At 17, Israel McKenzie was so burdened by obesity that he stopped going to high school in person and was embarrassed to talk to people at his job at a restaurant.
“I was in a really dark place,” says McKenzie, whose weight had ballooned to 335 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame, despite repeated efforts at diet and exercise. “I had lost hope.”
But last year, the weight-loss drug Wegovy helped him lose 110 pounds in nine months, making the rural Tennessee teen part of a wave of teens and young adults using diabetes and diabetes medications. obesity known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, according to new research.
Even as millions of seniors clamor for drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, monthly use of the drugs has soared among people ages 12 to 25. This is what emerges from the new analysis of the dispensing records of nearly 94% of American retail pharmacies from 2020 to 2023.
The report, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA, used the IQVIA prescription database to compile a first look at national use of GLP-1 drugs among this age group. Nearly 31,000 children ages 12 to 17 and more than 162,000 people ages 18 to 25 used these medications in 2023 alone, said Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatrician and diabetes expert at the University of Texas. Michigan who led the research.
“What that suggests is that this is one of the tools in the toolbox and there are more providers prescribing this medication to the population,” she said.
The report shows that the number of young people aged 12 to 25 using a GLP-1 drug – including older drugs first approved to treat diabetes in 2005 and for weight loss in 2014 – increased from around 8,700 per month in 2020 to more than 8,700 per month in 2020. 60,000 per month in 2023, an increase of almost 600%. This increase occurred even as prescriptions for other medications among these patients declined by about 3%.
Those who received the drugs represented only a fraction of young people struggling with obesity, Lee noted. About 20% of U.S. children and adolescents and about 42% of adults have this chronic condition, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In early 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that obese children and adolescents be evaluated early and treated aggressively, including surgery and medications if warranted.
McKenzie, the Tennessee teen, said he started gaining weight five years ago, during puberty.
“I started turning to food for all my problems,” he said.
The extra weight worsened his asthma and put him at risk of developing diabetes, his doctor said. He tried following medical advice by cutting out sugary sodas and snacks and exercising more, but his efforts failed to make a difference.
“My old doctor told me there was nothing he could do,” he said. “He told me it was my fault.”
In early 2023, McKenzie contacted Dr. Joani Jack, a pediatric obesity specialist at Erlanger Children’s Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who regularly prescribes GLP-1 medications to children.
“I told him I had seen 10 other people like you today and we had many tools and treatment options,” Jack said. These typically include intensive behavioral and nutritional interventions combined with medications, if necessary.
In McKenzie’s case, Jack prescribed the weight loss drug Wegovy, which was approved in late 2022 for use in American children over 12 years old. More than 6,000 children in this age group received Wegovy in 2023, according to the new data. More than 7,600 people have received Ozempic, which is approved to treat diabetes in adults but can be used off-label in adolescents. Others received older GLP-1 drugs such as Saxenda and Trulicity.
McKenzie said he hasn’t experienced any notable side effects from the drug, but Lee noted that some young people report nausea, vomiting or constipation, including symptoms so severe that they stop taking the drug. .
It’s important to understand the growing use of these drugs among young people, Lee said. The drugs are intended for continuous use, so “we really need to think about the long-term safety and effectiveness of these drugs for this population,” she said.
Additionally, medications are expensive and often difficult to obtain, either because of supply issues or because they are not covered by insurance.
Notably, government-run Medicaid plans funded nearly half of the GLP-1 medications prescribed to 12- to 17-year-olds and about a quarter of those used by those ages 18 to 25, the study found. Commercial insurance covered care for nearly 44 percent of younger children and about two-thirds of older ones.
Today, McKenzie says his asthma is better and he looks forward to interacting with his colleagues and friends.
“I have a lot more confidence in myself now, a lot more than before,” he said. “It changed everything.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Education Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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