Topline<\/p>\n
About one in nine Americans take a GLP-1 medication for weight loss, results from a new Gallup poll released on Tuesday found\u2014a staggering rise over the past two years as the obesity rate in the U.S. continues to decline from a record high in 2022.<\/p>\n
A new Gallup poll found about 11% of Americans were taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss.<\/p>\n
UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n
A record high 11% of Americans are taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss, according to Gallup<\/a>, up 3% from 2024.<\/p>\n At the same time, Gallup points out the obesity rate among Americans fell to 36.4% in 2026, down from a record high of 39.9% in 2022, the year after GLP-1 medication Wegovy was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat weight loss.<\/p>\n The diabetes rate has also remained flat for the past few years, according to Gallup\u2019s data.<\/p>\n 68% of GLP-1 users reported taking a name brand drug developed by pharmaceutical giants like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, including Ozempic, Mounjaro or Zepbound, while 19% said they took custom-mixed drugs unapproved by the FDA.<\/p>\n Public awareness of GLP-1 medications has also surged in recent years, with about 91% of respondents in 2026 reporting they knew the drugs could treat weight loss\u2014up from 80% in 2024.<\/p>\n Cost, Insurance Driving Move to Compounded Drugs<\/p>\n Compounded GLP-1 medications are not approved by the FDA, and the agency issued a warning in June calling them potentially \u201crisky for patients.\u201d This hasn\u2019t stopped patients from switching to the unapproved drugs, and 35% of patients who took compounded GLP-1s left from a name brand drug, according to Gallup. Most people who switched said price impacted the decision\u201466% cited the cost of name brand drugs as the primary reason for switching, while 34% cited problems with insurance coverage.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n Novo Nordisk was the first major pharmaceutical company to bring a GLP-1 to market with Wegovy in 2021. However, competition from Eli Lilly has caused sales to decline this year, with the company initially expecting<\/a> up to a 13% fall in revenue for the first time since it introduced the weight loss drugs. Lilly has continued to grow rapidly and hit a market cap of over $1 trillion for the first time in 2025. The company reported<\/a> a surging 56% revenue growth for the first quarter of 2026, and raised its revenue guidance by $2 billion for the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline About one in nine Americans take a GLP-1 medication for weight loss, results from a new Gallup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,1950,19,17,1690,5360],"class_list":["post-574643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-glp-1","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-polls","tag-weight-loss-drugs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116883051466615296","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}