Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault, Amanda Manholt and, Dr. Harpreet Lotay explore the growing conversation around GLP-1 agonists and their impact on facial aesthetics, often referred to as “Ozempic face.” As these medications become more widely used, they unpack how rapid weight loss and changes in fat distribution can alter facial structure, leading to volume loss, skin laxity, and shifts in overall facial harmony.

The discussion breaks down the underlying mechanisms behind these changes, including the role of fat pads, collagen, and elastin, and why the face can sometimes appear older or more tired as a result. They also walk through available treatment options from injectables to regenerative approaches and how combining modalities can help restore balance and improve skin quality. With a focus on education and proactive care, the conversation highlights the importance of early intervention, individualized treatment planning, and realistic expectations when navigating aesthetic changes associated with weight loss.

Key Takeaways

1. Rapid weight loss can accelerate visible changes in facial structure and skin support.
2. Fat pad loss plays a significant role in how aging presents in the face.
3. Collagen and elastin decline contribute to reduced skin resilience and firmness.
4. Combination treatments often provide more comprehensive and natural-looking outcomes.
5. Early, preventative strategies can help maintain facial balance during weight changes.

Disclaimer: The Beauty Equation is for informational purposes only and not medical advice. This podcast does not create a doctor–patient relationship. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making medical or aesthetic decisions. Information may change as the field evolves.

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About the Hosts:

Dr. Harpreet Lotay is a family physician specializing in aesthetic medicine. She is the founder of Sona MD in Kamloops, BC, and serves as Chief Medical Officer at Bios Wellness Clinics. Known for her artistic approach and comprehensive non-surgical treatments, Dr. Lotay combines medical expertise with an eye for natural results. She is also an educator, a national trainer and holds academic appointments where she shares her knowledge in clinical dermatology and aesthetics. You can get in touch with her on Instagram @hlotaymd

Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault is a family physician specializing in aesthetic medicine, women’s health, and psycho-education. She brings a holistic, whole-person perspective to her clinical work, blending science with a deep understanding of the mind-body connection.

She is also the founder of Reclaim The Pink Within, a movement that empowers women to rediscover themselves during life’s most transformative stages. In addition, she is passionate about medical education and mentors the next generation of family physicians through her work with the department of Family Medicine at the University of British Columbia.

You can connect with her on Instagram @drchristellemd

Amanda Manholt is a clinic manager, patient consultant, and co-host of The Beauty Equation Podcast. With over 30 years of experience in beauty, aesthetics, and leadership, she has guided patients and teams alike toward confidence, growth, and empowerment. Known for her ability to connect with people and simplify the often-overwhelming world of aesthetics, Amanda brings a warm, practical, and relatable perspective to every conversation. You can find her on Instagram @crowsfeetandconfidence.

Websites

https://sonamd.ca/

https://www.getyourpinkbackproject.com/

So if you think about how much weight some of these people are losing

in a six to eight to nine month period, it can be quite

dramatic. So initially I think that

the medical community thought that this was just due to the

rapid weight loss and change. Since then, I

believe we have some ideas that there may be

some other changes going on in skin quality. So that's

kind of where we're at. But when people first started being on these medications,

I would notice that the skin lost a little bit of its

luster and its elasticity and people

lost volume in their fat pads. And when we talk about

volume loss in the fat pads, that's a marker

for age. You know, that's something that happens to us physiologically as

we age. So naturally, if people are having these changes earlier

on, sort of sped along by use of these GLP1

medications, they start to look a little bit older. Welcome

back to the Beauty Equation. I am Amanda Manholt and I'm here with my

two great friends. I'm Harpreet Lotte. And

I'm Christelle Oliver Di so and today we are going to be

talking about that hot topic Ozempic face,

which is kind of picking on Ozempic really because there are many other

GLP1 agonists out there.

But that term has been thrown around

quite a little bit lately and I think people want to

be in the know. Personally, I'm like holding out

hope that I get ozempic face, but it hasn't happened yet.

