Coming from this article (HN comments):
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/12/ozempic-changing-foods-americans-buy
Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%. Among higher-income households, the drop is even steeper, at more than 8%. Spending at fast-food restaurants, coffee shops and other limited-service eateries falls by about 8%.
That seems huge to me. There's lots of memes about bad food practices in the US and there's a lot of truth to it. In 10 years, will there be a stereotype of Americans as skinny people that don't eat much?
I don't have a link but I've seen that companies are pushing back on this, like researching how to make drinks that counteract GLP-1 drugs. Will Big Pharma or Big Sugar win out?
I read an article that stated the vast majority of people who stopped taking these inhibitors regained the weight within 2 years. So you're left with taking it forever (expensive) to keep the weight off. Something that is expensive that you have to do forever is not changing an entire country imho.
Yeah unfortunately you need to use the ozempic to learn how to diet and exercise
Most people just use it to force loss of appetite so they don’t have to actually diet or exercise thus it simply comes back
It may get cheaper. There’s pills on the way that reduces the costs a lot. If those cost savings make their way to the patient then its cost may offset the additional food and healthcare costs of being overweight.
But pharma rarely reduces costs for the patient. What will likely happen is the pill form will stay just below the cost of the injectable until it’s valid as a generic. Then pharma will do some shenanigans to further delay it from going generic such as convert it an OTC drug in order to keep costs high.
in Canada, because the dumb dumbs at Novo forgot to renew their patent.
Huh, just discovered that it's now generic in Canada
My understanding is that it'll be generic in the US soon too, and any improvements are just in delivery methods (pill vs injection). I'd agree that if it is able to be locked behind expensive patents that there might not be much societal change, but if you assume that it's as easy to get as tylenol or something, that seems big.
About $400. They killed off $8B in income. Someone needs to see HR.
I'm betting on Big Zero-Calorie Sweetener insofar as we're talking specifically about sugar.