As Zepbound – and other GLP1 medicines – take the world by storm, the wine industry has been bracing itself to see what effects they have on wine consumption.
These drugs are considered to be a breakthrough category which helps discourage "food noise", and helps consumers disengage from habitual overconsumption. The $300-billion question is if they will also be able to reduce drinks noise and lessen wine consumption among those who take them.
This group of medicines mimics the GLP1 hormone in the small intestine. They encourage a slower emptying of the stomach and increase feelings of satiety, according to the Cleveland Clinic. They can be taken as pills or injected.
Some data
The Washington DC-based KFF, a health policy organization, says 18 percent of Americans say they have taken GLP1 medicines at some point, according to a late 2025 study. What is more, one in eight Americans is currently taking them, ostensibly for diabetes and weight loss. The greatest percentage of users, according to KFF, are in the 50-64-year-old age range.
However, it is hard to determine what impact GLP1 use is having on wine consumption in a shaky economy where rising wine prices crisscross with the sober-curious Generation Z and a medical climate where wine has been unfairly victimized.
While the bulk of GLP1 users lose weight, not all of them feel compelled to start drinking less wine. The ability to disengage from regular enjoyment of wine consumption seems to be very subjective (as it is with food cravings as well).
Rob McMillan, the executive vice-president of the Napa-based Silicon Valley Bank shared that he has been taking GLP1s for some time and that the medicine has helped him decrease his wine consumption measurably. He adds that once he got so involved in a project that he forgot to drink wine for two weeks. I have also used these medicines before and they didn't have a similar effect. So, the medicines' effect on the person in question seems to remain be very personal.
Health industry silence
The medical establishment at large, which has been heralding these medicines as a major medical breakthrough, suddenly became extremely silent when I inquired how GLP1s might interact with wine and how they might lessen wine consumption.
Almost no academics, hospitals or medical research agencies cared to comment on how this group of drugs interacts with wine. Not the private company Hers, where I sourced my meds, or another private-pay provider Ro, despite what they are paying the tennis player Serena Williams to wax poetic on television thanks to her reported weight loss with Ro.
National Institute of Health (NIH), the Mayo Clinic, the World Health Organization, Yale Medical School and a number of major researchers all failed to meet my deadline. It begs the question if they don’t have the answers or are perhaps concerned about the medicines' interaction with wine consumption overall.
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