How obesity drugs are linked to food waste

In a survey of people currently taking GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, 25% of respondents agreed that they had wasted more food since taking the medications, compared to 61% who disagreed. People who were sick from drugs were more likely to report increased food waste. Taking medications for a longer period of time and eating more vegetables were associated with less food waste.

Scientists at The Ohio State University see this consumer behavior study as the first attempt to look at the impact of these increasingly popular anti-obesity drugs on food production and waste on a national and global level.

“This was a pilot study designed to examine the effects of these medications and to get closer to understanding which broad food categories are more or less preferred once the medications are started,” said senior author Brian Rowe, a professor in the Department of Agriculture. Environmental and Development Economics at The Ohio State University.

“The fact that food waste appears to decrease as patients acclimate to the medication suggests that there may be a fairly simple remedy – counseling patients new to these medications about the possibility of avoiding food as changes occur.” their diets, which could reduce food waste and reduce their mortality rates.” spending.”

The study was recently published in the journal Nutrients.

The National Academies estimates that about a third of food in the United States is wasted, and about half of that comes from consumers, who throw away an average of 1 pound of food per person per day.

As of this spring, 6% of U.S. adults reported taking GLP-1 agonists, which treat type 2 diabetes and obesity by targeting the hormone in the small intestine to lower blood sugar, slow gastric emptying and signal when the stomach is full. brain. In the study, almost 70% of respondents were taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Ribelsus, Vegovi) and almost a quarter were taking terzepatide (Munjaro).

Researchers surveyed 505 U.S. adults currently taking medications for obesity using an online questionnaire focused on sociodemographic factors, personal characteristics, and questions regarding changes in eating habits, weight, and food waste since starting the medications. Analysis of the data revealed various influences on the extent to which participants agreed with one key statement: “Since I started taking the medicine, I find that I waste more of the food I buy.”

Participants represented a range of ages, household incomes, and education levels, and most had insurance. On average, the group lost 20% of their body weight if they took the medication for at least one year.

A quarter of participants who took the medications for a year or longer were less likely to report food spoilage than people who took the medications for 90 days or less—about 30% of respondents.

While nausea was the leading cause of food waste, the findings point to another possible influence: changes in preferences and habits that lead people to throw out out-of-fashion foods. Overall, participants reported adding more produce, protein, fish, and healthy fats to their diets, and consuming less alcohol, pasta and other carbohydrates, fried foods, sweets, and dairy products.

“Meat is neutral in terms of whether you want to eat more or less once you start taking the medication,” Rowe said.

Adding vegetables—the most frequently wasted food group in the United States—to the diet was associated with a lower likelihood of wasting food, another sign of changing habits, which in this case included eating more vegetarian foods.

Rowe is planning another article on the changes in household finances associated with taking anti-obesity drugs—in terms of pharmacy and food costs. Given the steady increase in prescribing of GLP-1 agonists, this could lead to widespread local and global economic and environmental impacts, he said.

“People taking these drugs are likely to spend less on food, but it remains to be seen whether there is any chance of offsetting the cost of the drug through reduced food costs,” he said.

Other research labs have used modeling to show that reducing food consumption at the population level can reduce energy costs, conserve land and water resources, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by keeping discarded food out of landfills. But given how relatively new anti-obesity drugs are, there is not enough data yet to make predictions about the extent of their social impact.

“I think it’s clear that new anti-obesity drugs have the potential to impact global public health, and research shows that changes in food consumption can affect environmental impact metrics,” Rowe said. “When we think about the sustainability of the food system and health care, a lot of interesting questions arise.”

First author Jamil Mansouri, an agricultural economics student at Purdue University, completed this work as a summer internship at Ohio State through the Big Ten Academic Alliance Summer Research Opportunities program.

This research was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Van Buren Foundation of Ohio, which supports Rowe’s professorship in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.