Kentucky is ranked #3 in the United States for the most obese state, with Mississippi at #2 and West Virginia at #1. Around 33% of adults in Kentucky are overweight, and another 37.8% are obese. Kentucky also has the second highest amount of obese children in the country. So it’s no surprise that Kentucky has a large population of Ozempic users along with other weight loss drugs.
The purpose of Ozempic is to help manage blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes and to help lower the risk of specific heart/blood vessel problems in people who have both heart disease and type 2 diabetes. In 2022, the mortality rate for diabetes in Kentucky was 29.4, according to the CDC. That means per 100,000 people, 1,668 people died of diabetes. The CDC also states that the number one reason for death in Kentucky is heart disease. So for those people, it makes sense to take Ozempic because they want to stay alive.
But sometimes, other people use Ozempic for weight loss, even without diabetes or other health problems that are life threatening. This can cause numerous problems.
First of all, this can cause unnecessary money to be spent. During the 2023-2024 year, Kentucky Medicaid paid $251 million for GLP-1 (a class of medications that treat blood sugar, such as Ozempic) medication to treat 76,195 people, according to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. That means about $3,294 was spent per person. We cannot be sure that every single one of those people actually needed the medication, and so it would have been a waste of a lot of money.
Secondly, it can cause huge health problems to the person taking it. For example, in an article by the Kentucky Lantern, a 70-year-old woman named Ruth Taylor from Oldham County, Kentucky, talked about how she experienced a lot of weight loss while taking the drug for about six months during 2018 after getting accepted into a trial to study semaglutide. But after the trial ended and Taylor had no time to wean herself off the drug, she gained all the lost weight and more despite the fact that she had not changed her diet. Taylor had diabetes, which was why she had been accepted into the trial. We can assume that the effects might be worse for someone who does not have type 2 diabetes.
Also on the health note, there is a concern about the correlation between Ozempic and eating disorders. Cheri Levinson, an associate professor with the university and the director of Louisville’s Eating Anxiety Treatment Laboratory, surveyed about 120 people in 2024 who were seeking care for eating disorders. Of those, about 11% said they had used or were using Ozempic. “Eleven percent … is pretty high for people who are specifically coming in for eating disorder treatment,” Levinson told the Kentucky Lantern, “I can guarantee that every single one of those people is already struggling with (food) restriction. And then you add … use of Ozempic on top of it. Very problematic.” Over the next year, Levinson and another professor plan to survey 1,000 people with eating disorders to learn how many use Ozempic, as well as how they got the drug.
Thankfully, Ozempic is required to have a prescription from a doctor to be able to obtain it from pharmacies and cannot be gotten over the counter. Hopefully this discourages people from taking unnecessary medicines to reach the beauty standard.
If you’re concerned about being overweight and do not have diabetes/heart problems, do not immediately jump to ozempic or weight loss drugs. There are many consequences, both financially and physically. Instead, try talking to your doctor, incorporating more exercise into your schedule or eating a healthier diet.
