Weight loss drugs are tempting, but I’ll try diet and exercise - Susan Dalgety

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued a warning about buying weight-loss drugs online.

Every pig in a blanket, piece of Camembert and pack of ‘hand-cooked’ crisps has settled on my belly, already straining to its limit. I am clinically obese.

In a few weeks’ time, during my annual blood pressure check, I will have to climb on to the weighing machine at my GP surgery so that the practice nurse can ‘tut tut’ her disapproval at my chunky figure.

“I blame my peasant genes,” I will tell her. But the truth is far more mundane. I eat too much. I drink too much. And I don’t move enough.

A slimline Oprah Winfrey

Walking along the Union Canal to Tollcross from my flat at Viewforth is the extent of my exercise routine. And I don’t do that every day.

I should diet. Exercise more. Cut down on the red wine. Or should I ask my doctor for the miracle that is the fat jab – either a tirzepatide such as Mounjaro or Ozempic, a semaglutide?

Apparently the drugs, developed to tackle Type-2 diabetes, suppress your appetite so much that the weight just falls off.

Celebrities swear by them. Oprah is half the woman she used to be. Whoopi Goldberg says she lost “the weight of two people” after using Mounjaro.

Robbie Williams joked on the Graham Norton show last week that he has lost his generous backside due to Ozempic. “Now it just looks like the place you put a credit card,” he told a startled Norton.

But even if my high blood pressure and body mass index makes me eligible for the treatment, my GP cannot prescribe it yet.

NHS Scotland has told doctors not to prescribe Mounjaro yet and Ozempic, the choice of stars, is in very short supply. On reflection, this is maybe just as well.

There is far too little known about the long-term use of these drugs for weight loss to make them completely safe. Even short-term use can be dangerous.

Susan McGowan, a 58-year-old nurse from Lanarkshire, died last year after only two doses of trizepatide that she bought online. Her death is thought to be the first in the UK officially linked to the drug.

I suppose if I was willing to take a risk, I could do what she did and buy a private supply. I already get my anti-malarial medication from an online pharmacy, so why not weight loss medication?

There are offers all over the web – some companies even throw in free digital scales, a measuring tape and a bin for the used needles.

One company promises me that their fat jab will control my cravings, delay my stomach from emptying and keep me feeling fuller for longer. Sounds suspiciously like constipation to me.

So, on reflection, once I have finished off the chocolate pralines and Comte cheese lurking in the fridge, I will just try to eat a bit less and move a lot more.

Who knows, a better diet and more exercise might just be the miracle I need.