Yeah, it's. Yeah. For people who have

had fuller faces all their life, I guess that's what they're

hoping for. I don't know. Yeah, and I think we

use the word ozempic quite a lot because saying a GLP1 agonist, as you

said, Amanda, is a bit of a mouthful. And a lot of of

the other medications within that category

will all have the generic names, have quite complicated

names, but essentially if the N is in, it's likely

a GLP1 agonist. And they all have very similar mechanism

of actions, although there's some variability between them. We won't be going

into that today though. We're going to be focusing on what you see and what's

been coming up in social media and that's that, that

face, those typical facial features that you'd

notice when someone has been on that medic. And I might

let yourself, harpreet, start to talk about it

because I think you had a lot in your patient demographic showing

some of those signs and what were the first kind of things that you noticed?

Yeah. So when Ozempic and these rapid weight loss drugs

came on the market, we started to see some changes in

people's overall skin quality. So,

you know, there are changes that we see in the face just with rapid weight

loss alone. So if you think about how much weight some of these people,

people are losing in a six to eight to nine month period, it

can be quite dramatic. So initially I

think that the medical community thought that this was just

due to the rapid weight loss and change. Since

then, I believe we have some ideas that

there may be some other changes going on in skin quality.

And so that's kind of where we're at. But when people first started

being on these medications, I would notice that the skin lost a

little bit of its luster and its elasticity and

people lost volume in their fat pads. And when we talk about

volume loss in the fat pads, that's a marker

for age. You know, that's something that happens to us physiologically

as we age. So naturally, if people are having these changes earlier

on, sort of sped along by use of these GLP1

medications, they start to look a little bit older. And

you know, it's an unfortunate thing because many times people go on

these medications to boost their confidence, to feel more

like themselves, their clothes fit. Some people, of course, are

using it to manage diabetes. But that, that side effect

of losing weight is a very welcome one. And it's very

unfortunate when they look in the mirror and they don't feel

confident when they're seeing these changes that come on.

So now that we understand that these changes, do

we try to address that early on in the patient's journey? So if

you do have an aesthetic physician that you're working with, you're going to be going

on a GLP1 or you are on a GLP1, it's important

to share it with your medical provider and talk about your

options and how can you manage that as you continue

on your weight loss journey? I guess you could just put

so much filler in your face that you look like a balloon on a, on

a chopstick. I mean, we've seen that. We

have. And, but as like Dr. Lotte or Harpreet, you

mentioned, like, it's, it's, there's two different things going on. There's that rapid weight

loss, which we're not seeing as much because the protocols for weight

management have improved because a lot of times initially we were really basing it off

how we prescribe in diabetics. And it's

slightly different in Our approach with obesity

alone. And when you have had rapid weight loss, you mentioned that

mid phase loss, it's about like a 7 to 11% fat

padloss just in the cheeks here. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see me

circling my cheeks. But as you also mentioned that that

skin quality was different. And I remember reading a few

papers and they've only kind of come out in the last year talking about some

of the mechanisms. And we initially thought, you know, this

is just a medication for diabetes and weight loss. But those

GLP receptors, we have them everywhere, including our

skin, on some of the fibroblasts. So those cells that will

make collagen and elastin and on some of the

adipocytes, so fat cells that we have in our skin too. And some

of the proposed mechanisms are that it

stresses those cells out, so those cells don't work as well.

There's more oxidation. And I think a lot of people have probably heard of

oxidation or inflammating. And it seems to speed up that process a

little bit and reduce that quality and quantity of collagen and elastin

that we have, which is where a lot of the bioregenerative

medications and treatment protocols have come in when

addressing that. And we were just at a talk recently, Harpreet, where we

were going over some of those protocols. So some really interesting things

that I know I picked up when we were at that training event.

Do you want to share how you've addressed some of that, those changes for your

patients? Yeah. So first is having that

conversation that the fibroblast, that your collagen will change,

that you will have some changes in the fat pad

and you know, depending on the patient's

orientation in terms of how they want to address these things. You that we

can choose amongst the very, very different

modalities for dealing with collagen and fibroblast

stimulation. And some of those can be something as simple as

stimulation with microneedling and then our lasers. But of course

that's not going to address the underlying fat pad

loss and some of that sort of stressed

fibroblasts and the decreased fibroblast activity.

