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I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’s stars are reportedly set to be allowed the controversial Ozempic weight loss jabs in camp.
The injection has previously been used to treat diabetes, but has faced criticism in recent months after a string of celebs revealed they’d used it for weight loss. There is no suggestion that any star lined up for the new series is taking Ozempic.
But, it’s now been claimed that in the future, any stars with a prescription for the jab could be allowed to continue their injections while living in the camp, casting doubt on whether they’ll endure the show’s famous eating trials.
It’s also been reported that the injection, which typically suppresses the appetite, could bring an end to stars’ hunger causing tensions in the camp.
According to The Sun, ITV medics are willing to administer the drug off-camera, and outside camp, to any celeb with a doctors’ note or prescription.
This will not be a new rule for Ozempic, but is in keeping with ITV’s rules on medicines, as it’s stated that any celebrities taking part in the show must fully disclose their medical history.
A source said: ‘The drug is already controversial after being exploited by stars for weight loss rather than diabetes, but it’s not for ITV to pass judgment.
‘It will be no different with Ozempic. So long as celebs have a proper doctors’ note, and the drug has been prescribed, they will be able to get their regular injection as normal.
‘It won’t just be lying around the camp. Ozempic pens have to be stored in the fridge so they will have to be safely stored under lock and key off-site.
It’s also reported that any stars taking Ozempic may need to taper their dosage to lower amounts over a period, as stopping the drug overnight can cause blood-sugar fluctuations or severe gastrointestinal symptoms.
An ITV source told The Sun: ‘As part of the well-established and robust casting process each celebrity has a full medical assessment to make sure they are fit to take part.’
MailOnline has contacted a representative for ITV for comment.
So far, names rumoured to be taking part in this year’s I’m A Celeb include singer Tulisa, Olympian Max Whitlock, Coronation Street’s Alan Halsall, boxer Tommy Fury and former Strictly star Oti Mabuse.
Celebrities have been turning to Ozempic in recent years to help shed the pounds.
In March, reality star Scott Disick showed off his drastic weight loss after using Mounjaro, another weight loss drug, to get rid of his ‘dad bod,’ while Kelly Clarkson recently admitted to using a drug to slim down.
Rebel Wilson lost 80lb in four years to reach her goal weight of 165lb (11st 8lb). She shed most of the excess in 2020, calling it her ‘year of health,’ and putting it down to healthy eating and exercise.
However, while promoting her memoir, Rebel Rising, she admitted to using Ozempic briefly after she had lost weight, to help maintain her new shape.
Sharon Osbourne has been open about using the weight loss drug Ozempic.
However, the music manager said she has since struggled to put weight on after shedding the pounds using the drug.
Speaking on Loose Women earlier this year, she said: ‘I don’t regret it. Everything with weight with me was, ‘I want it now.’ The injections that I was on worked, but it just seems that now I can’t put anything on really.’
Sharon added: ‘I lost over 40lbs, If I could I would put back another 10.
‘I’m just an ordinary person who got lucky and I didn’t take advantage of that. I never want to forget I am blessed and been really lucky in my life.’
However, other stars have shared the dangers of the drug, including model Lottie Moss who revealed she was hospitalised after overdosing on Ozempic.
The model was violently ill, suffering a seizure and severe dehydration after taking the drug when she weighed around 60kg – just 9stone.
She said she would rather ‘die’ than use Ozempic again, which is meant to treat the obese or diabetics and has suffered global shortages.
Lottie recalled having the seizure, which was caused by severe dehydration, and said her face and hands clenching up was one of the ‘scariest’ experiences she has ever endured.
She said there were, ‘small things I wish I’d known before taking it’ and revealed her weight plummeted to around 53kg in a few weeks.
After being seen by medical professionals, Lottie learned the dosage of Ozempic she was injecting into her leg should be prescribed to someone weighing at least 100 kilos – nearly double her size.
Lottie explained: ‘A few months ago, I was not feeling happy about my weight, I had a friend, and she could get it for me.
‘It was below board, from a doctor, but it wasn’t like you go into a doctor’s office and he prescribes it for you, takes your blood pressure, and takes tests, which is what you need when you go on something like Ozempic.
‘At the end of the day it is a medication, it is dangerous and really meant for weight loss of people of a very large size.
‘When I was taking it, the amount that I was taking was meant for people who are 100 kilos and over and I’m in the 50s range.’
Lottie said she weighed approximately 60 kilos before she dropped to 57 following her first dose and was 53 kilos at her lowest, which is just over eight stone.
The truth behind new diet drug craze – Hollywood is hooked on it, and social media is fanning demand for the latest weight-loss ‘miracle’
Over the summer I was lucky enough to be invited to a 60th birthday at which the after-dinner entertainment was a private performance by one of the UK’s leading male pop stars. More eye-popping than the actual show, though, was how incredible said star looked. He was a mere shadow of his former self, prancing around the stage in a silver catsuit. His secret? Semaglutide, or Ozempic as it is branded, a new diet drug that everybody – but everybody, darling, including one of the world’s most famous supermodels – is apparently taking.
Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, it is used off-label (for a purpose other than that for which it was licensed) in both the US and the UK to treat obesity. In research conducted by its billionaire manufacturer, the Danish-based pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, patients lost an average of 17 per cent of their overall body weight over 68 weeks. This compares with five to nine per cent for ‘oldschool’ anti-obesity drugs such as Metformin.
Only available in the UK on the NHS if you have type 2 diabetes, Ozempic can be obtained through a private doctor, and if you are willing to take it without medical supervision – not recommended by doctors (see panel) – you can get it online through various weight-loss programmes. It is sometimes taken in tablet form but more commonly as an injection.
Predictably, Hollywood has been aware of Ozempic for a lot longer than us – Variety magazine recently quipped that the drug deserved its own thank-you speech at the Emmys, as so many stars on the podium had obviously been taking it. Elon Musk raved about its more powerful sister drug, Wegovy, on Twitter; Kim Kardashian, it is hotly rumoured, used semaglutide to lose 16lb in order to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s dress for the Met Ball. On TikTok the hashtag #ozempic has had more than 285 million views.
Thanks to the hype, there has been a surge in demand, causing shortages on both sides of the Atlantic, with a backlash against influencers and celebrities hogging supplies ahead of desperate diabetes sufferers. Predictably, Big Pharma has come up with an alternative – tirzepatide (brand name Mounjaro), manufactured by Eli Lilly – but it has yet to be approved by the US Food & Drug Administration for weight loss.
Novo Nordisk has issued a statement to say its supplies will be replenished by the end of the year, but it hasn’t quelled anxiety. At least two middle-aged male friends of mine who started using it in September are getting themselves in a twist about being caught short before the holidays. As one private London GP remarked to me: ‘It’s like the H RT panic last spring.’
So what exactly is this drug? Semaglutide belongs to a class called GLP-1 agonists, which not only regulate blood sugar but, as was discovered about a decade ago, also mimic the gut hormones that regulate our appetites – the ones that tell the brain when we are hungry or full. There are, of course, side effects: acid reflux, nausea, exacerbation of IBS symptoms and fatigue (but much less so than in earlier GLP-1 agonists such as Saxenda), as well as pancreatitis, gallstones and, in very high doses, it has caused thyroid tumours in rats. Meanwhile, when you stop using it the effect wears off immediately and in some cases it won’t work at all.
‘I would describe semaglutide as an example of very smart science,’ says leading consultant endocrinologist Dr Efthimia Karra from her private practice off London’s Harley Street. ‘But it is not a panacea for everyone. Around a fifth of users do not respond to it. This is because the human body favours weight gain, thus when you lose weight the body will do anything to revert to its highest BMI. The heavier you are the harder it is to lose weight. If a patient has made no progress in three months, I will take them off it.’
Banker’s wife Laura, a native New Yorker in her mid-50s who had hovered between decades, started using it in January. ‘The Paleo diet, 5:2, CBT, NLP, bootcamp, diet delivery services – I’ve tried them all,’ she says from the family home in Hampshire, ‘and I’ve always yo-yoed right back. After my last annual checkup I seriously contemplated giving up. Then my doctor suggested semaglutide.’
After only a month she noticed her clothes had become looser. From then on, the weight started dropping off. ‘The strange thing was, I wasn’t eating anything different. I just couldn’t physically have seconds any more, and the idea of pudding after a full meal had lost its allure.’ Three months on, she is two stone lighter ‒ though occasionally she suffers heartburn if she eats too late at night or drinks alcohol ‒ and when we spoke in autumn, she was looking forward to losing another stone by Christmas.
‘There is a niggling voice that tells me it is both risky and lazy to take a drug to lose weight, and I worry that it will all pile on again if I stop taking it. But if it does, I will seriously consider taking it indefinitely.’
Private London GP Dr Martin Galy has been prescribing semaglutide for about a year to clients who cannot lose the weight they gained in menopause. He has seen it have a transformational effect, too, on much younger women who suffer polycystic ovary syndrome. ‘PCOS sufferers are difficult to treat, and you can imagine how body image plays a very important part when it comes to self-esteem.’
But according to Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, it is not a magic bullet. Commenting on a study on semaglutide published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2021, he says, ‘The challenge post-weight loss is to prevent a regain in weight,’ he wrote. It may prove to be useful in the short term, but ‘public health measures that encourage behavioural changes such as regular physical activity and moderating dietary energy intake are still needed’.
That said, given our rising national obesity statistics and the escalation in accompanying health issues such as heart failure, cancer and obstructive sleep apnoea clogging up hospital beds, we’re going to need something. Semaglutide may be the rich person’s drug today, but might it be approved for more widespread use? Only time will tell.
