Year in Review Health & Medicine

Why weight-loss drugs became more popular than ever this year

Demand for powerful new medications for obesity and diabetes probably won’t let up

A photograph of a box of Ozempic on a pharmacy counter

Ozempic and Wegovy ended up on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's drug shortages list in 2023.

Mario Tama/Getty Images News

By Meghan Rosen

This year, celebrity gossip, a national shortage and eyebrow-raising clinical trials made household names of weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

The buzzy drugs belong to a class of powerful medications that can manage blood sugar levels and drastically reduce body weight — a hot property that kicked them into the mainstream.