Stefania Sarrubba
Elon Musk has dished the secrets behind his recent weight loss transformation.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has revealed what helped him in his recent weight loss journey as he’s showed his new look clad in a Santa Claus suit. The snap — posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) — prompted some curiosity in his followers, with many asking what Musk did to show off his body transformation.
It didn’t take long for X users to put two and two together, given that Musk captioned the shot 'Ozempic Santa'.
Followers of the tech billionaire deduced he must’ve opted for Hollywood stars’ favourite drug, which currently boasts a bunch of A-listers who have been using it.
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Though it is not classified as a weight-loss management drug, and is therefore not approved by the FDA for that use, Ozempic has recently gained popularity among the stars who want to lose weight.
Currently, the drug is only approved to treat type-2 diabetes. As such, this drug enhances insulin secretion but lowers that of glucagon so that a person’s blood sugar levels can go down without risking hypoglycaemia, a dangerous condition which can lead to seizures.
However, it turns out that Musk didn’t resort to Ozempic like some of the other stars.
“Like Cocaine Bear, but Santa and Ozempic!,” Musk wrote in a follow-up post before clarifying that it was 'technically Mounjaro' that he’d been using. He added that Mounjaro 'doesn’t have the same ring to it'.
The tech mogul did try Ozempic, but admitted it wasn’t for him as high doses of the drug ‘made [him] fart & burp like Barney from the Simpsons’.
He added: "Mounjaro seems to have fewer side effects and be more effective."
Similarly to Ozempic, Mounjaro is a medication for type-2 diabetes and weight loss taken weekly by injection in the thigh, stomach, or arm.
The main difference seems to be that Mounjaro has actually been approved as a weight-management medication, while Ozempic has not.
As for their active substance, Mounjaro contains tirzepatide, which is a gastric inhibitory polypeptide analog and GLP-1 receptor agonist. Ozempic contains a peptide similar to the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 modified with a side chain, known as semaglutide.
Both are to be injected and are helpful to manage the symptoms of type-2 diabetes, but Mounjaro targets the receptors of two appetite-regulating hormones, the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) — also targeted by Ozempic — and the Gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP).