
Outcomes with Compounded Semaglutide in a “Wellness Studio”
It’s too dangerous, say some. In fact, quite sincerely, smart physicians have told us that the widespread use of compounded semaglutide represents a public health crisis. Others have told us that, yes, there are risks. But because of drug pricing and health insurance practices, it is the only option for many patients and they have patients carefully choosing and using compounded semaglutide with good clinical outcomes.
Well, for the first time ever, we now have outcome data from a real world setting with compounded semaglutide in a “wellness studio” setting. The results are not terrible. In fact, though this data has a lot of limitations, it suggests that short-term results might be comparable to reports of outcomes with branded and more tightly regulated Wegovy.
On balance, this is not an assurance that compounded semaglutide is totally reliable. Neither is it evidence of a potential disaster for the patients who resort to using it. Subjects in this study lost an average of 4.6% of their weight at baseline. The authors tell us that body composition improved:
“As a proportion of total weight, fat mass decreased while lean muscle mass and skeletal muscle mass increased.”
Short-Term Use in a “Wellness Studio”
These retrospective, observational data come from patrons of the Restore Hyper Wellness studio. They offer us a peek at three-month outcomes from just 94 individuals. Most of these individuals are women. The majority have a BMI in the range of overweight (32%) or mild obesity (30%). Five percent of them have a BMI between 18.5 and 25 – a range that used to be called normal. But now, less than 30% of the population falls in that range, so it is certainly not the norm.
Note that persons in that lower weight range qualified for inclusion in this analysis only if they had body composition and co-morbidities that suggest metabolic issues consistent with obesity.
The principal limitation of this data is that it tells us nothing about real health outcomes beyond three months. This modest amount of weight loss might have been only a start for these persons on their way to more substantial gains in metabolic health. But if their therapy did not continue, they might see only modest, if any, health benefits.
We simply don’t know what the health outcomes will be for these people over time.
Mixed Feelings
We confess to having mixed feelings about this report. On one hand, it is good to have real, peer-reviewed data on compounded semaglutide in this setting. And the short-term outcomes are reasonable.
At the same time, we are not comfortable with the concept of a “hyper wellness” studio. The phrase starts with “hype” and we have a hard time getting past that. But as much as it repels us, it no doubt appeals to others.
Buyer beware.
Click here for this paper in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. For a discussion of concerns about compounded semaglutide, click here. Finally, you can find our perspective on hype for the medical spa industry here.
Restore Hyper Wellness in Manhattan, photograph by Ted Kyle / ConscienHealth
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January 14, 2025
January 14, 2025 at 7:20 am, Michael Jones said:
Aside from safety concerns, I remained concerned that it is not sustainable long-term for most patients even at $200-300 per month. This tends to feed into the idea that one can simply take the medication long enough to get some weight off. I ask my patients, “are you willing to pay this monthly, long-term!”