Dame Andrea Jenkyns has criticised Government plans to use weight loss jabs to get people back to work and boost the economy.
Sir Keir Starmer said drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro “could be very important for the economy so people can get back into work”.
And Health Secretary Wes Streeting wrote in The Telegraph that sick days caused by obesity-related illnesses were “holding back our economy”.
A trial is now planned to examine the real-world effects of Mounjaro – also known as tirzepatide – on non-clinical outcomes such as the economy.
But Dame Andrea, 50, warned that the drugs were not a silver bullet. In a video shared on X, she opened up about her own experience using Ozempic, which is licensed for treatment of type 2 diabetes.
READ MORE: Unemployed obese people to be given weight loss jabs to ‘get them back to work’
The former MP said: “I was going through a tough time. My mum died and I really comfort eated, and my weight ballooned to 12 stone 9lbs – and that’s for somebody who’s only five foot six in height.
“I went on the Ozempic injection and you feel a little bit sick but generally I was fine.”
Dame Andrea, who lost her Morley and Outwood seat in this year’s election, said she took the drug for five months and her weight dropped to 10 stone.
But when she stopped taking it, “the weight piles on massively and I was soon back up to nearly 12 stone”.
She went on: “That was from coming off it at the end of January and by May I had put all this weight back on.
“What you also find as a side effect of coming off it is you have this insatiable appetite. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.
“I was hungry permanently. I could eat three bars of chocolate one after another and still be hungry. I could eat a full meal and still be hungry.”
Dame Andrea said she had turned to more traditional methods – “literally eat less, move more” – to slim back down to 11 stone.
She added: “That’s the only way you can lose weight. I think before Wes Streeting starts making sure that more and more people have these drugs, we really do need to know the long-term side effects. So I personally think it’s a bad decision.”
Weight loss jabs are only supposed to be used for a maximum of two years alongside diet and lifestyle advice, according to UK guidelines.
