Page 13: Dietician Donna Aston slams Oprah Winfrey’s dangerous Ozempic weight-loss advice

When Lady O opens her mouth the whole world listens, but a leading Aussie dietitian has slammed the talk show queen for her “dangerous” view on using Ozempic for weight loss.

Australia’s leading celebrity weight loss expert says Oprah Winfrey is spreading a dangerous message after the talk show queen weighed in on the Ozempic dieting craze.

When Lady O opens her mouth the whole world listens and so it was on her Oprah Daily special ‘The State of Weight’ this week.

Oprah was preaching about “un-shaming” people using the drug for dieting, but Melbourne nutritionist Donna Aston says the media mogul is pushing unsafe advice.

This could lead to dire, if not deadly consequences.

“Obesity drugs are not solving a problem, just bypassing it,” Aston told Page 13.

“In this recent Oprah special we seem to have fast tracked directly from receiving the wrong advice, ie counting points and calories, to drastic pharmaceutical intervention,” she said.

“These drugs are now a $100 billion business, but there’s an important piece missing…. the right advice.”

Winfrey, 69, is no stranger to the battle of the bulge having openly discussed her fluctuating weight over the decades, revealing that at one point the scales tipped over 107 kilos.

“Im just sick of it”: Oprah Winfrey said people shouldn’t be shamed for using weight loss drugs. Picture: Roy Rochlin.

“I’ve been on this journey for most of my life,” she lamented. “My highest weight was 237 pounds.

“I don’t know if there is another public person whose weight struggle has been exploited as much as mine over the years,” Winfrey told the panel.

Hosting her The Life You Want Class: The State of Weight, Winfrey entered into the conversation about the controversial topic of weight loss drugs.

Specifically, diabetes medications like Ozempic that have become popular for people looking to shed the kegs fast.

“It should be yours to own and not to be shamed about it,” Winfrey said.

“As a person who’s been shamed for so many years, I’m just sick of it. I hope this conversation begins the un-shaming.”

Aston said Winfrey should be more transparent about where her allegiances are, given the media queen is a shareholder and board member of Weight Watchers.

The dieting giant sponsored Oprah’s panel discussion of “like-minded” obesity experts.

Aston said the Weight Watchers CEO was one of the “experts,” which was inevitable given Oprah was a shareholder in the company now looking to “ride the lucrative wave of prescription drugs.”

Kim Kardashian

Donna Aston who runs Aston RX

“Weight Watchers recently purchased a telehealth company, which prescribes drugs like Ozempic,” says Aston.

Celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Adele and “hook-me-up-to-a-lie-detector” Ozempic denier Jackie O are boosting the diabetes injection conversation.

Earlier this month star publicist Roxy Jacenko opened up about being hospitalised after taking Ozempic.

Jacenko said the pain she suffered was worse than when she was dealing with cancer and she “thought she was going to die.”

Jacenko implored others not to get caught up in the trend to strip weight fast.

Aston, who is the founder of her metabolic and gut rehab program Aston Rx, says she fears a global obesity epidemic will only worsen if the Ozempic craze continues, saying 50 per cent of “weight” lost on diabetic drugs us valuable muscle, not fat.

“Muscle is your ‘engine’, so losing it at this rate is metabolic suicide.”

She is tight-lipped when it comes to naming names but says some celebs who have tried the diabetes drug are already suffering from health problems.

“It’s expensive, there are significant side effects and increased risk of some cancers,” she said. “30 per cent of people stop taking it within the first 12 months due to side-effects,” she said.

“This is serious and almost all who discontinue the drug will rebound with significant weight gain.”

There’s the skinny, straight from a real expert’s mouth.