(NewsNation) — A small Kentucky city has more people taking the popular weight loss drug Ozempic than anywhere else in the country.
Welcome to ‘Ozempictown, USA’
Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been nicknamed “Ozempictown, USA,” with weight loss clinics popping up around the city — attracting women like Jenn O’Brien, Leslie Stark and Tina Carter. The three women spoke to NewsNation, saying they lost 60 pounds, 45 pounds and 70 pounds, respectively.
The popular weight loss solution has taken off in Bowling Green, partly because of how affordable it has become.
Though drugs like Ozempic cost thousands of dollars a month out of pocket, smaller clinics like Select Health now have access to “compounds,” generic forms of the drug created in local pharmacies that cost just a couple hundred dollars a month.
‘Food noise is gone’ on Ozempic, patient says
Bowling Green nurse practitioner Lena Gokey says half her patients are on weight loss drugs and that she herself has lost 50 pounds on the drug.
“Patients started coming in after they had been on it for a while and were telling us about food noise. I had never heard of it. I remember the first patient came in and said the food noise is gone. I was like, ‘I have never heard of food noise. What are you talking about? ‘And they said food noise is gone. I used to think of food all the time. I never realized it until I started taking the medicine,” Gokey said.
She added: “I was busier than ever and could not keep up. I hired another nurse practitioner. There’s three of us and twelve employees.”
The price of weight loss
Kentucky is ranked sixth in the country for obesity, with almost half the population being overweight. While the weight loss compound available here is significantly cheaper than Ozempic, it is still out of reach for most.
“I’m a single mother with one son. Definitely, I could not afford it. I have to go to work,” a Bowling Green resident told NewsNation, saying it surprises her how many people are using the weight loss compound. “Not really because of the eating habits. It just strikes me that no one wants to work out. It is healthier to work out, I would say.”
However, the patients on the drug say working out and eating healthy is part of the equation but that they couldn’t have done it without the drug.
“I feel like a new person. It is a mental game because, in my head, I still feel like I’m that person that size,” O’Brien said.
“When you go to the gym, and you look at a 50-pound weight and realize that is what I just lost, and I was carrying around, and I can’t even pick it up. My back doesn’t hurt as bad when you don’t have that extra fat on you. It makes you feel better,” Carter said.
However, some patients who were on Ozempic and chose to stop taking the drug to save money told NewsNation they gained nearly all the weight back.