Oxempic™ et al., According to The Science™

While 'bariatric surgery' continues to be more effective (and presumably much safer), watch experts™ and journos™ alike lie by omission and commission about weight-loss drugs

Another day, more BS—courtesy of legacy media, questionable experts™, and a novel pharmaceutical product pushed on people.

Translation of non-English content mine, as are emphases and [snark].

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Surgery or Weight Loss Medicine? One of Two Resulted in Much Greater Weight Loss

One method is said to be five times more effective in the real world, according to a new study.

By Julie Haugen Egge and Sverre Lilleeng, NRK, 23 June 2025 [source]

There has been a lot of focus on weight loss medication in recent years. Especially medicines that contain the hormone GLP-1.

Popular: weight-loss medication with GLP-1 hav shot through the sky in recent years.

GLP-1 is found naturally in the human gut. It regulates blood sugar and our sense of hunger and satiety. The medical products therefore [sic] contain a substance that mimics this hormone. Examples of these are Wegovy and Ozempic.

Now, American researchers have compared the use of such drugs with traditional bariatric surgery [Wikipedia; the most common pop-culture reference is ‘stomach reduction surgery’].

And what did they find?

They found that bariatric surgery is about five times more effective if the goal is to lose weight [note the sleight-of-hand: researchers are comparing these new weight-loss drugs with the synthetic hormone GLP-1 with traditional bariatric surgery, which is the technical equivalent of, say, comparing ‘doubly vaccinated’ with ‘vaccinated and boosted’ individuals to estimate ‘vaccine efficacy’]

Big Difference After Two Years

There is no doubt that with the drugs currently available, bariatric surgery is more effective. For lasting weight reduction, surgery is probably the best option.

So says Jorunn Sandvik. She is a senior consultant at Ålesund Hospital and a researcher at the Centre for Obesity Research at St. Olavs Hospital [and an adjunct at NTNU].

The results were recently presented at an annual conference in the USA where bariatric surgery is in focus [that would be the original link in the piece; it’s useless as there’s no link to the panel or paper referred to: ‘trust me, I’m a state broadcaster’].

Researchers found that patients who had undergone bariatric surgery lost an average of 22.5 kilos during the first two years. People taking GLP-1 weight loss medication lost an average of 5.6kg during the same period.

The weight loss in patients taking the medication varied depending on how long they were on it, but the overall weight loss was always less than in those who had surgery [not a grand commercial for these GLP-1 drugs].

As many as 70% of patients may discontinue treatment within one year.

That’s according to Avery Brown, a surgical specialist [orig. kirurgisk spesialist, which I faithfully translated, although the linked press release (see next paragraph) says Dr. Brown is a ‘surgical resident’] at NYU Langone Health. He thinks it’s a good idea to adjust your expectations of these medications.

‘GLP-1 patients may need to adjust their expectations, adhere more closely to treatment or opt for metabolic and bariatric surgery to achieve desired results’, he says in a press release.

Much Better Health

In Norway, approximately 1,500 bariatric surgeries are performed each year. This number has halved since 2017.

One of those operated on is Mari-Mette Graff. She underwent bariatric surgery in 2012, 13 years ago.

All in all, I’ve been in much better health since my bariatric surgery. I’ve probably still lost around 50 kilos in total, maybe as much as 60, because I’ve stopped weighing myself.

Graff says the most important thing about this is that she is able to do her daily chores, and that her health is much better than before. She emphasises that this is by no means about her summer body:

People talk about obesity being a low-grade inflammation, and with the exception of corona, I haven’t had bronchitis or pneumonia since the surgery. Before that, I had at least one round a year.

She herself has never been on GLP-1 medication, but she thinks it’s important that doctors have more tools in their toolbox:

So that you can offer each patient a safe and effective [orig. trygt og effektivt: see what I mean?] treatment option that suits them.

Better be Motivated

Professor Jøran Hjelmesæth [faculty profile at the U of Oslo] agrees that the study confirms that the long-term effect of weight loss surgery is much better than that of medication:

You could say that this is a comparison between the effect of surgery and real-life treatment with medication. After all, it’s not the medication that has a bad effect. It’s because people don’t take the medicine [feeling smug already? Isn’t it always a good idea to blame the patient as a doctor, isn’t it?].

Hjelmesæth says that those who are obese or have problems due to being overweight should first get help to change their lifestyle:

If that doesn’t work, you can try weight-loss medication. And if that doesn’t help either, surgery may be recommended [what weird treatment protocol is that? I mean, do this, if it doesn’t work, take some synthetic hormones, although bariatric surgery works ‘five times’ better than the weight-loss drugs?]

