How Semaglutide Quiets Food Noise

Do your joints hurt? You’ve likely tried over-the-counter medication and prescription medication, but you can’t stay on pain relievers forever. 

Suppose a primary reason for your joint pain is that you’re overweight or obese. In that case, the drug semaglutide can completely change the trajectory of the weight loss ballgame from a losing proposition to a winning one. Board-certified orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Shults with Coastal Empire Orthopedics now has an effective tool to help you avoid serious orthopedic surgeries, such as a double knee replacement, or more drastic and risky measures for weight loss, like weight loss surgery. 

What is semaglutide? 

Semaglutide is a drug that has been made to mimic a hormone in your body called GLP-1. That hormone aids food absorption and digestion, but it also helps you feel full faster, so that you don’t overeat. 

Semaglutide was first prescribed to help patients control diabetes. There was a striking side effect: significant weight loss. The rest is history. Now you and patients across the globe can take semaglutide to help you shed the weight you haven’t been able to lose any other way. 

How semaglutide can help you avoid orthopedic surgery

You’re already at Dr. Shults’ office for aching joints. If you don’t lose the excess weight, you’re likely to require orthopedic surgery eventually. Your body isn’t built to carry an extra 50 or 100 pounds for an extended time period. Eventually, the protective cartilage around your joints disintegrates from the extra pressure on it. Then you’re bone-on-bone with no option but surgery. 

How does semaglutide help quell my hunger pangs? 

If you’re overweight or obese, you may have a lower level of the GLP-1 hormone than others, so that you feel a need to continue eating beyond a normal consumption pattern. Additionally, your brain and digestive system may be resistant to the binding of the GLP-1 hormone, so you don’t receive the signal that you’re full and it’s time to stop eating. 

Semaglutide mimics a natural hormone that indicates satiety

With a prescribed dose of semaglutide, the synthetic GLP-1 hormone contained in the drug kickstarts signals in your digestive system and your brain. It mimics your underactive or dysfunctional GLP-1 hormone. You no longer feel hungry. You eat a normal meal and don’t need to eat more. 

Semaglutide affects your digestion 

Semaglutide slows your digestion; food stays in your stomach longer, so you feel full sooner. 

Semaglutide changes the brain’s response to food 

Perhaps you’ve been addicted to food for most of your life. It’s a craving that you feel you can’t completely stop, no matter how much you eat. 

Semaglutide reduces your overpowering desire for food. Researchers think that the drug may lower your brain’s dopamine response to it. In short, semaglutide affects not only your digestive system but also your brain. You’re no longer addicted. Researchers report that semaglutide and other similar drugs may help patients with other addictions. 

With semaglutide, you eat a normal meal, and don’t need to eat more. Perhaps you’ve spent a lifetime hoping for that feeling, and now it’s here. You no longer have an overpowering desire to consume half a cake in one sitting. You no longer spend the day thinking about what you’re going to eat next. 

For a consultation with Dr. Shults on how semaglutide may help you lose weight, call Coastal Empire Orthopedics or book an appointment through our online portal today.