Featured Image Credit: Julian Hamilton/WireImage
Topics: Ozempic, Weight loss, Cancer, Health
William Morgan
Topics: Ozempic, Weight loss, Cancer, Health
The use of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Wegovy have become so commonplace among people in public life that it's almost surprising that any celebrity isn't on it.
But while you can spot 'Ozempic face' in the slimmed-down appearance of many celebs, not everyone can take the widely-prescribed medication that mimics a blood sugar and hunger-regulating hormone to help with diabetes and weight loss.
That was what Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Teddi Mellencamp discovered when she requested the drug while dealing with an advanced cancer that had spread through her body.
Speaking on 'Two Ts in a Pod', Mellencamp, 44, said: "I am a health and wellness coach who’s dying of cancer. And because I gained weight from the steroids, because I’m getting bigger from the steroids, I asked my doctor if I could please have GLP-1s."
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His response was fairly straightforward. “And he was like, ‘No!'” Mellencamp shared on the podcast, which largely covers all the latest Bravo network drama and is usually co-hosted by fellow Real Housewives star Tamara Judge.
On the recent podcast episode, Judge was replaced by the Real Housewives of New Jersey's Dolores Catania, who told her: “I’m so sorry someone told you no, but I don’t know that I’d listen!”
Mellencamp has been battling cancer for the past four years, after being diagnosed with a Stage 2 melanoma in 2022, which has since metastasized and progressed to Stage 4.
“I mean, I know people where I could get it. I have friends that do it,” she shared of the GLP-1 drugs that were invented to treat diabetes but have since found a range of new purposes.
However, they have not yet been found to boost cancer survival rates, aside from removing additional cancer risk from obesity. In fact, one of their core mechanisms could make it harder to fight off fatal disease.
That is because you need all your strength when you are fighting cancer, for which many of the treatments will commonly make sufferers feel nauseous and struggle to eat.
Compounding this with GLP-1 drugs to suppress appetite could lead to malnutrition and more pronounced muscle loss, making the widely used weight loss drugs inappropriate for anyone who has a BMI below 30 seeking aesthetic improvements.
Macmillan Cancer Support points out in its guidance for patients that 'maintaining strength and energy is often more important than losing weight'.
However, Mellencamp's guest co-host Catania said to her friend: “Tell your doctor to shut up.” This caused her to laugh at her nonchalance, replying: “Listen. Let me enjoy my time.”
But the former Beverly Hills star may be able to join the GLP-1 trend next year, as a surgery to remove tumors in 2025 may have turned around her health situation with doctors saying after that she now had 'no detectable cancer.'
In October, Mellencamp revealed that she would continue a course of immunotherapy for the next year, explaining: “I’m still going to be having days when I'm feeling sick and stuff because I still am in immunotherapy, so I'm still fighting because you have to be.
“I’m not considered in remission or anything like that,” she noted on her podcast. “The way the [doctors] said it works, it's like one year, then two years, then at three years you're allowed to be considered… in remission.”