Do I have to be diabetic to get a GLP-1?
No. The FDA has approved these medications for a range of conditions, obesity included.
No. The FDA has approved these medications for a lot of conditions, including type 2 diabetes and obesity, and the list keeps growing.
What matters for access is the diagnosis your doctor writes down. It is worth taking a deep dive with them to work out the right one, because the same molecule can be approved or denied depending on which brand and which indication is on the paperwork. Your insurance might say no to Wegovy for weight loss and yes to Ozempic if your A1C is in the danger zone, and those are both semaglutide.
None of this is medical advice. It is educational material drawn from FAT BITCH: Killing the Willpower Myth by Cat Clark, and it does not replace your prescriber, your pharmacist, or your actual doctor. If something here does not match what your care team told you, go with your care team and bring this along to the conversation.