Off-Label Use of Ozempic-Style Drugs Is Surging

A large new study suggests weight-loss drugs have quietly moved from medical tool to what one researcher calls a "big Ozempic experiment." Reviewing records for more than 92 million US adults, researchers found over 1.1 million people on GLP-1 medications with no documented condition—such as obesity or diabetes—that would typically qualify them for a prescription, reports the New York Times. That's up 15-fold from 2021 to 2025, notes Medscape. For their study in the journal Obesity, researchers didn't document why such users were taking the drugs, but the group likely includes people who aren't obese but are looking to shed a modest amount of weight.

Beyond that, researchers are exploring all kinds of new avenues for the drugs, notes the Wall Street Journal, from endometriosis to Crohn's disease, depression, and even general longevity. "You see it all over the place," lead author Babak Orandi of NYU Langone Health tells the Times. "You have people describing publicly their experience with these medications, some good, some bad." One potentially troubling finding from the study is that those taking the drugs off label were more likely to have a history of eating disorders. "We don't know how this will play out," says researcher Nils Kruger of Harvard Medical School. "It's like this big Ozempic experiment."