Packing containers of the diabetes drug Ozempic relaxation on a pharmacy counter in Los Angeles.
Mario Tama/Getty Photos
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Mario Tama/Getty Photos
Packing containers of the diabetes drug Ozempic relaxation on a pharmacy counter in Los Angeles.
Mario Tama/Getty Photos
They have been referred to as “Hollywood’s worst-kept secret.”
Weight reduction drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, that are generally used to deal with diabetes, are a part of the zeitgeist today, as increasingly more celebrities are opening up about taking them to drop pounds.
So when the place they’re hottest, you may think a spot like Los Angeles or New York.
The precise capital of weight-loss medicine within the U.S. would possibly shock you. Why would the small metropolis of Bowling Inexperienced, Ky. have the very best price of prescriptions for these medicine?
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A excessive weight problems price and choices to deal with it.
Kentucky has one of many highest weight problems charges within the nation.
In Bowling Inexperienced, and the encompassing space, at the least 4 p.c of residents have gotten prescriptions for one in every of these weight-loss medicine within the final yr.
Madison Muller is a well being reporter for Bloomberg Information. She went to Bowling Inexperienced to be taught extra about why weight-loss medicine have change into so pervasive.
“Diabetes charges are actually excessive,” says Muller.
“So it is truly a great factor. It looks like at the least possibly individuals who truly actually need these medicine are getting them if the charges are so excessive on this space.”
Muller explains that one employer, Med Heart Well being, a well being system firm, has been protecting the medicine for workers.
“Having these these various factors, and in addition the truth that Bowling Inexperienced is a center class neighborhood, the place folks would possibly be capable to afford these $1,000 a month or extra medicine out of pocket if vital, created the proper situations for weight reduction medicine to take off in that space.”
The overall affect.
Muller says that it is too quickly to know what the general common affect these medicine have had on this neighborhood is.
Sufferers in Bowling Inexperienced and throughout the U.S. have additionally been compelled to take care of provide chain points and drug shortages as they’ve change into extra in style.
However anecdotally, she says that what she has heard has been constructive.
“From speaking to sufferers and from speaking to docs, we all know that these sufferers, have seen measurable declines of their blood sugar ranges or their knee ache. Head ache has gotten higher. And the docs that we spoke to in Bowling Inexperienced stated, indisputably, their sufferers well being is bettering on account of these medicine.”
One probably surprising affect has additionally been a decline in bariatric surgical procedure.
“One of many folks we spoke to in Bowling Inexperienced, Brittney Felton, works at a rehab clinic that treats and helps folks after they’ve had surgical procedure. And she or he stated that some of the frequent causes that sufferers used to come back to this rehab clinic was after bariatric surgical procedure to assist in the restoration course of. And she or he stated that that is not occurring anymore. She’s not seeing sufferers come into the rehab middle anymore on account of bariatric surgical procedure.”
This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our govt producer is Sami Yenigun.