Meg Tirrell in CNN:
Cheri Ferguson has traded her vape pen for an Ozempic pen. One day seven weeks ago, “I thought, ‘you’re doing something about your weight; leave your vape at home,’ ” Ferguson said. She hasn’t picked it back up since, she says. Ferguson is one of many people taking Ozempic and similar drugs for weight loss who say they’ve also noticed an effect on their interest in addictive behaviors like smoking and alcohol. A smoker for most of her life, Ferguson started Ozempic 11 weeks ago to try to lose about 50 pounds she’d gained during the Covid-19 pandemic, which had made her prediabetic.
She’d switched from cigarettes to vaping last summer in hopes of quitting but found vapes to be even more addictive. That changed, she said, once she started Ozempic. “It’s like someone’s just come along and switched the light on, and you can see the room for what it is,” Ferguson said. “And all of these vapes and cigarettes that you’ve had over the years, they don’t look attractive anymore. It’s very, very strange. Very strange.” Ferguson said she drinks less alcohol on Ozempic, too. Whereas she would have had multiple drinks in a pub while watching a football match in Buckinghamshire, UK, she’s now content with just one. Some doctors say that when it comes to addictive behaviors, an effect on alcohol use is the most common thing they hear from people taking Ozempic or similar medicines.
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