He emphasises that both medication and surgery have side effects [ah, of course; Wikipedia (linked above) notes the following: ‘In morbidly obese people, bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for weight loss and reducing complications.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} A 2021 meta-analysis found that bariatric surgery was associated with reduction in all-cause mortality among obese adults with or without type 2 diabetes.^[10]’—so: why push Ozempic or Wegowy over bariatric surgery?] and that it’s important that patients who are going to start on weight loss medication are really motivated to stick with it for a long time:

And then you have to ask the patient if they have enough money for this. Because this is very expensive.

Jøran Hjelmesæth is attending physician [orig. seksjonsoverlege, which translates such, but ‘for a smaller/lesser unit’] at the Department of Endocrinology, Morbid Obesity and Preventive Medicine at the Vestfold Hospital Trust in Tønsberg and professor at the U of Oslo [he is technically ‘Professor II’, which in Norway signifies an adjunct position of approx. (on average) 20% pay/full-time equivalent; his primary position is that of an attending physician, but note that it’s legally fine in Norway to hold an academic full-time position (100%) plus up a position of up to 20% elsewhere]. He and the hospital he works at have received payments from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the manufacturers of weight-loss drugs Wegowy and Mounjaro [for once, legacy media points this out: the difference to, say, the Covid Mania is telling].

Obesity Cannot be Cured

Attending physician and researcher Jorunn Sandvik explains that obesity is a chronic disease that can be treated, but not cured:

So of those who undergo obesity surgery, some have a good and long-lasting effect. Others will find that their weight eventually goes back up.

In very general terms, after bariatric surgery you will lose a third of your weight within the first two years. And then, in a ten-year perspective, you will gain a third of what you lost, explains Sandvik.

But she still has good faith in drugs that contain GLP-1 [faith isn’t nearly good enough in science, isn’t it?]:

They work if you use them over a long period of time.

Had a BMI over 35

In the new study, the US researchers used health data from approximately 51,000 obesity patients [that number doesn’t appear in the paper, but it does appear in the press release]. All participants had a body mass index (BMI) higher than 35, which means that they have class 2 obesity [classification via Wikipedia; BMI 25-39.9; note that this is highly misleading as there’s also class 3 = BMI of 40 or more].

In addition, the participants had either undergone some form of bariatric surgery or had been prescribed GLP-1 medication.

Age, BMI, and other factors [none of which are detailed here or in the paper (cited two paragraphs above; more on this below] were taken into account when the researchers analysed the results. The study used data from the period 2018-2024.

Based on the new findings, the researchers believe it will be important to focus on what can be done to optimise the treatment of drugs with GLP-1.

‘In future studies we will aim to identify what healthcare providers can do to optimize GLP-1 outcomes, identify which patients are better treated with bariatric surgery versus GLP-1s, and determine the role out-of-pocket costs play in treatment success’, they write in the press release.

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‘Battle Over Weight’ & GLP-1

There was a spate of obesity-related puff pieces by the Norwegian state broadcaster recently (e.g., ‘Battle over Weight’ [sic], orig. ‘Kampen om fettet’, dated 7 June 2025), and while I thought about providing these here at the time, I decided against it because I’m a one-man show here and cannot do everything.

So, what’s the main take-aways of the above piece? Here we go (w/o rank-ordering of the listed issues):

• new stuff is, of course, ‘safe and effective’, the slogan we came to know and loath during the Covid Mania, no matter what the problems

• experts™ are consulted, with Prof. Hjelmesæth who ‘took money from Big Pharma’ serving as prima facie evidence of the discrepancy between the Covid Mania and whatever reality™ we live in now: isn’t it striking how different the weight-loss drugs are covered vs. the Covid poison/death juices?

• and then there’s the odd referencing to a paper, which was presented at an academic™ conference (which took place from 15-19 June 2025) and has not been published yet; all I could find—it was linked in the press release mentioned above—is a half-page abstract from that convention, which indicates that the journos™ either had access to the paper presentation (which I doubt) or the basis for their piece is that abstract

Let’s dive deeper into that abstract for a moment:

GLP-1 receptor agonist (GLP1-RA) use is increasing exponentially.

What, then, is that synthetic hormone GLP-1? Turns out, as per that spook-infested repository of common knowledge (Wikipedia), this is what we’re talking about—this is

a class of anorectic drugs that reduce blood sugar and energy intake by activating the GLP-1 receptor. They mimic the actions of the endogenous incretin hormone GLP-1, which is released by the gut after eating.

GLP-1 agonists were initially developed for type 2 diabetes. The 2022 American Diabetes Association standards of medical care recommend GLP-1 agonists as a first-line therapy for type 2 diabetes, specifically in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or obesity. The drugs were also noted to reduce food intake and body weight significantly, and some have been approved to treat obesity and other components of the metabolic syndrome in the absence of diabetes.

