Healthy Colorado: Doctor weighs in on Ozempic craze

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs are reshaping food and weight loss trends. One doctor explains why they work so well for millions of people, but also the dangers of counterfeit and unregulated medications and supplements.

"Obesity is a disease, says Dr. Frank Chae, Medical Director of Bariatric Surgery at HCA Health One at Sky Ridge Medical Center. "It is not a lifestyle choice or some kind of personality or character. It is a disease as real as diabetes and cancer."

Dr. Frank Chae says there are more options than ever to help treat people who are overweight.

"The surgical therapy and the medications they help improve lives," says Dr. Chae. "For example, we have decades of outcomes from weight loss surgery, and it shows that it saves lives. People live longer from decreased cancer, decreased heart attack, and decreased stroke. And that is why we are fighting obesity."

Whether it is medicine, surgery, or injections, Dr. Chae says it's important to take the Ozempic craze seriously. Over the counter supplements and medicines aren't up to most medical standards. They could have limited to no testing and unknown or dangerous ingredients.

"I think what is exciting right now is the role of GLP-1 drugs, these are injections, weekly injections that people do, and they have definitely helped improve the health of the United States and Americans," says Dr. Chae. "However, the medications have to be prescribed. There are a lot of things you can buy on the Internet or even like off script, however, you are taking the risk in terms of quality control when it comes to these compound drugs, so again I would ask you to consult your family doctors, dietitians, or other health care professionals."

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