For most of her life, Alyssa Fraser took comfort in cooking. Fraser, a former food reporter from Minnesota, used to relish the process of whipping up her favorite chicken and vegetable recipe or batches of pasta. But after she started taking the popular weight-loss medication Wegovy, her culinary interests seemed to disappear because she became disinterested in food — and certain types of food became particularly off-putting. Many savory meals lost their appeal, and some proteins began to taste too much like the “barnyard” the animal came from, she says. Even her favorite wine, which usually tasted crisp and citrusy, seemed weirdly “vegetal.”
Similar to Fraser, other users of Wegovy (known in its generic form as semaglutide), along with those of Ozempic (a form of semaglutide used to treat type 2 diabetes), Zepbound (known generically as tirzepatide) and other medications broadly called glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, have described peculiar changes in the way food tastes. GLP-1 drugs — initially designed to help treat type 2 diabetes by triggering insulin release — can cause weight loss by making people feel full faster. But some people report that in addition to an increase in satiety, they experience changes in their preferences for specific foods — they find meats suddenly repulsive, fried foods too heavy and savory snacks unappealing. On online forums and in scientific surveys, some people have expressed a general loss of interest in food overall — a few have even said that the drugs have redefined food as a necessity rather than a joy for them. These accounts may even be captured in grocery store data that suggest people on GLP-1 medications spend less on food, especially calorie-dense and processed items.
Some preliminary evidence suggests changes in food preferences might play a role in weight loss, but it’s not clear how much such changes contribute to that result compared with the medications’ effect on satiety. And research on the phenomenon has mostly involved animal models or small studies of humans. Experts, however, are starting to gain some clues as to how common these apparent shifts in food preference and taste really are among users and what might be behind them.
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A recent study published in Food Quality and Preference found that people on GLP-1 medications reported reaching for processed foods, as well as refined grains and beef, less often. They also said they were drinking less soda and other sweetened drinks and increasing their intake of fruit, leafy greens and water. Further, they reported consuming about 700 fewer calories per day. These findings rely on self-reported data, however, which can sometimes be unreliable, says Brandon McFadden, a professor in food policy economics at the University of Arkansas and co-author of the study.
Additionally, although GLP-1 users reported eating fewer calorie-dense foods, most people didn’t necessarily lose all desire for them. This is because liking a food is different from wanting it, says John Blundell, an emeritus professor in psychobiology at the University of Leeds in England, who was not involved in the recent paper. A person might not find a food particularly tasty (in other words, they might not enjoy the specific sensory experience of consuming it) but still have a strong behavioral drive to eat it. GLP-1 medications seem to involve the reverse: people still like certain foods but have less of an immediate urge to eat them.
These drugs mimic a hormone called GLP-1, which the gut naturally secretes in response to food and which binds to the hormone’s receptors around the body — including in brain areas involved in appetite regulation and in reward pathways that reduce the pleasure response to food. Researchers have found that this is the primary way the drugs cause people to lose weight, and some think it might be involved in altered food preferences.
Desires for specific foods can change depending on whether a person is generally hungry or full. For example, when you’re hungry, you’re more likely to want meaty, high-protein or sometimes high-fat foods rather than sweet ones, Blundell explains. “When you become full, the reverse happens,” he says: a big piece of meat or a high-fat food becomes aversive — but you might feel like you have a so-called second stomach for dessert. One plausible explanation for this, Blundell says, could be that GLP-1 drugs’ satiating effect simply makes such end-of-meal preferences kick in. It’s also possible that some aspects of the drugs’ compounds could directly act on specific food preferences through some other biological mechanism. “But it hasn’t been demonstrated,” says Blundell, who is working with a food company to develop foods that are more palatable for people on GLP-1 medications.
Blundell led a small study, published in 2017, that found people taking semaglutide not only reduced their overall daily food intake but also preferred and consumed fewer high-fat and savory foods. Previous research that he published in 2007 showed that being full also diminishes similar cravings.
But satiety alone may not fully explain the shift in eating preferences. Emerging evidence and anecdotal user accounts suggest changes to the body’s taste mechanisms could also play a role. Some users describe flavors becoming stronger or unpleasant while on the medications, though individual experiences seem to vary: Siobhan, a Los Angeles–based writer, who has been taking Wegovy since 2021 and withheld her last name for privacy, says she still finds fatty foods such as French fries appealing — but her favorite food, panang curry, has become too bitter. “I’ve been eating that curry for 20 years,” Siobhan says. “It just didn’t taste right anymore.” Two-year Wegovy user Sarah Streby says she can no longer stomach eggs or broccoli, and her love for spicy food has waned — causing her to change how she cooks for her family. “Now everyone’s complaining the food is too mild because [I] can’t handle the spice,” she says.
At press time, Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Wegovy and Ozempic, had not responded to a request for comment from Scientific American. A spokesperson for Eli Lilly, which makes the weight-loss drug Zepbound, told Scientific American in an e-mail, “We do not have data to share concerning changes in food taste or preference among individuals taking GLP-1 medications.” The spokesperson added that known side effects are listed on the medication’s labels and that anyone experiencing those side effects should contact their health care provider.
Scientists have found GLP-1 receptors in human taste buds, which hints at a possible explanation for alterations in taste, but findings remain mixed. Some past research has found that people with a higher body weight tend to perceive flavors less intensely, and some evidence suggests this may prompt people to eat more in an attempt to get a bigger sensory reward. In the case of sweet foods, people with a higher body weight also may be less able to perceive a high sugar content, though findings on this have been contradictory. A small study presented at the Endocrine Society’s 2024 annual conference found that women taking semaglutide were more sensitive to taste compared with those on a placebo. Brain scans showed increased activity in a region involved in processing sensory rewards when participants tasted something sweet, suggesting that semaglutide may heighten taste perception and make certain foods less appealing.
But another study published in March in Physiology & Behavior seems to suggest the opposite. It found that 46 people taking these medications experienced a reduced sensitivity to all five basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and brothy (or umami) — compared with people in a control group. Past studies in mice linked the activation of GLP-1 receptors to alterations in sweet taste perception, but researchers were surprised to see that the effect in humans was broader than anticipated, says Richard Doty, director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of the March paper. Previous research that linked GLP-1 medications to alterations in taste has mostly looked at diabetic populations, Doty says, adding that “the focus has always been on sugar, and so people haven’t looked at the other sensory systems any great detail.” He suspects the GLP-1 receptors found in taste buds are behind the March findings, “but we really don’t know; there needs to be more research on that.”
For some, the drugs’ effects on satiety and taste are welcome changes that make it easier to eat less. But for others, it’s more complicated. “Not only am I not cooking or really taking an interest in food — if I want it, it’s sweets,” Fraser says. “And even then, if it’s super sweet, I’ll take a bite or two, and I’m like, I gotta put it down.” She says savory foods have lost their appeal entirely.
Fraser is still considering the trade-offs for the improvements she’s seen in her health as she navigates this shift and deals with the loss of a loved hobby. But “the mental load of weight loss has been greatly reduced,” she says, “and that is worth it to me.”
This article was first published at Scientific American. © ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved. Follow on TikTok and Instagram, X and Facebook.
