Ozempic Isn't Just Killing Appetite — It's Disrupting the Business Model (ENG)

Drugs like Ozempic were developed to treat type 2 diabetes and, more recently, obesity. But increasingly, they appear to be doing something more profound: altering not just how people eat, but how they behave.

While originally praised for metabolic benefits, a growing number of clinical observations and patient reports suggest broader behavioural effects. Users are describing losing interest not only in food, but also in alcohol, nicotine, online shopping, scrolling screens, and other high-reward activities. Research indicates that the medicine reduce activity in the brain's mesolimbic dopamine system — the same circuit that drives addiction, impulsivity, and compulsive behaviour.

Rewiring reward and wanting less

In animal studies, these drugs reduce the need of alcohol, cocaine, and other substances. Early human trials suggest similar effects, and researchers are now exploring their use in treating substance use disorders. The key idea: the drugs dampen the urge to seek rewards ("wanting") while leaving the enjoyment ("liking") untouched.

This sets them apart from many psychiatric medications, where antidepressants often stabilize mood or increase serotonin levels. These so called ”GLP-1” drugs act upstream, modulating the motivational circuits themselves. That opens up not only new treatment possibilities, but also - maybe the most interesting part - new ethical territory.

The implications stretch far beyond health. Our whole economies run on desire — trigger it, satisfy it, repeat. If it is possible for desire to be medically reduced, what happens with the business models built on constant stimulation?

Already, users describe becoming indifferent to sugar, alcohol, even luxury goods. Some report less social anxiety, reduced compulsive behaviours, and more intentional decision-making. If demand drops for fast fashion, processed food, and short-term dopamine hits, the ecological consequences might be significant.

Given this, these GLP-1 drugs, designed to treat measurable metabolic dysfunctions, may also unintentionally act as dampeners of overconsumption.

A new psychiatric paradigm?

Could this make existing treatments for depression, binge eating, impulse disorders, or even addiction less relevant? What if one class of drugs can suppress the underlying drive?

It's both promising and unsettling. We may be witnessing the beginning of a shift from mood stabilisation to motivation modulation. But this also means intervening at the core of how people engage with the world.

That core is not just chemical. It’s personal, cultural, even existential. Who are we without our cravings, our impulses, our obsessions? When a person loses interest in drinking or scrolling, are they becoming more authentic — or simply less driven?

Much of modern desire is engineered. Social platforms, ultra-processed foods, and advertising ecosystems exploit dopamine pathways by design. From this angle, these drugs might function less as suppressors and more as correctives. They quiet what capitalism has overstimulated.

Yet deciding which desires are "natural" or "artificial" is fraught. The line between treatment and enhancement blurs when medication changes the fundamental structure of motivation.

It also raises questions about creativity. Many artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators describe their drive as inseparable from a kind of functional obsessiveness — the ability to fixate, to endure discomfort, to chase an idea beyond reason. What happens if that obsessive edge is dulled? If the same mechanism that frees people from harmful cravings also tempers the intensity that fuels art, insight, and innovation? The risk isn’t just emotional flatness — but cultural flattening.

The business model problem

Here's where it gets really interesting: what happens to an economy built on engineered desire when desire itself becomes optional? Consider the industries most dependent on impulse and craving. Fast fashion thrives on the dopamine hit of new purchases. Social media platforms monetize our compulsion to scroll. The processed food industry has spent decades engineering products to trigger "bliss points" that keep us coming back. If the use of these drugs become widespread, these business models face an existential threat. Not from regulation or moral awakening, but from consumers who simply stop wanting what they're selling.

So what if the consumer starts using this as a help for changing behavioral problems related to climate change? That would rapidly change the entire logic of consumer capitalism. It would rewire everything.

The great decoupling

For decades, we've tried to solve overconsumption through willpower, education, and environmental awareness. We've asked people to voluntarily resist systems engineered to be irresistible. It hasn't worked particularly well.

GLP-1 drugs offer something different: biological resistance to biological manipulation. They might represent the beginning of a great decoupling — breaking the link between engineered stimulation and compulsive response.

This could accelerate trends already emerging in the economy. The rise of "conscious consumption," the growth of repair and reuse markets, the preference for experiences over stuff. What took decades of cultural change might happen in years through pharmaceutical intervention.

The environmental implications could be staggering. If people buy less, travel less, consume less — emissions could drop not through policy or technology, but through reduced demand. The new economy everyone talks about might emerge not from design, but from diminished appetite for linear consumption.

Capitalism's adaptation problem

Of course, capitalism adapts. It always has. The question is: can it adapt to customers who fundamentally want less? Some possibilities emerge. Markets might have to shift toward quality over quantity, durability over disposability. The experience economy could grow as material desires fade. Healthcare and wellness sectors might boom as people redirect spending from impulse purchases to long-term wellbeing.

But there's a deeper challenge. Our entire financial system depends on growth, which depends on increasing consumption, which depends on escalating desire. If these drugs break that chain, we're not just looking at disrupted business models — we're looking at a potential restructuring of economic assumptions.

This might accelerate the need for post-growth economics that environmental economists have long advocated. Not by choice, but by biochemical necessity.

The ultimate irony

Here's the twist: the pharmaceutical industry that created these drugs might be undermining the very consumption patterns that fund it. GLP-1 medications are expensive, profitable products. But if they succeed too well, they could reduce demand for countless other products and services.

It's the ultimate example of capitalism potentially disrupting itself. The same profit motive that engineered our desires might now be engineering their suppression.

As we stand at this crossroads, we're not just deciding about a class of medications. We're potentially choosing between two fundamentally different economic futures: one driven by stimulated desire, another defined by biochemical moderation.

If we medically disarm desire, we’re not just treating individuals — we’re rewriting the architecture of capitalism itself.

⚠️ Caution

GLP-1 receptor agonists such as Ozempic may reduce appetite and weight, but can also affect broader reward mechanisms in the brain.

Known side effects include: Nausea, constipation, fatigue. Potential muscle loss due to rapid weight reduction. Changes in mood and emotional tone, including apathy or depressive symptoms. Decreased interest in previously pleasurable stimuli (food, alcohol, screens, shopping).

Rare but serious risks include: Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis). Gallbladder complications. Possible long-term effects on motivation and emotional regulation (under study).

We do not recommended this as a cultural solution. May unintentionally suppress cravings essential to joy, spontaneity, or connection. For existential discomfort, consider slower methods: relationships, movement, boundaries and poetry.

Continued research required. Values realignment not included.