What’s behind the Ozempic baby boom?
By Miranda Levy
Almost two decades ago, a group of medications called GLP-1 agonists started showing significant results in the treatment of people with type 2 diabetes. As scientists noticed that patients were losing a little weight, they realised that if they could modify these drugs to take off more weight, they’d be sitting on a goldmine.
In 2017, semaglutide – better known as Ozempic (licensed for type 2 diabetes) and Wegovy (licensed for weight loss) to you and me – was approved in the United States; Australia followed in 2019. By the middle of this year, 9 million prescriptions had been written. The market capitalisation of the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk hit a record high of US$500 billion ($746 billion) as celebrities and socialites rush to inject themselves and find a new, svelte silhouette.
Since weight-loss jabs blazed into our lives, barely a day has gone past without research showing that GLP-1 drugs can, among other things, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, improve rheumatoid arthritis, and even reduce the risk of dementia. Is there anything this wonder drug can’t do?
Women who previously struggled to get pregnant appear to be revelling in new-found fertility – which they are convinced is due to the drug.Credit: File Image
And now we have “the Ozempic baby boom”, as women who previously struggled to get pregnant appear to be revelling in new-found fertility – which they are convinced is due to the drug. There’s even a hashtag: #OzempicBabies is trending on social media. While there are no firm figures – and no control groups with which to make this a proper scientific calculation – Novo Nordisk has opened up a registry to follow babies in their first year of life.
If the buzz is to be believed, women now have an answer to two of their greatest fears: a medication that can not only help shed weight but can also calm fertility panic. But is there really anything behind the latest hype?
The relationship between weight loss and fertility
It’s long been known that weight loss by any means will improve fertility.
“Fat stores oestrogen, and is linked to conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome, which can make it harder for women to conceive and often goes hand in hand with type 2 diabetes,” says Dr Charlotte Moffett, a lecturer in pharmacology at Ulster University. “We’ve noticed that in patients who’ve had bariatric surgery, their menstrual cycles resume incredibly quickly.”
People can lose weight in all sorts of ways, from surgery to strict diet and exercise routines (though it’s true that weight loss through semaglutide use is certainly more rapid than via lifestyle interventions).
Dr Martin Whyte is an associate professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Surrey in the UK. “Obesity has an adverse top-down effect on so many aspects of human health, from your brain, to deep-vein thrombosis in your legs,” he says. “If a person can lose weight, there are likely to be a huge amount of benefits. Lowering the risk of diabetes and heart disease is only the start.”
The question now for scientists is whether the action of GLP-1 itself increases fertility, separately from the more global weight loss issue. This would then open up a potential medical solution for women who, to quote Moffett, are having fertility issues but “are not fat enough” for bariatric surgery.
Ozempic injection pens move along a conveyor at a production facility.Credit: Bloomberg
More exciting still, with a modified dose, there’s a possibility that the GLP-1 drugs could potentially help infertile women who present with a “normal” weight. (It’s worth noting that underweight women also have problems conceiving.)
“This is a more tricky one to unpick, but it’s certainly true that GLP-1 has a hand in the stimulation of the hormones FSH and LH, which travel in the blood and lead to the development of the egg,” says Whyte. Moffett goes further: “There are GLP-1 receptors all over the body, from the kidney, to the brain, to the pituitary gland and the gut,” she says. “Its targets are global, and it could certainly improve a woman’s chances of getting pregnant.”
She points out, though, that “there is too little safety data for comfort” and that the drug companies are advising women to come off semaglutide at least 90 days before seeking to conceive, though Moffett adds there is really no need to panic if you find yourself pregnant while taking GLP-1 drugs, as it’s a natural compound.
There is another twist in the tale: some of the new mothers in the Ozempic baby boom have been taken by surprise as they weren’t looking to add to their families or to start them in the first place. “There is some evidence that Mounjaro, one of the newer drugs, has an interaction with the pill and can potentially make it less effective,” says Dr Moffett.
The evidence seems to be mounting that semaglutide can help with both weight loss and female fertility. But the story doesn’t only go one way. “All the gaze has been on women, but actually, what’s more interesting is the effect of the GLP-1 drugs on the male reproductive system,” says Dr Whyte. “Obesity impairs sperm production. Some of today’s baby boom may well be down to the impact of the male users.” Lest we forget, it takes two to make a baby.
The Telegraph, London
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