Adobe Stock On a chilly January evening, Samira Shamoon, a 44-year-old health and beauty publicist, walked into an Italian restaurant to meet friends. They were stunned by the incandescence of her skin. Her cheekbones appeared more defined. After a flurry of questions about which dermatologist or plastic surgeon she had visited, she said, beaming, “I’m microdosing!”
Shamoon has joined the wave of people who are taking limited amounts not of psychedelics — to which the microdosing trend usually applies — but of the diabetes drug Ozempic (semaglutide), and other GLP-1 receptor agonists like Mounjaro. They are doing it not primarily for weight loss — the effect that has made Ozempic a Hollywood staple and a reliable awards-show punchline — but for the surprising and widely touted side benefits, particularly its anti-inflammatory properties. Rather than injecting the regular introductory weekly dose, people are only taking half that amount or less. As a runner, Shamoon was always fairly svelte, and though she didn’t mind the side effect of dropping 4 pounds, it was losing the puffiness in her face that drew her to the prescription drug. She also found intriguing the promise of increased mental clarity and a decreased risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.
“I no longer wake up feeling like a puffer fish,” she says. And, she believes, the drug is increasing her mental clarity: “I just feel sharper.”
Dr. Caroline Messer, a top Manhattan endocrinologist, reported that many of the people asking her about microdosing have come in because they are genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s. “The key is not decreased blood sugar,” she says, “but decreased inflammation. In patients without diabetes, it doesn’t lower blood sugar but still has an anti-inflammatory effect.” And, it makes sense, she notes, because “Alzheimer’s is sometimes referred to as Type 3 diabetes. The brain in someone with Alzheimer’s exhibits insulin resistance, similar to what is seen in Type 2 diabetes.”
Microdosing can have a lasting effect in achieving a mental edge, says Dr. Anetta Reszko, a Park Avenue dermatologist. “Unlike traditional dosing, which primarily targets appetite suppression and glucose regulation, microdosing semaglutide may […]
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