By Mady Mijares | Photographer
Most everyone has heard of GLP-1s like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro or Zepbound. However, many people don’t know what GLP-1 therapies were truly designed for and how the trend surrounding them has affected those who need them most.
Pharmaceutical marketing has turned a legitimate medical treatment into a lifestyle product, leaving those who rely on these drugs without affordable access.
GLP-1s were originally developed for type 2 diabetes management and obesity. Recently, research has shown the drug can also be used to treat other diagnoses like sleep apnea, multiple sclerosis and endometriosis. The product seems to lose its appeal and sale factor when it’s not advertised to the largest market: weight loss.
Commercials and advertisements fail to explore these lesser known treatment options because they’re not seen as marketable to the general public.
Between 2019 and 2024, there was a 587.8% sales increase in GLP-1 therapy among adults aged 18 to 39 for weight loss. The demand rose resulting in a shortage of treatment making it difficult for patients navigating other, like myself, to receive necessary treatment.
With this new surge of weight loss advertisements, GLP-1 therapy turned into a common lifestyle choice rather than necessary medical treatment. Following this, insurance companies began denying prescription requests.
While many factors go into insurance approvals such as employer plan, FDA indication and prior authorization requirements, the spike in demand for these peptides changed coverage and approval policies.
Furthermore, compounding the peptides was reduced and the demand grew too fast for companies to keep up with. While the shortage began to stabilize over the past year, we are left unsure of what the future looks like for those who require highly sought after prescriptions.
The shift from treating pancreatic diseases, type 2 diabetes and blood sugar dysregulations to focusing on weight management creates conversation on the ethics of marketing chronic illness treatment options as a lifestyle product.
While many people do not understand the endocrine and hormonal changes caused by taking GLP-1s, there’s an automatic assumption that GLP-1s are miracle weight loss drugs that decrease the number on the scale. With every patient’s metabolic makeup varying due to genetics or lifestyle, GLP-1s are not a one-size fits all.
Perhaps the most powerful thing GLP-1s have done for society isn’t changing our metabolism, but our perception of what our bodies are supposed to look like. The question was never whether we should make people lose weight, but whether we’ve convinced them they need to live lighter or lose weight. Our bodies are not an advertisement and our medications were never supposed to be sales pitches.
