Ozempic: There’s Good News and Bad News

A new study leverages millions of patients to find the effects — and side-effects — no one is talking about.

I’m really the last person to call something a miracle drug, but when it comes to the new weight loss drugs — formally the GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic — I’m hard-pressed to think of a different term.

Remember, these were designed as diabetes drugs. They were supposed to lower blood sugar. And they do. But it turned out they had profound affects on appetite, leading to substantial weight loss in the range of 10–20% of body weight. And I feel a bit like a late-night infomercial host here — because whenever I talk about these drugs I’m like “and that’s not all”. Studies have also shown that they curb other appetites. People taking them are more likely to quit smoking, drinking, and gambling. They do less compulsive shopping even. I’ve written about this before, referring to these really as “anti-consumption” drugs, and considering them more or less the antidote to the central problem of our current culture — over-consumption.

But I’m not an unabashed optimist. When I teach interpretation of the medical literature to students, I remind them that if you think something sounds too good to be true — it probably is. What other effects do these…