Known brand names include Ozempic.
A once-weekly injection for adults with type 2 diabetes. It lowers blood sugar, and it also lowers the risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death in people with heart disease, and of kidney decline in people with chronic kidney disease.
Semaglutide copies GLP-1, a natural hormone that acts on blood sugar, and switches on the same receptors. When blood sugar is high, it prompts the pancreas to release more insulin and less of another hormone, glucagon. Insulin then moves sugar out of the blood and into the body's tissues, where it is used for energy. It also slightly slows how fast the stomach empties after a meal, so sugar from food enters the blood more slowly.
Injected weekly (1/7)
Injected under the skin weekly, it reaches peak blood levels in 1 to 3 days.
Because it mainly acts when blood sugar is high, it does not block the body's normal glucagon response when blood sugar falls too low. Binding to albumin, a blood protein, shields it from breakdown, so it lasts about a week in the body and stays in the blood for about 5 weeks after the last dose. Levels peak 1 to 3 days after each injection. It may also curb appetite and lead to weight loss, and the slower stomach emptying can change how other medicines taken by mouth are absorbed.
Semaglutide is a once-weekly injection for adults with type 2 diabetes, in which the body does not make or respond to insulin properly, so blood sugar stays too high. Used along with diet and exercise, it lowers blood sugar. It helps control diabetes but does not cure it.
In adults with type 2 diabetes and heart or blood vessel disease, it lowers the chance of a heart attack, a stroke, or death from heart disease. In adults with type 2 diabetes and long-term kidney disease, it lowers the chance of kidney function steadily worsening, kidney failure, and death from heart disease. People inject it under the skin of the stomach area, thigh, or upper arm with a prefilled pen. It has not been shown safe and effective in children, and it is not used in people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer or a related inherited condition called MEN 2.
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, and constipation are what people notice most, especially when the dose goes up. Low blood sugar can happen when it is combined with insulin or certain diabetes pills. The label treats pancreatitis as a serious risk, with severe stomach pain that may spread to the back. It also warns about kidney injury from dehydration, worsening diabetic eye disease, gallbladder problems, serious allergic reactions, and breathing in stomach contents during anesthesia.
This is the boxed warning, the warning the FDA label prints first.
Risk of thyroid C-cell tumors. Semaglutide causes these tumors in rodents; whether it causes medullary thyroid carcinoma in humans is unknown. Contraindicated with a personal or family history of MTC or with MEN 2. Teach patients to report a neck mass, trouble swallowing, shortness of breath, or lasting hoarseness.
Sources: [1]