“Weight Loss Miracle Drug” Semaglutide Faces Misuse in China, Leading to Emergency Hospitalizations Due to Dehydration
Zhang Miaomiao first heard about the miracle drug at an industry dinner. She was sitting with several company bosses, and they started discussing stocks, mentioning the hot sales of semaglutide and the stock price surge of its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk. Someone at the table had already used it and shared, “Many male entrepreneurs in our circle are using it, and they lose a lot of weight in just two or three weeks.”
Looking around, she noticed several post-80s men, “No beer bellies, and their appearance wasn’t bad,” she was surprised: even men with normal figures were using semaglutide.
Illusions
When the needle touched her abdomen, Du Xiaoyue sensed something was off: she, who was not sick, felt like a balloon about to be punctured. But when the plunger was pressed, she only felt a slight pain “like an ant bite,” and she muttered to herself, “Is that it?”
At that moment, she remembered all the hardships she had endured on the path of weight loss:
In her early twenties, she “used some extreme methods,” such as eating only a few hundred calories a day, then running 6 kilometers. She lost weight quickly, but “it was too hard to suppress the appetite when it surged.” Sometimes she would eat and then induce vomiting by sticking her fingers down her throat, leaving noticeable bite marks on her fingers over time. She also took diet pills containing hormones, 200 yuan for 30 pills, one pill a day. After taking them, she couldn’t sleep for three days and nights, and it seemed like her kidneys were damaged at that time, feeling the urge to use the restroom immediately after drinking water. She also underwent liposuction, risking fat embolism and postoperative infection, enduring the inconvenience of wearing shaping clothes in summer, and spent over 10,000 yuan to remove 1000ml of fat from her body.
Due to long-term dieting, Du Xiaoyue developed an eating disorder, a complex and difficult-to-cure psychological illness. She forced herself to believe that “being fat is harmful,” actively exaggerating the disadvantages of being overweight and constantly telling herself that appearance is crucial in the DJ industry. If she didn’t slim down, she wouldn’t make money, like a mental stamp, “If I don’t lose weight, I might as well quit.”
She felt lonely, avoided socializing, wanted to wear clothes she liked, but also felt a strong sense of inadequacy, “I became someone who struggles with everything in life.” She feared food, “I told my family not to place food in front of me,” losing her temper uncontrollably at the sight of food. For a healthy body and mind, the essence of dieting is to harm it.
She was acutely aware that she shouldn’t be dieting this way, but it was hard to control herself. The process of losing weight was mixed with guilt, shame, and self-loathing. To rationalize her actions, she reminded herself that effort yields results, and sacrifices lead to gains. She thus felt that even if misusing semaglutide had a cost, “these costs were necessary,” a necessary ordeal to slim down.
This might be a common mindset among those who misuse semaglutide for weight loss: there must be a cost to dieting, and since there must be one, why not choose the smallest one? Whether introduced by friends or seen on social media, “minimal side effects” is a key attraction of semaglutide. Indeed, it seems to be the case. On the day of the injection, Du Xiaoyue felt a bit nauseous and vomited, “Compared to liposuction, insomnia, and inducing vomiting, it’s nothing.”
Song Zihao and Zhang Miaomiao also experienced shame related to weight loss. Song Zihao took metformin, a blood sugar-lowering medication, “From 0.25 to 0.5 to 0.8, from extended-release to immediate-release to enteric-coated tablets, I’ve tried them all.” After taking it, he suffered from diarrhea, running to the restroom up to five times in an afternoon, which was too noticeable if it happened at the office. For a while, Zhang Miaomiao tried orlistat, which prevents the digestion and absorption of fat, so she had to wear diapers to avoid “leaking oil” and embarrassing situations. If her digestion was poor that day, what leaked from her bottom was not just oil but a brownish, smelly mixture.