Dr. Rachel Bedard

There are lots of medicines that are being invented all the time that are really promising but that are too expensive and are just like not going to be on formulary for my patients that I don't actually know that much about.

I think the way that I personally got really interested in the GLP-1s was I actually think that somebody I know who worked at Vogue

Called me and was like, what's the deal?

Everyone I know wants this medicine.

What's the deal with this medicine?

And I was like, the diabetes drug?

It was sort of not on my radar.

And then I started to be interested in it as the weight loss effects became...

Clear, well-known, and then the drug started to be sought by a patient population that didn't have diabetes but that wanted to use it for weight loss.

And it became sort of this, like, cultural phenomenon.

Like, I think 2022, 2023 is really when that happened.

Like, 2023 is the year, to me, of the Ozempic first-person essay.

Right.

And then 2023 was people being like, all right, I did it.

I tried it.

Or like, or what does it mean for the body positivity movement that this is happening or whatever?

Like that, right?

It was this really interesting thing where this diabetes medicine became this other thing.

And at that point, like really controversial, right?

Right.