‘GLP-1’ Has Lost All Meaning

If you had come across the abbreviation GLP-1 a few years ago, chances are you’d have had no idea what it stood for. Intro to Greek lyric poetry? Low-level Great Lakes precipitation? A member of the 1990s rap group Get Low Playaz?

These days, the initialism is much more recognizable. The new blockbuster obesity drugs, made famous by Ozempic, are collectively known as GLP-1 agonists, for the hormone they mimic in the body: glucagon-like peptide 1. It’s impossible to hear about the voraciously in-demand drugs without encountering the term. GLP-1 is mentioned 10 seconds into a Good Morning America segment on Ozempic, and frequently turns up in publications as varied as Good Housekeeping and Rolling Stone.

Now, of course, the wellness industry is trying to get in on the GLP-1 craze. Supplements that are labeled with the term are everywhere. A brand called Supergut, available at chains such as Target and GNC, markets a “GLP-1 Booster” powder. Lemme, a company owned by Kourtney Kardashian, sells a “GLP-1 Daily” pill. These GLP-1 supplements are marketed as an alternative to obesity drugs—even though they have little in common with the drugs. To the wellness industry, GLP-1’s actual significance doesn’t seem to matter nearly as much as its association with thinness. Stripped of all meaning, GLP-1 can be used to sell just about anything.

The obesity-drug boom makes GLP-1 seem almost miraculous. Semaglutide (sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) are synthetic versions of GLP-1. They can quiet hunger and food cravings, leading to weight loss. Supplements suggest that they can do the same. Pendulum’s GLP-1 Probiotic gives users “the power to boost this powerful hormone.” Calocurb’s GLP-1 Activator offers “natural appetite management support.” GLP-1 Boost Tea, from Happyself, is “inspired by the benefits of Ozempic & Semaglutide.”

Ozempic isn’t the only way to boost GLP-1—the hormone kicks in after every meal. “Eating food will elevate GLP-1,” Richard Bloomer, a supplement expert at the University of Memphis, told me. When food reaches the small intestine, it triggers the release of GLP-1, leading to a feeling of fullness, and stimulates the release of insulin, which lowers blood sugar. GLP-1 supplements claim—correctly!—that a particular blend of nutrients can coax more GLP-1 out of the body. Metabolism Ignite, from a company called Veracity, includes green-coffee-bean extract, which was associated with a small uptick in GLP-1 in one study.

Here’s the catch: GLP-1 supplements are like Ozempic in the way that peewee football is like the NFL. The drugs reach “manyfold higher levels of GLP-1” than any food, Dariush Mozaffarian, a professor at Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, told me. Consider Lemme’s pills, which contain three plant-derived substances, including a lemon extract. In a 30-person, industry-funded study, lemon extract raised GLP-1 levels by 17 percent after participants took the extract for 12 weeks. In comparison, obesity drugs increase GLP-1 by more than 1,000 percent. The synthetic GLP-1 in obesity drugs lingers in the body for weeks after being injected; meanwhile, GLP-1 produced by the body is degraded within minutes, so hunger quickly returns.

GLP-1 products, for the most part, are just repackaging common supplement ingredients. Some are bacteria-based: Pendulum, whose chief communications officer is the actor Halle Berry, sells a product called GLP-1 Probiotic, not to be confused with pills from a different company, Codeage, called GLP-1 Probiotic+. Other brands that claim to boost GLP-1 are functionally just selling fiber: Supergut’s product, a powder that can be added to drinks or food, contains six grams of probiotic fiber, about the same as a pear.

At best, a GLP-1 supplement might expand on the effects of foods generally considered “good for you,” including unsaturated fats from avocados, nuts, flaxseed, and olive oil; some proteins, such as those from egg whites; and prebiotic fiber from certain legumes, whole grains, and fruits. These have all been shown to raise GLP-1, Mozaffarian told me.

But when one takes these supplements, increasing GLP-1 isn’t really the point. What people actually care about is the secondary effect of having high GLP-1—that is, weight loss. But again, that’s hardly guaranteed. Boosting GLP-1 through a supplement “doesn’t really mean a whole lot, because the half-life is so short—but even if it is elevated, we don’t really know if it’s going to cause any of those beneficial effects,” such as weight loss, Bloomer said. Certainly, consuming fiber helps you feel fuller for longer. But you don’t have to be a nutritionist to know that it won’t slim your waistline like the obesity drugs do.

In that sense, GLP-1 boosters aren’t so different from any old weight-loss supplement already on the market: They don’t reliably hold up to all the breathless marketing. GLP-1 is just the latest addition to the list of health terms that have been absorbed and watered down by the wellness space. Sometimes they’re jammed together on the label of a single product, as if doing so compounds their healthiness. The marketing copy for Pendulum’s GLP-1 Probiotic manages to fit in references to “metabolic health,” the “gut microbiome,” “postbiotics,” and “gut health,” together with the usual jargon related to GLP-1.

If you spend too much time looking at these products, all of these terms start to blur together. Probiotics, electrolytes, protein, adaptogens—does anyone really understand what these words mean, and more important, do they care? Maybe not. But the fact that something sounds healthy makes it good enough to sell products. People may not know what GLP-1 is or does, but it certainly seems like it has something to do with losing weight.

The wellness industry commonly uses sly marketing to sell products of dubious effectiveness, but there’s something especially unnerving about its attempt to move into the obesity-drug space. Demand for Ozempic and its kin is tremendous, but many people can’t access these drugs because of cost and supply issues. For people desperate to get on the drugs, GLP-1 supplements may seem like an easy substitute. They might even be convinced that these supplements are the better option: Supergut, according to its marketing, is “non-pharmaceutical, affordable, convenient, and comes with none of the unpleasant side effects” of the obesity drugs, “offering a sustainable approach to achieve lasting results.” Other brands use phrases such as “hunger quieting” and “curbs cravings,” borrowed directly from the Ozempic playbook. Like the obesity drugs themselves, GLP-1 supplements are meant to be taken continuously; most companies offer monthly subscriptions to their products (a six-month supply of Lemme’s pills, for example, costs $378).

At one point, it seemed as though the new obesity drugs would doom weight-loss supplements for good. The drugs spurred greater and faster weight loss, in a wider range of people, than any other product in history. In response, the supplement industry has rebranded its offerings to mirror the competition, down to the language it uses. GLP-1 supplements don’t even come close to the real thing. But they sure look like it.