GLP-1 Friendly: Selling the Fix for the Fix

Updated

By Tracy Beanz & Michelle Edwards

For a nation battling obesity, we can now confirm that one in ten adults in America is now injecting a drug designed to make the body stop wanting food. Since 2024, use of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has nearly quadrupled, and an analysis that same year in JAMA Cardiology estimated that more than half of all of the adults in the United States—roughly 137 million people—are medically eligible to take these drugs. The GLP-1 craze may be the fastest change in how a nation eats that we’ve ever seen. And while a great many argue whether these drugs are a wonderful miracle or a destructive menace, the nation’s food industry has quietly gotten to work rebuilding how it subliminally sells us food. Yes, indeed, Big Food has taken note of the medicated future, done the math, and decided it’s time to repackage what it sells. Tweak the products and capture the new market, so to speak.

The industry’s maneuvering of the market only makes sense when one takes a good look at the drug itself. Sure, patients on GLP-1s lose remarkable amounts of weight, but they also lose a great deal of muscle mass too. In fact, with some estimates as large as a quarter to 40%, a large portion of the weight loss is lean tissue rather than fat. In other words, muscle. The drugs also carry a warning for thyroid tumors, based on studies with rodents, with the human risk still unestablished. Similar to the mRNA jabs, the people injecting GLP-1s are the real long-term human trial, running now. Research has also linked them to a partial paralysis of the stomach called gastroparesis, which has been serious enough to spawn its own consolidated federal lawsuit. A separate one, with more than 200 cases as of September per the court, stems from patients who claim the drugs caused a sudden and often permanent form of vision loss called NAION. Regulators in Europe reviewed that risk last year, calling it very rare and ordering the addition of a warning label. The FDA has done no such thing.

Still, the FDA’s adverse-events database serves as a freestanding warning signal, as it now holds 290,000 reports tied to GLP-1s, including thousands that list death as an outcome. Yes, death. The reports in this database are voluntary and can be filed by anyone, and of course, could be argued to be no proof of harm. Still, the sheer volume of the entries is difficult to overlook as the toll rises, as documented by The Highwire in mounting detail. Along with the adverse events, when people stop taking the drug, as many do, the lost weight tends to return, meaning that, while dishing out a real toll of side effects attached, this class of drugs provides no cure for obesity.

Which raises a serious question. How carefully are these drugs being handed out to patients? The answer, apparently, is not very carefully at all. An investigation by STAT News into the telehealth company LifeMD revealed that former employees of the company stated that clinicians were pushed to prescribe GLP-1s faster and with little screening. So fast, that at times they reviewed 25 patients an hour—roughly two minutes per patient—working only from a form that the patient had already filled out. So how did the patients end up at LifeMD? Look no further than Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic, which lists LifeMD on its own website, and facilitates the way to a two-minute weight loss prescription. Never mind the side effects. The drug moves quick, everyone gets paid along the way, and the medical part is a mere formality.

Now consider what the food giants are doing with the GLP-1 craze.

With at least one out of every ten adults using GLP-1s, Big Food has taken notice and is seizing the opportunity. The industry is not fighting the drug that makes its products less desirable. They really can’t do that, even though a brand-valuation firm recently estimated that GLP-1 use is putting $73 billion of brand value at risk across the world’s 100 largest food brands. Think about it. Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, Kellogg’s, Reese’s, and Hershey’s are among the most exposed, because people who aren’t hungry don’t reach for chips or practice mindless munching. But let’s take a look at how the same giants are positioned to win either way. For starters, PepsiCo owns Lay’s, the single most exposed brand on the list, and it also owns Gatorade and Aquafina, which the same report flagged as winners, since GLP-1 users chase hydration and functional drinks over snacks. The company may lose on chips and win on drinks, but it really doesn’t lose at all. And this is the pattern showing through as the whole industry repositions itself. The money doesn’t leave because chips aren’t popular anymore. It just shifts to a different aisle.

Consider Nestle, for example. It is the largest food company on earth, and it is also the company that sells KitKats. Not exactly a diet food.  Nestle’s chief technology officer recently told Reuters that the company is now using artificial intelligence to design foods specifically for GLP-1 users, and in particular to profit from their side effects. He called this shift “a huge opportunity for our company.” He explained that Nestle’s scientists industrialized a combination of micronutrients designed to build muscle back so it can sell customers a remedy for the very muscle that the drug is stripping away. And here is the funny part if it weren’t so frightening. Nestle has patented ingredient combinations designed to suppress the appetite in individuals who have come off of the drug and had their appetite return. In other words, they have engineered one product for when people are on GLP-1s, and another for when they stop taking them. Indeed, they have found a way to sell their products at every point in the GLP-1 cycle. Coming and going, medicated and rebounding.

Nestle is the clearest case, but the entire food industry is running the same scheme. Danone is now pushing high-protein “GLP-1 friendly” nutrition shakes in Walmart and CVS. Conagra has slapped a “GLP-1-friendly” label on its Healthy Choice frozen meals. And a wave of startups are racing to sell “natural Ozempic”, peptides, fibers, and even fat-trapping beads meant to coax the body into making the hormone that the GLP-1 injection mimics. Beyond that, restaurants from Chipotle to Shake Shack have rolled-out Ozempic-friendly menus. It feels like pure madness.

Meanwhile, through all of the noise of whether these injections are good or bad, the muscle loss, vision problems, stomach paralysis suggest great cause for concern. More protein, more fiber, and less sugar is what health advocates have been saying all along. But hold on a minute. The industry that has long profited from getting and keeping us sick is on the same team as the industry that made a fortune getting us to eat when we weren’t hungry … and now that industry is going to make a fortune managing the fallout of the drug that finally made many stop eating. But people aren’t getting healthier. Nothing about this machine has changed but the packaging.

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Tracy Beanz & Michelle Edwards

Tracy Beanz is an investigative journalist, Editor-in-Chief of UncoverDC, and host of the daily With Beanz podcast. She gained recognition for her in-depth coverage of the COVID-19 crisis, breaking major stories on the virus’s origin, timeline, and the bureaucratic corruption surrounding early treatment and the mRNA vaccine rollout. Tracy is also widely known for reporting on Murthy v. Missouri (Formerly Missouri v. Biden), a landmark free speech case challenging government-imposed censorship of doctors and others who presented alternative viewpoints during the pandemic.