The listed ‘adverse effects’ are quite telling and include the following:

The FDA requires a boxed warning in the package inserts of GLP-1 agonists due to the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors, including medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), with a warning that GLP-1 agonists are contraindicated in patients with a family or personal history of MTC or multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2.^[8] In mice, long-term use of GLP-1 agonists stimulates calcitonin secretion, leading to C-cell hypertrophy and an increased risk of thyroid cancer, but no increased secretion of calcitonin has been observed in humans.^[29]

Oh, shouldn’t that be, you know, mentioned in the puff piece?

Let’s talk results, then, shall we?

14,152 propensity matched patients were studied. GLP1-RA patients had significantly higher rates of diabetes, hyperlipemia, and COPD compared to surgery patients. In the intention-to-treat analysis (N=7076 GLP1-RA vs. 7076 surgery), bariatric surgery was associated with more weight loss at all time points (2 year %TWL -25.7±14.9 for surgery vs. -5.3±10.5 for GLP1-RA, p<0.001). In the per-protocol analysis (146 GLP1-RA, 146 bariatric surgery), the difference in outcomes was attenuated, but surgery patients still had significantly more weight loss at all time points (2 year weight loss -24.6±13.9 for surgery vs.-7.6 ±11.1 for GLP1-RA, p<0.001). Bariatric surgery was associated with superior HbA1c control (2 year change -0.2 points vs -0.5 points, p<0.001).

Conclusions

Bariatric surgery is associated with superior sustained, long term weight loss and diabetes control compared to GLP-1RAs among patients eligible for both options.

That alone should give any public health official pause, to say nothing about the experts™ cited here. I note specifically the BS peddled by Prof. Hjelmesæth:

If [lifestyle changes] don’t work, you can try weight-loss medication. And if that doesn’t help either, surgery may be recommended.

That’s perfect—if you’ve received payments from Big Pharma because if you’d follow that treatment plan™, it’s impossible to distinguish any post-surgery benefits from comments, such as ‘ah, well, perhaps it was the weight-loss drug that benefitted you after all’.

Speaking of benefits, let’s take a look at Novo Nordisk’s 2024 20-F filing with the SEC (the equivalent of 10-K filings for non-US companies):

Most of the countries in which Novo Nordisk sells insulin and GLP-1 subsidize or control pricing. In most markets insulin and GLP-1 products are prescription drugs.

So, if the experts™ cited above note the ‘it’s an expensive treatment’ BS, we now know for sure it’s BS, directly from the horse’s mouth. How tricky™ is the situation for Novo Nordisk (don’t forget to shed a few crocodile tears):

In recent years, there has been a general trend in the United States of payers managing the cost of diabetes care to exert pressure on the price of Novo Nordisk’s and competitors' products. In spite of this external pressure, Novo Nordisk has maintained a leading position in the overall diabetes care market through the quality and innovation-driven value of the Company’s Diabetes care products. In the United States, pharmacy benefit managers and managed care organizations have continued to leverage their increasing size and control to demand higher rebates which has impacted the net realized prices [i.e., the market leader whines about middlemen seeking higher protection rents]. Furthermore, competition has intensified, including the authorization of the first interchangeable insulin in 2021, contributing to a downward pressure on manufacturers’ net prices [this is what Mr. Market is supposed to do].

At no point, though, do we see much in terms of ‘risks’ associated with, say, product liability, civil and/or criminal proceedings, or the like.

Then there’s the entire issue of marketing products like Wegowy or Ozempic to non-diabetics; there’s a bit of papers studying drug interactions, but many heavily obese people regularly use more than one other drug.

These weight-loss drugs—as are many others—typically require prescriptions filled by a licensed doctor, hence we can see the revolving door between regulators, doctors, and big pharma once more: they’re all in on it, with ‘most countries…subsidising’ these products.

It’s yet another racket.

Bottom Lines

With most of the accoutrements of the Covid Mania firmly in place, we can now observe the same shit, different smell feature in yet another instance.

This piece already grew much longer than I thought at the beginning, hence I’ll delimit myself to but a few lines.

I’ve reported on an IUD causing a serious injury not that long ago:

IUD Causes Serious Injury--Experts™ Call it 'Ultra-Rare'

And all I have to say—is repeating what I wrote then:

The Covid poison/death juices are the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and my expectation is that medicinal and pharmaceutical products will become progressively more dangerous in the years to come.

At the same time, legacy media™ will gaslight everyone while regulators and manufacturers will skip accountability, aided and abetted by the gov’t.

It’s best to avoid all of the above at-all, if possible: legacy media, drugs and other health™-related products, and expert™ advice.

There’s little to do about gov’t BS other than increased wariness and appropriate levels of sarcasm, consideration, and, yes, prudence when dealing with recommendations and mandates.