Taking anti-obesity drugs has led some U.S. adults to throw away more food than they tossed before starting the medications, a new study has found.
In a survey of people currently on GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, 25% of respondents agreed they had wasted more food since taking the drugs, compared to 61% who disagreed. People who were nauseated by the drugs were more likely to report increased food waste. Being on the 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 study of consumer behavior as an initial effort to consider the effects of these increasingly popular anti-obesity drugs on food production and waste nationally and globally. This was a pilot study to start looking at implications of these medications and get in the ballpark of understanding which broad categories of food are more or less preferred after starting the medication." Brian Roe, senior author, professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, The Ohio State University "The fact that food waste appears to decrease as patients acclimate to the medication suggests there may be a fairly simple remedy – advising patients new to these medications about the possibility of discarding food as their diets change, which could reduce food waste and lower their spending.
" The research was published recently in the journal Nutrients . About one-third of food in the United.
