Cancer risk for semaglutide weight loss shots Wegovy, Ozempic

This article was first published on April 6, 2023, and was last updated on July 17, 2026.

The GLP-1 inhibiting weight loss drug semaglutide, a modified peptide derived from Gila monster venom (yes, really) and sold as Ozempic and Wegovy, causes fat and muscle loss, premature aging in your face, and increases your risk for a number of serious health problems, including possibly cancer. And studies have found that most of the weight comes back after you stop taking the drug.

I first heard about Ozempic from a TV personality who messaged me privately to ask my opinion. She said, “Everyone in LA is taking these $1000 a month shots for weight loss.” I had no idea what she was talking about, so I started researching, and what I learned was alarming.

Ozempic is approved for type 2 diabetics. Wegovy is approved for people who are overweight. Both drugs, along with the oral version Rybelsus, are owned by the same Danish drug company: Novo Nordisk.

Do semaglutide injections cause healthy weight loss?

There was a double-blind placebo-controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October 2021 in which 1961 obese adults, mostly women, who were not diabetic, and who weighed an average of 232 lbs, were given weekly injections of semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. That’s a year and four months. Both groups also received instructions for a reduced-calorie meal plan and increased physical activity.

7% of patients left the study due to the drug side effects.

The average change was a 12.4% loss of body weight (about 29 lbs) after 68 weeks of injections, compared with the placebo group. Some people lost more. Some lost less, but the average semaglutide user lost less than half a pound per week, which is easily achievable with diet and lifestyle changes.

And guess who funded the study… Novo Nordisk.

It’s worth mentioning that at the end of the study, almost a third of participants who received placebo injections had lost at least 5% of their baseline body weight, 12% of them lost 10% of their weight, and…

5% of the placebo group lost 15% of their body weight, more than the average Ozempic user, just from following the diet and lifestyle recommendations.
 
But it wasn’t just fat loss.

In semaglutide’s primary clinical trial. Participants lost an average of 10.4% of their fat mass and 6.9% of their lean body mass. Semaglutide causes fat and muscle loss. And apparently, the rapid facial fat loss among semaglutide users is making them look significantly older. The new term to describe this, coined by dermatologists, is “Ozempic face.” Dermatologists are also reporting that many more patients are coming in for facial fillers after taking weight-loss injections.

So what happens after you stop taking this appetite-suppressing drug?
Your appetite comes back, you eat more, and you gain the weight back. That’s what happened in two different studies. Look at this chart from the Wegovy website:

Patients who received placebo injections after 20 weeks of Wegovy regained almost all the weight they had lost by the end of the trial. Notice the marketing spin above. “People who kept taking Wegovy continued to lose weight.” They want you to keep taking Wegovy forever.

A 2022 study found that one year after stopping weekly semaglutide injections, participants regained two-thirds of their lost weight.

A 2026 Cambridge study reported that 3,200 patients across six randomized controlled trials rapidly regained 60% of the weight they lost within one year of stopping GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.

According to researchers interviewed for the Cambridge article, “The drugs may also affect the body long-term, altering hormone levels and ‘resetting’ the brain’s appetite control mechanisms.” And not in good ways.

60 Minutes Paid to Pimp the Drug
On January 1st, 2023, 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute story on Wegovy. In the piece, Wegovy is described as “safe,” “highly effective,”  “impressive,” and “fabulous.” But there was no mention of the risks and side effects. Turns out, CBS received advertising payments from Novo Nordisk, and all the doctors and experts in the segment were paid by Novo Nordisk.

CBS posted four additional 60 Minutes After Hours segments about Wegovy on their website. Because of this blatantly obvious paid drug promotion masquerading as a news story, Dr. Neal Barnard and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a complaint with the FDA because this was not an unbiased news story; it was an advertisement and violates the fair balance requirement for drug ads, where you have to list the side effects.

The Physicians Committee also reported that Novo Nordisk’s PAC paid over $250,000 in campaign contributions to members of Congress in an effort to persuade them to pass legislation requiring the U.S. government to pay for Wegovy prescriptions at $1,300 per person per month.

Now let’s talk about the side effects
Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus all have the same side effects disclosure. The following is copied directly from the Wegovy website:

Wegovy^® may cause serious side effects, including:

• Possible thyroid tumors, including cancer. In studies with rodents, Wegovy^® and medicines that work like Wegovy^® caused thyroid tumors, including thyroid cancer. It is not known if Wegovy^® will cause thyroid tumors or a type of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) in people.

Wegovy^® may cause serious side effects, including:

• inflammation of your pancreas (pancreatitis).
• gallbladder problems, including gallstones.
• increased risk of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) in patients with type 2 diabetes, especially those who also take medicines for type 2 diabetes. This can be both a serious and common side effect.
• kidney problems (kidney failure). 
• serious allergic reactions. 
• change in vision in people with type 2 diabetes. 
• increased heart rate.
• depression or thoughts of suicide. 

The most common side effects of Wegovy may include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, stomach (abdomen) pain, headache, fatigue, upset stomach, dizziness, feeling bloated, belching, gas, stomach flu, heartburn, and runny nose or sore throat.

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Additional side effects confirmed by a 2 million person study published in Nature Medicine in January 2024 are arthritis and gastroparesis, which is painful stomach paralysis.

If the risk of cancer and all of those other serious side effects, and the fact that patients gained most of the weight back after they stopped the injections, isn’t enough to make you think twice about taking Ozemic or Wegovy, here’s a quick history lesson for perspective.

The FDA approved a weight loss drug called Belviq (Loarcaserin) in 2012. That drug was eventually recalled because it increased the risk of pancreatic, lung, and colon cancer. Guess how long Belviq was on the market before they figured this out?

8 years!

Tens of thousands of people took Belviq, and countless people were harmed. Meanwhile, the drug company made around $50 million a year from Belviq and kept all the profit after it was deemed unsafe and taken off the market. Lawsuits are underway.

Weight loss drug Meridia (Sibutramine) was approved in 1997 and pulled off the market for increasing cardiovascular risks, heart attack, and stroke. Guess how long Meridia was prescribed before they figured this out?

13 years!

If you take a new drug with no long-term safety testing, you are paying to be part of an experiment that may cause you considerable harm.

Don’t be seduced by the quick-fix, magic-bullet, miracle-cure marketing. There are no quick fixes. But you can lose weight and dramatically improve your health by changing your diet and lifestyle.

Here’s how you do it. Adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet with lots of raw fruits and vegetables, giant salads, fresh juices, and as much fruit as you want.

When you eat this way, you never have to go hungry. You can eat as much as you want and still lose weight. This is common in our community.

My book, Beat Cancer Kitchen, is chock-full of delicious, ultra-nutritious plant-based recipes for you to enjoy. In addition, make exercise a priority to burn fat, decrease insulin resistance, and improve your cardiometabolic health. Aim for at least thirty minutes of exercise per day six days a week, even if it’s just brisk walking!
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I created a coaching program and support community for cancer patients and anyone who is serious about prevention called SQUARE ONE. It contains the step-by-step strategies used by myself and many others who have healed cancer with a holistic approach using nutrition and natural non-toxic therapies.

Learn more about the SQUARE ONE Program here

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