People on Drugs Like Ozempic Say Their ‘Food Noise’ Has Disappeared

Until she started taking the weight loss drug Wegovy, Staci Klemmer’s days revolved around food. When she woke up, she plotted out what she would eat; as soon as she had lunch, she thought about dinner. After leaving work as a high school teacher in Bucks County, Pa., she would often drive to Taco Bell or McDonald’s to quell what she called a “24/7 chatter” in the back of her mind. Even when she was full, she wanted to eat.

Almost immediately after Ms. Klemmer’s first dose of medication in February, she was hit with side effects: acid reflux, constipation, queasiness, fatigue. But, she said, it was like a switch flipped in her brain — the “food noise” went silent.

“I don’t think about tacos all the time anymore,” Ms. Klemmer, 57, said. “I don’t have cravings anymore. At all. It’s the weirdest thing.”

Dr. Andrew Kraftson, a clinical associate professor at Michigan Medicine, said that over his 13 years as an obesity medicine specialist, people he treated would often say they couldn’t stop thinking about food. So when he started prescribing Wegovy and Ozempic, a diabetes medication that contains the same compound, and patients began to use the term food noise, saying it had disappeared, he knew exactly what they meant.

As interest has intensified around Ozempic and other injectable diabetes medications like Mounjaro, which works in similar ways, that term has gained traction. Videos related to the subject “food noise explained” have been viewed 1.8 billion times on TikTok. And some of the people who have managed to get their hands on these medications — despite persistent shortages and list prices that can near or surpass a thousand dollars — have shared stories on social media about their experiences.

When food noise fades

Wendy Gantt, 56, said she first heard the term food noise on TikTok, where she had also learned about Mounjaro. She found a telehealth platform and received a prescription within a few hours. She can remember the first day she started taking it last summer. “It was like a sense of freedom from that loop of, ‘What am I going to eat? I’m never full; there’s not enough. What can I snack on?’” she said. “It’s like someone took an eraser to it.”