So we do bioregenerative injectables that

I do love to use that are very effective

in stimulating those fibroblasts or those cells and

really getting to some of the mechanisms that these drugs sort

of work through in our skin. One of them is

calcium hydroxyapatite or caja. It's

the same material that our bones are made out of. So when we

inject these little smooth particles underneath the skin.

They'll act like mechanical little

stimul for the fibroblasts and say, hey, wake

up, let's make some collagen now. And it'll make some

collagen, it'll make some elastin in the skin. You'll get

improvement of the extracellular matrix. And

depending on how we dilute the

material, we can use it as a traditional filler. So

many times people haven't been on a preventive protocol when they've

started to GLP1 and when they come in to see me, they're already at the

point where they want to see immediate change. So I do love the

AB ability to use this product to give immediate volumization,

much like a traditional filler, but also stimulate the

underlying skin and wake up those sleepy fibroblasts.

And then we have Sculptra, which is plla.

It's material that we use for resorbable sutures. So it's

something that's familiar to physicians and it's been on the market for

30 years, as has calcium hydroxyapatite. So

these PLLA particles are work similarly, but they

work through a different mechanism. They,

you know, they wake up the, the cells within the

immune system and create this stimulation within the

skin that makes the fibroblasts make collagen. So it's

a very different mechanism to calcium hydroxylapatite,

but it gives you the same increase in

collagen and gives you a plumpness to the skin and it

gives you subtle volumization, but it takes a lot more.

This is a product that you would want to lean on

early in your journey if you wanted to manage and mitigate those

changes. Overall, both of them can be used

similarly. They're both very work very

well in the right patients, for sure. So one is more of an

inflammatory pathway, the PLLA, and 1 is more of like a

mechanical pathway, but has the added caveat that

with different dilution can also take on properties of fillers. So

two different tools, both equally as good,

depending on who's standing in front of you and tailoring that

to the person in front of you. Yeah, so,

and then what about just traditional fillers? Is that something that you

have used in patients who've presented with the

classical ozempic or GLP1 agonist

face? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So they're a tool that I

don't think will ever leave our toolbox because they're

amazingly effective and you can get extremely natural looking

results and immediate results. So yeah, absolutely, we

would use it. So I could see a situation where we might

use, you know, traditional filler to

give immediate volumization and then something like PLLA to

give skin boosting or hyper dilute radiesse.

It really just depends. And now there are

studied protocols that involve blending calcium

hydroxyl apatite with

hyaluronic acid based fillers and using it in

this sort of blended methodology. So we're coming up with so many

new ways to really rejuvenate the face and

improve skin quality at the same time through injectables.

Yeah. So if you're someone, oftentimes what happens? You're, you know, you're in your

50s, you've gone through menopause, you've noticed some metabolic

changes, some weight gain, then you go on this medication and the weight starts

to improve. But I'll know you have you had this like 30% drop in collagen

because of menopause. Now the rapid weight loss and the effect that has on your

skin cells is making you feel like your face is aging faster

than the rest of you. We have tools for that and there's ways to address

it. And I think the point that you made of if you know you're going

on that medication and you have an aesthetic provider will

be quite useful to start a conversation, to plan it

alongside when you are starting the medication and increasing

the medication so that you don't have those drastic changes that you might

find really upsetting. Some people don't find the misadin, but some do. And there are

tools if it is something that you think will bother you. Yeah,

absolutely. So I hope that was a good little primer that we

gave you on ozempic phase rapid weight loss and use of

GLP1s. There's of course a lot more nuance to

it and maybe we'll do some further episodes depending on the interest.

So if you have a burning question

about the world of aesthetics, please do send it along to us

info at the Beauty Equation.com we'd love to hear

from you and we look forward to connecting with you next time on the Beauty

Equation. Until next time, take care.