New obesity drugs are seemingly everywhere but Black folks feel left out

Jonathan Gustave was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last August after decades of struggling with his weight. To help lower his blood sugar levels, his doctor prescribed Ozempic, the diabetes drug that has become wildly popular for its weight loss effects.

The drug was in such demand that Gustave, a 38-year-old Orlando resident, had to wait two months for the pharmacy to fill his prescription. A month and a half later, he ran out, and another two months passed before the pharmacy would give him a refill, and only for six months. 

GLP-1 drugs, a class that includes Ozempic, are transforming the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Studies have been finding they have benefits for heart health and other conditions, too.

But many Black Americans, including patients like Gustave and medical experts, worry that their community is being left behind. They say, too, that the public’s obsession with the drugs serves as a reminder of how Black bodies are policed and judged by society. 

 “I do feel like Black people face more barriers because it all depends on what type of health insurance you have,” Gustave said. “I know a lot of people who forgo health insurance to have more money on hand to pay bills. If you don’t have insurance or good insurance, it’s going to be more challenging to access it.”

Black Americans have long had higher than average rates of chronic disease, for reasons that include disparities in income and education, less access to health insurance, housing, healthy food, and the “weathering” of racism-related stress. According to federal health data, 12% of non-Hispanic Black adults had diagnosed diabetes in 2021, a rate surpassed only by American Indians and Native Alaskans. 

Non-Hispanic Black adults have the highest rates of obesity, based on BMI, at nearly 50%. Recent studies,  though, found that Black people with diabetes are less likely to be prescribed GLP-1 drugs.

Calvin Smith, assistant professor and clerkship director for internal medicine at Meharry Medical Group, said he’s seen a lot of inequities in how Black and Hispanic patients are treated when trying to access the GLP-1s despite their greater burden of obesity and diabetes. “In an ideal situation, they should be receiving these medications at a rate that is more commensurate with the incidence of it,” he said. 

Mopelola Adeyemo, an endocrinologist and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Nutrition at UCLA, said that more and more of her patients have been asking for the new weight loss drugs, many of them concerned about lockdown weight gain during Covid. But oftentimes, she said, they are unaware that there are side effects and that the expensive drugs need to be taken indefinitely to retain any weight loss. 

“I think providers and researchers need to keep an eye on if we are going to see a disproportionate burden of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease later on because of a disparity in prescribing these medications,” she says. 

Anissa Durham is a health data reporter for Word In Black, reporting on health in the Black community.

Editor’s Note: This article has been edited for length.