More and more people are considering using GLP-1 drugs for weight loss.<\/p>\n
But there are concerns about products being advertised as so-called “GLP-1 patches.”<\/p>\n
They are easier and cheaper to get than the actual drugs.<\/p>\n
A research organization called RAND surveyed Americans and found about 12% had used GLP-1 drugs.<\/p>\n
And 14% were interested in them.<\/p>\n
RAND reports in just the last five years the number of prescriptions for the drugs has more than tripled.<\/p>\n
GLP-1 medications are only available with a prescription and can cost hundreds of dollars a month.<\/p>\n
And that might have some people considering alternatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of products out on the market that, I guess, promote that they may be mimicking these products. And these are products that are not tested by the FDA,\u201d said Dr. Darren Tishler, from Hartford HealthCare Bariatric Surgery.<\/p>\n
Online you can find products advertised as so-called \u201cGLP-1 Patches.\u201d<\/p>\n
They can cost less than $1 for a patch.<\/p>\n
Many contain a plant substance called berberine, not the GLP-1 medications.<\/p>\n
Experts say people who swallow berberine supplements can lose two to four pounds.<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s not clear a patch would work the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose natural GLP-1 products, are they lying to you by saying that they’re GLP-1 products?\u00a0 Well, they’re not 100% telling you the truth,\u201d said Dr. C. Michael White, of the UConn School of Pharmacy.<\/p>\n
Some patches are marketed as supporting GLP-1 production.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a hormone the body naturally produces sometimes just after eating.<\/p>\n
The natural version lasts minutes as opposed to the drugs which last more than a week.<\/p>\n
There are concerns with the patches.<\/p>\n
Researchers note possible side effects including headaches, nausea, and other issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that there were dozens of cases of people that were reporting skin rashes. We saw one person had skin blisters. There were a number of different people that when they tried to remove the patch, they found out that the patch was stuck on,\u201d Dr. White said.<\/p>\n
And there are worries about possible undisclosed chemicals in the products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More and more people are considering using GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. But there are concerns about products…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,682,243],"class_list":{"0":"post-184407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-wellness","10":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}