“Ozempic Santa,” wrote Elon Musk on X last Christmas, posting a photo of himself, looking svelte, dressed in a red-and-white costume by a twinkling tree. “Technically, Mounjaro, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it,” the wannabe trillionaire added.
Ta-da moments such as this have become more common as people shed pounds with GLP-1 weight-loss jabs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, which suppress appetite. In the UK, around 1.4mn people bought them from private pharmacies in the year to April, according to Iqvia, the clinical research provider, though recent reports put the figure higher. About 12 per cent of Americans have used them, says research group Rand.
Perhaps you are determined to eat less in the new year, feeling a mince-pie-induced tightness of your waistband? Many are fiddling their body mass index on online pharmacy sites to qualify for medicines, or microdosing to shift a few pounds. This behaviour is prompting fears of harmful side effects, shortages and the creation of a two-tier society of jab-haves and have-nots, exacerbated by recent price rises. A Vogue article underscored the Fomo with the headline: “Is Everybody Secretly Microdosing Ozempic Without You?”