I lost five stone on a weight loss jab…but there’s an alarming truth about what happens when you stop

A man who shed five stone in a year thanks to a skinny jab has told of how he fears he will have to be on the drug for life—after he regained half the weight in months when he tried to stop the medication. 

John Kane, 76, from Dublin, weighed nearly 19 stone and plummeted to under 14 within a year of taking liraglutide in 2016.

Liraglutide works in a similar way to semaglutide—the generic name for Ozempic—triggering the release of the hormone GLP-1 that makes us feel full.

The jabs, which he obtained privately, initially vastly improved Mr Kane’s life. 

The medication helped get his type 2 diabetes into remission, and enjoy active social excursions that he couldn’t before, including hikes in Spain.

Despite the success, he decided to stop the injections in 2018 due to the eye-watering £232 a month cost. 

Speaking to the Irish Independent, he said his raging appetite returned with a vengeance almost immediately.

‘I had really put a lot of effort into the last two years, and was determined not to put back on the weight,’ he said.

 ‘But whether I liked it or not, even watching my food, the weight just started to creep back up.’

Within six months, Mr Kane had regained half the weight he’d lost.

The major setback caused him to ‘hit the rocks, mentally’. ‘It was really affecting me,’ he said. ‘I’m not one to be depressed, but it really bit into me.’

After six months without the medicine, Mr Kane’s wife suggested he ‘bite the bullet’ and pay for more injections, to stop the decline of his health. 

When semaglitude, better known as Ozempic, was rolled out at a cheaper cost of £118, it became a more affordable option. 

 He has now been on taking the medication for nearly eight years—a maintenance dose of 1mg a week. 

He has no plans to stop again and said if he were to ever come off he’d become a ‘very sad, dejected, depressed person.’

Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic have burst onto the scene in recent years, hailed as a potential fix for the UK’s spiraling obesity crisis. 

Semaglutide mimics glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a naturally occurring hormone released in the small intestine when you eat. It tells your brain you’re full and slows digestion.

After years of rigorous scientific trials, semaglutide has been chemically modified to last far longer than the body’s own, short-lived supply of GLP-1. As a result, it keeps people feeling fuller for longer.

US researchers at Cornell University in New York found those on the injections typically lost lost around 13.7 per cent of their body weight, on average, over a 72-week period. 

But a study in the journal Epic Research found that 44 per cent of people who lost at least five pounds using semaglutide and then stopped the drug regained at least 25 per cent of their lost weight within a year. 

Dr Emma Cunningham, an aesthetics expert who treats patients suffering cosmetic complications of Ozempic, said some choose to go on a maintenance dose and wean off the drug that way.  

‘You can’t be solely reliant on the drug,’ she said. ‘You need to be using this as an opportunity to address your lifestyle. Our most successful patients will have really gotten on board with healthy eating and exercise.’

She said the jabs help people stay motivated to make a change to a healthy lifestyle because they are seeing rapid weight loss.

It’s those who become completely reliant on the drug, and fail to make lifestyle changes, who end up putting the weight back on, Dr Cuningham said. 

Scientists at Oxford University discovered the effects of GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy are short-lived if patients do not maintain a healthy lifestyle afterwards.

Even those taking newer, more powerful jabs drugs like Mounjaro put their weight back on once treatment was removed.

‘These drugs are very effective at helping you lose weight, but when you stop them, weight regain is much faster than [after stopping] diets,’ said researcher Professor Susan Jebb.