Off the Scales is the inside story of the creation of Ozempic and its revolutionary impact on public health. The Pharmaceutical industry have long been searching for a cure for obesity, one that seemed unattainable until recent breakthrough in type 2 diabetes research which led to the development of Ozempic, a weight loss medication that activates a hormone in the4 stomach called GLP-1, making people feel fuller for longer.These wonder drugs bearing names such as Wegovy, Zepbound and Mounjaro, all tackles obesity and also cut the risk of downstream diseases such as heart disease and stroke. One in eight Americans have already tried them and one in five will be taking them by 2030. It seems eat your junk food like ultra processed food, sedentary lifestyles and take ghe wonder drug to make dwindling appetites and thinning waist. Reuters business columnist Aimee Donnellan sets out to document the story behind Ozempic, the Novo Nordisk diabetes medication that kick started it all in 2017, which made a Danish company an early winner. Ozempic’s emerging weight-loss side-effect led the rich and famous to seek it out. Eli Lilly, brought out their own versions of fat-busting injections, which mimic a gut hormone that controls blood sugar and appetite, making the synthetic hormones to trick the brain into feeling not hungry. In 2016, Donnellan writes, obesity cost the US an estimated $1.4trillion  a year for medical bills and lost working days.The story reveals back the efforts in the 1980s by scientists at the University of Copenhagen and Massachusetts General Hospital to research on how gut hormones control blood sugar and the attempts to create a new diabetes treatment. The complex story of pioneering science behind GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, and the battle to claim credit. Donnellan profiles the chemist Svetlana Mojsov, whose contributions to the discovery of GLP-1 were overlooked and sidelined by senior collegues and ended up suing to get her name on patents,  andher fight for recognition while her colleagues were thrust into the limelight, and offers new insights into the ways that the food and beauty industries made billions while promoting unhealthy and unrealistic body image standards and accelerating the obesity crisis. She also provides first-hand accounts of several early Ozempic users and the transformative effect the drug has had on their weight loss journeys. She will now be in the mix when the Nobel Prize Committee come calling.After Ozempic ( which contains  Semaglutide), Novo Nordisk quickly brought out Wegovy, a higher-dose version specifically targeting obesity.  Eli Lilly which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound ( which contains tirzepatide), reached a market capitalisation of $1 trillion  in December.  Donnellan stresses, how this drug will change social attitudes, and the stigma attached to obesity, although these drugs “have not cured our tendency to equate excess weight with poor character and thinness with hard work and self-control”. Off the Scales is an informative and entertaining study of the unexpected consequences of finally getting what we’ve wanted for so long.