(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — As anti-diabetes drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus have been increasingly prescribed for weight loss, and industry experts have said it could lead to more leftovers at Thanksgiving.
The drugs work to trigger weight loss by reducing food intake. They curb a user's appetite and slow down digestion so a person feels fuller, faster.
Food manufacturers are already bracing for a possible Ozempic related slowdown in the sales of thanksgiving staples.
Forbes health care writer Bruce Japsen told the WBBM Noon Business Hour that the medications are taking root as weight loss tools.
“These are obviously flooding the markets, and, of course, they do curb people’s appetite, so that would stand to reason,” he said.
One thing that could stem its impact this year: Ozempic and other related drugs are injected, and while a pill form of Ozempic is in the works, Japsen said fear of needles keeps some people away.
“These injections, some people just say, ‘I’m not doing it,’” Japsen said.
The drugs mimic powerful hormones that kick in after people eat to regulate appetite and the feeling of fullness communicated between the gut and the brain. Users can lose as much as 15% to 25% of their body weight, studies show.
“That’s how it works — it reduces the rewarding aspects of food,” explains Dr. Michael Schwartz, an expert in metabolism, diabetes and obesity at the University of Washington in Seattle.
For Claudia Stearns, who started treatment in 2020, using the weight-loss medications means she can take a few bites of her favorite Thanksgiving pies — and then stop.
“I would not feel full," she says, “but I would feel satisfied.”
Yet such a shift can have broader implications, both religious and cultural, because it alters the experience of festive and religious holidays that are often built around interactions with food — and lots of it.
“I’m Italian. For us, it’s like going to church, going to a table,” says Joe Sapone, 64, a retiree from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, who lost about 100 pounds with dieting and Mounjaro. He no longer needs what he called “the food orgy” of a holiday, but he acknowledges it was an adjustment.
“Part of succeeding at this is disconnecting a good time with what you eat,” he says. “Am I still going to have fun if I don't eat that much?”
In 2019, Business Insider reported that Americans generally eat somewhere between 2,500 – 4,500 calories per person at the Thanksgiving table. That consumption includes 40 million whole turkeys, which represents nearly half of all whole turkeys sold in the U.S. each year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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