Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick has admitted to using the weight loss jab Ozempic but said he “didn’t particularly enjoy it”.
The former immigration minister confirmed he took the medication for around six weeks last autumn to slim down.
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He said it was “helpful” but he has since focused on losing weight “in the normal way” by eating healthier food and exercising more.
“To be honest, I was overweight,” Mr Jenrick told Politico.
“I took Ozempic for a short period of time, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it was helpful.
“Since then, I’ve just lost weight in the normal way by eating less, eating more healthily, doing some exercise – going to the gym, going running. I’ve lost four stone in 12 months.”
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Mr Jenrick was addressing rumours about his sudden weight loss since leaving government.
He resigned as immigration minister in December over Rishi Sunak’s failure to get the Rwanda asylum scheme up and running.
He is now vying to replace the former prime minister as Tory leader following the party’s hammering at the general election.
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Another leadership contender, Tom Tugendhat, recently denied using the medication but said he had been off booze for a year and was under instruction from his wife to “stay off bread and potatoes” in a bid to get lean.
Ozempic, a weekly injection initially designed to treat type 2 diabetes, has been touted by celebrities and social media influencers as a “miracle drug” for weight loss.
Delivered via an injection into the skin, the drug makes people feel fuller and more satisfied, so they eat less.
Last year, former prime minister Boris Johnson revealed he had taken the medication to stop his late-night “cheddar and chorizo” fridge raids, after noticing colleagues had shed some weight because of the drug.
“For weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked,” he wrote in his Daily Mail column.
“Effortlessly, I pushed aside the puddings and the second helpings. I must have been losing four or five pounds a week – maybe more.”
However, Mr Johnson said he eventually stopped taking Ozempic due to side effects (which can commonly include nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting), though he didn’t go into detail about what those were.
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Ozempic is only available on the NHS for people with type two diabetes.
Last year Wegovy, which has the same active ingredient (semaglutide), was given the green light to be prescribed for weight loss with strict criteria around who can get the drugs.
Pharmacists have reported a shortage of the drug because of its sudden surge in popularity – plus the fact some medics are prescribing it off-label for obese people.
This has led to those with diabetes finding it more difficult to access, while also fuelling a rise in counterfeit jabs.
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, has recently expressed alarm at people misusing the drug as a “quick fix” to “lose a few pounds”, saying they should only be taken with medial supervision.
