May 12, 2025 04:44 PM
https://www.livescience.com/health/food-...-learn-why
INTRO: For most of her life, Alyssa Fraser took comfort in cooking. Fraser, a former food reporter from Minnesota, used to relish the process of whipping up her favorite chicken and vegetable recipe or batches of pasta. But after she started taking the popular weight-loss medication Wegovy, her culinary interests seemed to disappear because she became disinterested in food — and certain types of food became particularly off-putting.
Many savory meals lost their appeal, and some proteins began to taste too much like the "barnyard" the animal came from, she says. Even her favorite wine, which usually tasted crisp and citrusy, seemed weirdly "vegetal."
Similar to Fraser, other users of Wegovy (known in its generic form as semaglutide), along with those of Ozempic (a form of semaglutide used to treat type 2 diabetes), Zepbound (known generically as tirzepatide) and other medications broadly called glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, have described peculiar changes in the way food tastes.
GLP-1 drugs — initially designed to help treat type 2 diabetes by triggering insulin release — can cause weight loss by making people feel full faster. But some people report that in addition to an increase in satiety, they experience changes in their preferences for specific foods — they find meats suddenly repulsive, fried foods too heavy and savory snacks unappealing.
On online forums and in scientific surveys, some people have expressed a general loss of interest in food overall — a few have even said that the drugs have redefined food as a necessity rather than a joy for them. These accounts may even be captured in grocery store data that suggest people on GLP-1 medications spend less on food, especially calorie-dense and processed items.
Some preliminary evidence suggests changes in food preferences might play a role in weight loss, but it's not clear how much such changes contribute to that result compared with the medications' effect on satiety. And research on the phenomenon has mostly involved animal models or small studies of humans.
Experts, however, are starting to gain some clues as to how common these apparent shifts in food preference and taste really are among users and what might be behind them... (MORE - details)
INTRO: For most of her life, Alyssa Fraser took comfort in cooking. Fraser, a former food reporter from Minnesota, used to relish the process of whipping up her favorite chicken and vegetable recipe or batches of pasta. But after she started taking the popular weight-loss medication Wegovy, her culinary interests seemed to disappear because she became disinterested in food — and certain types of food became particularly off-putting.
Many savory meals lost their appeal, and some proteins began to taste too much like the "barnyard" the animal came from, she says. Even her favorite wine, which usually tasted crisp and citrusy, seemed weirdly "vegetal."
Similar to Fraser, other users of Wegovy (known in its generic form as semaglutide), along with those of Ozempic (a form of semaglutide used to treat type 2 diabetes), Zepbound (known generically as tirzepatide) and other medications broadly called glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, have described peculiar changes in the way food tastes.
GLP-1 drugs — initially designed to help treat type 2 diabetes by triggering insulin release — can cause weight loss by making people feel full faster. But some people report that in addition to an increase in satiety, they experience changes in their preferences for specific foods — they find meats suddenly repulsive, fried foods too heavy and savory snacks unappealing.
On online forums and in scientific surveys, some people have expressed a general loss of interest in food overall — a few have even said that the drugs have redefined food as a necessity rather than a joy for them. These accounts may even be captured in grocery store data that suggest people on GLP-1 medications spend less on food, especially calorie-dense and processed items.
Some preliminary evidence suggests changes in food preferences might play a role in weight loss, but it's not clear how much such changes contribute to that result compared with the medications' effect on satiety. And research on the phenomenon has mostly involved animal models or small studies of humans.
Experts, however, are starting to gain some clues as to how common these apparent shifts in food preference and taste really are among users and what might be behind them... (MORE - details)
