Can a simple pill change the geography and even the sociology of a territory? Don’t worry, we’re not talking about the Matrix or a seventies-style lysergic journey, but about Kalundborg, a small port rich in wind and ‘poor’ in residents (17 thousand inhabitants today), located 100 kilometers west of Copenhagen. A typical Danish flat town with straight streets that has become the capital of the fight against fat. Not without some inconvenience.
In fact, it is here that they are produced the Ozempic and other drugs based on semaglutidea hormone that works wonders in the fight against obesity, reducing appetite and capable of producing a weight loss of at least 10%, as it behaves like the natural hormone produced by the intestine when it is full.
Semaglutide is synthesized right in Kalundborg and put into ready-to-use self-injection pens, as the likes of Elon Musk And Oprah Winfrey determining its global success. With a consequent stratospheric increase in demand which is causing wealth and industrial warehouses to decline: Novo Nordisk (which makes profits of ten billion every year) will invest eight billion dollars between now and 2029 in new plants and personnel.
Of course there are also the negative sides, such as the exponential increase in house prices, and the bad smell in the air. But you know. Pecunia non olet. Also because since the arrival of semaglutide the taxes paid by Novo Nordisk in Denmark have increased tenfold (according to Bloomberg they reached 2.3 billion dollars in 2023), the unemployed, previously supported by the municipality, have practically become extinct, the services, and the tax burden has decreased.
The goose that laid the golden eggs has grown, needless to say, thanks to the US market, where extreme thinness has become a new must, and the Ozempic depopulated on TikTok with more than a thousand million views, thanks also to the endorsement of Hollywood celebrities who mysteriously lost weight in a very short time (like Kardashian) to whom the New York Magazine and the New Yorker they dedicated the cover.
Ozempic, one of the drugs based on semaglutide
The negative aspects
But is all that glitters gold? Not exactly. For two reasons. The first is that semaglutide-based drugs were born as treatment for diabetesand the boom in its use for aesthetic reasons is making it increasingly difficult for diabetics to find it on the market, so much so that our AIFA reports a chronic lack of it, I train until the end of the year.
The second theme is that of the fight against fat which, if in the case of the obese it is a health issue, is much less so when the drug is taken to fight a few extra kilos and prepare for the bichini test. Also because, as we mentioned, the use of these chemical discoveries is linked to the spread of an ephebic beauty model characterized by extreme thinness which cannot help but worry. In particular as regards the younger generations.
Not to mention the side effects which, as the doctor tells us Teresa Mazzei, ranging from nausea to constipation. Up to intestinal blockage and obstruction which can have serious consequences. “And we don’t know what will happen over the years – adds the doctor Cristina Bagliorediabetologist – because it is a drug that we have only recently known, at least as far as dietary use is concerned”.
“Aifa has not approved the use of the drug for obesity or, worse, for diets, but naturally anyone can get it online without problems and often use it without any medical supervision” underlines Bagliore.
In short, there is nothing to be happy about. Also because we don’t know how widespread the phenomenon is in Italy too, especially in how many cases we can really talk about obesity and in how many, instead, there is no real need other than a purely aesthetic motivation dominated by a model which, despite the various campaigns of recent years on body positivity, does not seem to lose its charm.
“Not to mention – concludes Dr. Bagliore – that these drugs must be taken constantly to have a lasting effect: as soon as you stop, the weight returns to what it was before”.
