They thought Ozempic would help them lose weight. It didn’t work.
Behind the blockbuster success of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is a less-noticed phenomenon: Some people don’t lose much weight on them. There is wide variation in weight loss on these types of drugs, called GLP-1s. Doctors say roughly 10% to 15% of people who try them are “non-responders," typically defined as those who lose less than 5% of their body weight.
These patients, doctors say, don’t experience enough appetite reduction to result in significant weight loss. Researchers are studying why some people drop a lot of weight on them while others lose little. The answers might yield broader clues about weight loss and provide more insight into these medications, which have transformed the way Americans lose weight.
Doctors believe some people might be resistant to the drugs as a result of genetic differences. Other possible reasons could include certain medical conditions and medications, how much weight a person lost before taking the drugs, and differences in how people metabolize them. Wide range of weight loss In a trial for the drug semaglutide—marketed as Wegovy and Ozempic—about 14% of patients lost less than 5% of their body weight.
About a third lost less than 10%. In a trial for tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, 9% of people lost less than 5% of their body weight and 16% lost less than 10%. Even among those who lost weight, amounts ranged from around 5% to upward of 20%.
“There’s going to be extreme variability in how people respond," says Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, an obesity-medicine physician at UC San Diego Health. Anthony Esposito, a 68-year-old in Austin, Texas, whose body-mass index puts him in the overweight category, wanted to take a GLP-1 drug to lose about 10 pounds.
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