Ozempic users report meat tasting like ‘barnyard’ as they lose desire for certain processed foods
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Ozempic, Science
Ellie Kemp
Featured Image Credit: Frantic00/Getty Images
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Ozempic, Science
People taking an Ozempic-like drugs have reported experiencing a change in their tastes and a lower desire to eat food they once loved.
Ozempic is a GLP-1 agonist medication made from semaglutide, injected once weekly to help manage type 2 diabetes.
Wegovy is a similar drug, FDA approved for weight loss - while Ozempic is strictly only prescribed to manage diabetes.
Alyssa Fraser, a former food journalist who took Wegovy, previously told Scientific American how for her, shedding the pounds came with an unexpected side effect: a shift in how some foods taste.
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After starting Wegovy, Fraser found herself losing interest in meals she once relished, describing certain meats as tasting like the 'barnyard' they came from.
Fraser is not alone. Siobhan, a writer in Los Angeles, said that while she still craved French fries, her longtime favorite, panang curry, now tasted bitter.
Another user, Sarah Streby, reported an aversion to foods like eggs and spicy dishes, which had forced her to tone down her family’s meals.
Some research backs up these personal accounts, including a study published in Food Quality and Preference.
It found that people on GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic reported eating fewer processed foods, red meat and sugary drinks.
Instead, they consumed more fruits, greens, and water - on average, 700 fewer calories per day.
These medications mimic GLP-1, a hormone the gut releases in response to food.
It acts on brain regions tied to appetite and reward, dampening the pleasure derived from eating. While scientists know this is key to the drug’s weight-loss effect, it may also explain why some users find trusty favorites suddenly unpalatable.
Still, experts caution that more research is needed to fully understand these sensory changes.
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson told UNILAD: "Patient safety is of the utmost importance to Novo Nordisk. We continuously collect safety data on our marketed GLP-1 RA medicines and work closely with the authorities to ensure patient safety.
"As part of this work we continue to monitor reports of adverse drug reactions through routine pharmacovigilance. The most common adverse events among people treated with Ozempic (semaglutide injection) for its indicated use in type 2 diabetes, are gastrointestinal events including nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting. "Most events were transient, and mild or moderate in severity and resolved without permanent treatment discontinuation."
They continued: "GLP-1 RAs are a well-established class of medicines, which have demonstrated safety in clinical trials. In the STEP trials, semaglutide 2.4mg was generally well-tolerated both in adults with obesity, or overweight with comorbidities, and without type 2 diabetes (STEP 1, 3 and 4), and in adults with type 2 diabetes and overweight or obesity (STEP 2).
"We recommend that any patient experiencing side effects while taking GLP-1 receptor agonists including Wegovy, Ozempic (semaglutide injection) report them to their healthcare provider and via the MHRA Yellow Card scheme: https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/."