Holistic Suicide?

I was extremely distressed to receive an ad in my email about Body Logistics of Michigan and their offering of Wegovy for holistic weight loss. Just this morning I read an article about the use of weight loss injections, like Wegovy and others and their effects on the mental health of the person taking them. There is an increased risk of suicide and suicide ideation.

The article on Medscape stated that, "In the US, FDA requires medications for chronic weight management that work on the central nervous system, including Wegovy and Saxenda, to carry a warning about suicidal behavior and ideation," the statement indicates. "This event had been reported in clinical trials with other weight management products."

While we can’t yet say with certainty that these drugs cause suicidality, there are many studies in Europe going on now, due to a significant increase in those taking them having suicidal thoughts or self-injury, but this is yet another potential issue with the long term use of these drugs.

This doesn’t even include the lawsuits that are now coming to light due to severe gastroparesis from the use of these medications. Gastroparesis is basically stomach paralysis, which slows food emptying from your stomach. This can cause some very significant and dangerous issues. Things such as cyclic vomiting syndrome, which causes someone to throw up multiple times a day. Another outcome is relentless nausea. This condition impairs the motility of the stomach, leading to fullness, bloating, nausea and vomiting. It is a serious and debilitating disorder that can cause life-threatening complications.

And last month, the American Society of Anesthesiologists warned that patients should stop these medications a week before surgery because they can increase the risk that people will regurgitate food during an operation, even if they’ve fasted as directed. Vomiting under anesthesia sometimes causes food and stomach acid to get into the lungs, which can cause pneumonia and other problems after surgery. Plus, there is the possibility of pancreatitis, kidney damage, gallbladder disease, even thyroid tumors.

The fact that Body Logistics and other companies are marketing these meds as “holistic” treatments to weight loss is both misleading and disingenuous. People are being led to believe that these injections are a healthy, a miracle cure, that the weight will fall off and they don’t have to do much else. But these are very dangerous medications with multiple side effects. They are designed for long term use and the vast majority of people who take them for weight loss regain the weight once they stop taking them.

According to Web MD, “Holistic medicine is a form of healing that considers the whole person -- body, mind, spirit, and emotions -- in the quest for optimal health and wellness.” It works to incorporate the physical, mental, spiritual, and social needs of a person. It's rooted in the understanding that all these aspects affect your overall health, and being unwell in one aspect affects you in others. While medication can be one aspect of a holistic approach, it is certainly not the only one. Obesity can be due to hormonal, physical, or emotional causes. By treating someone with medication that is so dangerous and brutal, are we forgetting to find the underlying cause for someone’s struggle? Doing so would actually be holistic.

And, at what price are we willing to medicate someone for a quick fix and ignore all the other things that can be done to help that person – things like regulating a person’s relationship with food, allowing them to nourish themselves with a wide variety of foods, recognizing hunger cues and honoring them, finding ways to compassionately care for themselves, and moving their body for energy, strength, and pleasure?

I think we are finding that these semaglutide medications are not the panacea or magic bullet that we were hoping for and we have to be really careful when and who we prescribe them to, because while they may be right for some people, they are not suitable for everyone. We cannot mislead or misdirect people with promises of easy and sustainable weight loss without being honest about both the short and long term effects of these drugs.