by 51% year-on-year and its stock price eightfold in three months.

however, can a small injection really make you lose weight completely?

in this regard, xiao zhang expressed doubts:

"there are indeed some people who lose more than 20 pounds a month after the injection, but my aunt didn't lose any weight at all after the injection. maybe there are individual differences?"

what's more, xiao zhang is more worried about the possible side effects of this injection on her relatives.

"so, what's the price?"

"spend money on fat burning and lose weight painlessly" is just a theory.

as an injection that was originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, semaglutide is not suitable for everyone who wants to use it to lose weight - especially not for those who are not fat but are just anxious about their weight.

after a needle is inserted into the belly, many people do lose their appetite, but they also lose the desire to live. they don’t want to eat, but the side effects of the medicine also come.

on social media, everyone is complaining about their own discomfort:

dizziness, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhea, hypoglycemia symptoms, digestive system failure...

some people suffered from diarrhea and became dehydrated, some vomited until they vomited all the bile, and even worse, some people even had complications in their bodies directly triggered by semaglutide.

xiao zhang and her family are also worried about the side effects:

"after my aunt had the first shot, her appetite suddenly became very poor and her spirits became weak. although this could be considered the effect of the medicine, we were very worried that the old lady's body could not withstand such changes, so we did not give her the second shot."

in fact,the first step to use semaglutide correctly should be to consult a doctor and undergo relevant physical examinations, such as checking whether you have hyperlipidemia, pancreatitis, thyroid nodules and other diseases, and then inject under professional guidance.

however, semaglutide from regular channels is not used for weight loss. it is hard to find it in hospitals and can only be obtained from other channels. not to mention injection training, i am not even sure whether i am suitable for this drug.

for most people, the only thing they are sure of is:

i heard that xxx got an injection and lost weight. but some people obviously really think that sime is a miracle drug and inject it directly into their bodies without even checking the dosage. in the end, there is a possibility that the injection will put them in the emergency room.

moreover, even if patients use it normally, research and debate on the side effects of semaglutide itself have never stopped in the past two years:

losing weight in a short period of time often results in sagging skin, increased facial wrinkles, and ultimately a face that european and american social media call a "simei face."

some news reports say that the drug will increase the suicidal tendencies of users, while other articles say that the drug will increase the risk of gastrointestinal diseases by 4 to 9 times. there are also reports that simei will significantly increase the probability of men suffering from impotence.

although most of these so-called conclusions are isolated studies and are not very convincing, after all, simei is a new drug that has been on the market for less than 10 years, so it is normal that its safety is questioned.

of course, for more people who have tried simei, the biggest side effect of this thing may be "it may work for a while, but not for a lifetime."

after stopping the medication, if the dieter cannot maintain a healthy eating habit, he or she may experience a sharp rebound in weight:

i lost 20 pounds after taking the injection, but when i stepped on the scale three months after stopping the medication, i found that i had gained 24 pounds back.

i spent thousands of dollars and suffered for a long time, but after all the trouble, my weight did not go down but went up. i went to the hospital for a check-up and found that i had a 3mm thyroid nodule. such medication experiences are common on social media.

along with this, fraudulent products disguised as semaglutide have emerged in large numbers in the past two years.

two years ago, there was a case of counterfeiting semaglutide in china. the criminals split a shot of semaglutide into hundreds of doses, packaged them as injections called "ab light combination" and gave them to customers. the final amount involved was as high as hundreds of millions of yuan.

however, more businesses are playing word games to take advantage of the popularity, and claiming that their weight loss products contain "simetide" or "segetide" or "simegluta" without official authorization.

because the essence of semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide (glp)-1 receptor agonist, which means it simulates the action of glp-1, increases insulin secretion in the human body, and thus achieves a weight loss effect.

so the merchants started to make a fuss about this "glp-1" that looks very impressive and high-tech:

some claim that their pills can promote the secretion of natural glp-1 in the gastrointestinal tract, while others boast that their "little red powder" can produce more powerful glp-x and glp-mega. in short:

compared with our products, denmark's novo nordisk is just so-so.

it is worth mentioning that these businesses always claim that their products are endorsed by celebrities: musk became thin and masculine after eating it, jia ling felt hot and thirsty after using it. putting aside whether there is any infringement or not, they just want to take advantage of the popularity they can first.

after all, as a micro-businessman said in the video, the weight loss concept represented by semaglutide is the current "hot spot". as long as you can stand on it, you can harvest hundreds of millions of people who are eager to lose weight painlessly.

and this kind of thing has actually happened more than once.

“that’s a shortcut.”

liraglutide, the previous generation product of semaglutide, was already popular in china four or five years ago.

at that time, this brand name saxenda injection was called "slimming pen" or "slimming pen". because most of them were smuggled from south korea, they were packaged as "a popular medical beauty technology in south korea, which can quickly reduce weight with just injection" by micro-businesses and sold widely in the circle of friends.

similarly, in recent years, concepts related to painless weight loss have emerged in an endless stream: fat-dissolving injections, enzymes, fat-burning coffee, l-carnitine, weight-loss brainwave music... some are edible, some are drinkable, and some are injected into the body.

even now, injecting semaglutide is a little outdated. the latest popular technology should be "gastric space-occupying microspheres" - swallowing the microsphere particles, causing them to expand a hundred times when they come into contact with water, and using the method of occupying stomach space to achieve dieting.

these true and false weight loss concepts emerge year after year, and their purpose is generally to "take shortcuts."

there is no need to go on a painful diet or force yourself to exercise. just one injection can restore your youthful figure. anyone who sees it will be moved.

it is true that weight anxiety among the public does exist.

according to data released by the world health organization in 2022, about one-eighth of the world's population is obese, and according to the announcement of the 10th china obesity prevention and control science conference, nearly one-fifth of the young people in my country are facing overweight and obesity.

however, the solution to this anxiety is also very clear, nothing more than:

eat right and exercise more.

however, the principle is simple and easy to understand, but the execution is boring and slow. when a person always fails to "control his mouth and move his legs", he will automatically become a potential consumer of "painless weight loss".

since you can lose weight by spending some money, why bother going through the pain of aerobic and anaerobic exercise?

but unfortunately, at least so far, there is still no permanent way to lose weight - even if a person can temporarily lose weight through methods such as semaglutide, as long as he does not change his past lifestyle habits, even someone as strong as musk will eventually have to swallow the bitter fruit of "weight rebound".

however, since the so-called "shortcut" exists, even if it only works for a while or even involves risks, there will always be people who will try it and there will always be people who will pay for it.

after all, that's a shortcut.