Can Ozempic and Mounjaro make the food taste different?

1 in 8 people in the world were living with obesity in 2022, according to the World Health Organization. The obesity rate in adults in the United States between 2021 and 2023 was 40.3%, according to the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro have come as a huge relief for many struggling with obesity and being overweight. Most of these blockbuster drugs are known for creating a sense of satiety. But can they make the food taste weird? Well, according to a recent study, about one in five people taking Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro have reported that their food tastes different. For some foods, the taste is either saltier or sweeter. The findings of the study were presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria. The study conducted by German and Austrian researchers found that some individuals who are taking Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro find that foods taste sweeter or saltier than before. The researchers have linked the changes in taste perception to a reduction in appetite.The study found that about one in five of those participating in the real-world study perceived sweetness more intensely, and a similar number were more sensitive to salt. “Incretin-based therapies such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro are widely used for weight management, but their effect on taste perception has been unclear,” Othmar Moser, of the University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany, who led the research, said in a statement. “If changes in taste are linked to greater appetite control and weight loss, this could help clinicians better select therapies, provide more tailored dietary advice, and improve long-term treatment outcomes for patients.”To understand more about how weight loss drugs alter the perception of taste, the researchers surveyed hundreds of individuals with overweight and obesity who were taking Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro for weight loss about their sense of taste and appetite. The study had 411 participants (69.6% female). Of them, 148 were on Ozempic, 217 were on Wegovy, and 46 were taking Mounjaro.Around a fifth of the participants reported food tasting sweeter (21.3%) or saltier (22.6%) than before. However, they didn’t experience any changes in their perception of bitterness and sourness.About 26.7% of participants in the Wegovy group reported that food tasted saltier than before, compared with 16.2% in the Ozempic group and 15.2% in the Mounjaro group. The spike in sweetness was reported at similar frequencies in all groups (Wegovy 19.4%, Ozempic 21.6%, Mounjaro 21.7%). “These drugs act not only in the gut and brain areas that control hunger but also on taste bud cells and brain regions that process taste and reward. This means they can subtly change how strong flavours, like sweetness or saltiness, are perceived. This, in turn, may affect appetite,” Professor Moser said. “Shifts in taste may affect how satisfying or appealing food feels in the moment, which influences appetite control. However, weight loss depends on many other factors – like metabolism, long-term eating patterns, and activity – so changes to taste alone may not be enough to directly drive body weight reduction,” Professor Moser added. “Drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro may alter the sense of taste, making foods seem sweeter or saltier and helping people feel full sooner and less hungry. For clinical practice, this suggests that monitoring patients’ taste changes could provide useful clues about treatment response, even though taste alone does not directly drive weight loss. For example, tracking changes in taste could help gauge whether the treatment is working beyond weight loss. It could also perhaps be used to tailor dietary advice, for example, by helping patients find alternatives to foods with flavours that have become overwhelming or less appealing,” Professor Moser concluded.