NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Bloomberg News’ Madison Muller, who reported on a Kentucky city that has one of the highest concentrations of people with weight loss drug prescriptions in the country.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
They have been called Hollywood’s worst-kept secret. We’re talking about medications like Ozempic or Mounjaro, which are commonly used to treat diabetes. Well, they’re part of the zeitgeist these days. More and more celebrities are opening up about taking them to lose weight.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “TODAY”)
HODA KOTB: By the way, you’ve been working on your body and on your health ’cause you…
TRACY MORGAN: No, that’s Ozempic.
(LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: That’s how this weight got lost.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW”)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I’m doing that wonderful shot that works for…
KELLY CLARKSON: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: …Folks who need some help, and it’s been really good for me.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, “CALL HER DADDY”)
CHELSEA HANDLER: My anti-aging doctor just hands it out to anybody, right? But I didn’t even know I was on it.
CHANG: So when you imagine where these drugs are prescribed most for weight loss across the U.S., maybe you’re thinking Los Angeles or maybe New York. But it turns out the capital of the weight loss drug boom is in Kentucky, specifically the southern part of the state in a small city called Bowling Green. Kentucky has one of the highest obesity rates in the country. And in Bowling Green and the surrounding area, at least 4% of residents have gotten prescriptions for one of these weight loss drugs in just the last year.
Madison Muller is a health reporter for Bloomberg News, and she went to Bowling Green to learn about why weight loss drugs have become so pervasive there. Welcome.
MADISON MULLER: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
CHANG: Oh, we’re so excited to have you. So, for people who have never been to Bowling Green, can you just describe it for us? Like, if you were driving down the main road there, what would you see?
MULLER: You would see a lot of fast food restaurants. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and so when I was driving into Bowling Green, it reminded me a lot of much of, you know, the suburbs of Chicago and kind of, like, Middle America and the Midwest – lots of highways crisscrossing the town, strip malls. There is a really quaint downtown area. There’s a college campus. But it really, to me, looked like a lot of the areas that I grew up going to or at least driving through.
CHANG: Well, let me ask you because the weight loss drug industry has struggled with supply shortages for years, which has been especially harmful for patients with diabetes because they actually need these drugs to stay alive. So how is a city like Bowling Green keeping up with demand for these weight loss drugs?
MULLER: Yeah, that’s a good question. Supply shortages have obviously been a huge issue, like you said, and people are really struggling to find the drugs. I mean, in the case of Pat Stiff (ph), who we talked to in our story, you know, he called me a few weeks ago and had checked every pharmacy in a 300-mile radius, he said, to try to find these drugs and just could not find his Mounjaro prescription in stock anywhere.
One of the ways that the city – and this is actually happening across the U.S., but it’s really obvious in Bowling Green – is there are these medical spas and weight loss clinics that are popping up that offer what are known as compounded drugs. And they’re essentially, like, off-brand versions that are made by compounding pharmacies, which is allowed during supply shortages. And so a lot of these medical spas are actually making a ton of money selling these compounded versions to people because so many people are having difficulty accessing the drug.
CHANG: Well, besides the gentleman that you mentioned, who couldn’t find a branded weight loss drug within, like, 300 miles of him, tell us about someone you’ve met in Bowling Green who takes one of these weight loss drugs and just sort of the journey they’ve been on.
MULLER: Yeah. So we talked to so many people in Bowling Green who have had amazing success, life-changing success with these weight loss drugs. We spoke with a woman, Candy Gray (ph). The reason that she went on a drug in the first place – and she went on Ozempic – was because she had lost several family members in a very short time frame to heart disease. And she told me that she kind of looked in the mirror and was like, something needs to change. I need to, you know, take hold of my health, and her sisters thought the exact same thing. They had all gone through these losses together.
So all of them went on Ozempic, and they lost a lot of weight. Candy dropped 30 pounds in six months, and her lab results, her blood sugar started to normalize. And she was, you know, finding herself playing pickle with her husband, taking her dog for longer walks and really just, you know, enjoying life more. But after that initial six months, her insurance stopped covering the drug. And so she’s had to switch to one of these copycat or compounded versions of the medications because she still had weight to lose and wasn’t willing to really give up yet. Her journey, her health journey was not completed yet. You know, she kind of shouts it from the rooftop. She wants this to be destigmatized. So if anyone asks her what she did to lose so much weight, she’s happy to tell them that she took one of these shots.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, you mentioned med spas. You mentioned the weight loss clinics. How else has the weight loss drug boom in Bowling Green changed or reshaped the local economy there?
MULLER: I mean, I expected to go to Bowling Green and to see restaurants, you know, shuttering their doors and gyms closing because of the weight loss drug boom because that’s what we hear oftentimes, from, you know, industry professionals or analysts. But at least in Bowling Green, that is not what we saw. The restaurants were still bustling. The gyms were actually growing, according to the gym employees that we talked to there.
But what you do see is these more subtle changes, like the GNC at the local mall has switched up their display, and they’re offering supplements and protein powder that are supposed to help with different side effects of the drugs like nausea or muscle loss. And you even see some doctors who have been in Bowling Green for forever, they’re putting out advertisements for weight loss shots outside of their practices. And so it’s just – it’s really interesting how it’s, like, subtly reshaping the economy and some of the culture in Bowling Green.
CHANG: You write, quote, “we are all living in an Ozempic town or will be soon.” Is that a good thing? After spending time in Bowling Green, what do you think?
MULLER: I mean, everyone that we spoke to is a lot happier and a lot healthier, and they feel like better versions of themselves. That’s not to say that these drugs are a cure-all. I mean, we did talk to people who had really bad side effects from them. They’re not the right fit for everyone. There are some issues that the drug manufacturers need to figure out, that insurance companies need to figure out. And, you know, going on and off of a drug is not great for your health, either.
And another problem with that continuity is you know, insurance access – insurance provider covering this, employers covering it. It’s important for there to be equal access to these medications. And in Bowling Green, we did go to a pharmacy that said Ozempic and other weight loss drugs are not a big thing at this specific pharmacy in this specific area of Bowling Green because it did tend to be a bit more low income. So we’re already sort of seeing these health disparities in terms of access emerge in Bowling Green. And that’s an important consideration when you’re thinking about the country as a whole and who needs these drugs and who’s able to access them.
CHANG: Madison Muller is a health reporter for Bloomberg News. Her piece is titled “What Happens When Ozempic Takes Over Your Town.” Thank you very much for your reporting. This was super fascinating.
MULLER: Thank you for having me.
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