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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Greg Evans

Vanessa Feltz says ‘I would not have had the surgery’ if she’d known about Ozempic

TalkTV

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TV presenter Vanessa Feltz has admitted that she wouldn’t have had gastric bypass surgery if she knew that weight loss drug, Ozempic, was going to be invented.

Ozempic has made huge waves since it was approved for medical use in the United States in 2017 becoming popular among celebrities looking to lose weight.

Feltz though has not taken Ozempic, having moved to correct her weight issues before the medication hit the mainstream.

The 62-year-old TV personality instead had a gastric band fitted in 2010, emulating her fellow This Morning host, Fern Britton, before having gastric bypass surgery in 2019.

Now, speaking to The Times, Feltz said that she is gutted to have missed the Ozempic boom saying that if she knew it was going to be invented the “I would not have had the surgery”.

Candidly, she added: “I’d have bloody well injected it in the thigh for the rest of my life and I’d have been delighted to do it. Unfortunately I slightly predated it, which is a f***ing shame.”

Feltz went on to call Ozempic “fabulous” and claimed that “everyone [in the public eye] who used to be fat and now isn’t is using it, whatever they say.”

“We don’t know what the long-term effects are but who cares? At least you’re thin,” said the LBC radio host.

It comes after the broadcaster shared a video from her hospital bed where she explained she had been “doubled over in agony” while playing with her grandchildren on Sunday, 15 September.

Feltz said the cause of the “worse pain than childbirth” had been a “big kidney stone” that was discovered after a scan. A decision was quickly made to remove the kidney stone, which doctors said was 5mm long.

Vanessa Feltz (Vanessa Feltz)

Hundreds of doctors and experts have called on the health secretary Wes Streeting to review the impact of weight-loss jabs on NHS services after the drugs sparked a ‘tidal wave’ of demand.

The Obesity Health Alliance has warned that NHS specialist weight-management services are unable to match increased demand which comes with the 4.1 million patients who are eligible for jabs such as Wegovy.

The warning comes after Streeting said weight-loss jabs could be given to those who are unemployed due to obesity problems as the government announced £279m investment into the UK’s life sciences sector to trial weight-loss jabs, and assess the impact on worklessness.

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