No Real Nattys - by Ben Goldhaber - Gold Takes

There was some moment that passed by, largely unnoticed, where widespread use of drugs for cosmetic and performance reasons became mainstream in the US. GLP-1s: About 1 in 5 (18%) adults in the United States has used a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro at some point, and 12% are actively on it. GLP-1s went from 1% of all prescriptions at the start of 2021 to 5.4% of all prescriptions in September 2024. Plastic Surgery: The U.S. performed over 6.1 million cosmetic procedures in 2024 (it was 1 million in the 90s). Botox procedures increased roughly 10x from 2000 to 2024, from under 800,000 to somewhere between 4.7 and 9.5 million annually. Testosterone: Conservative estimates, which don’t include gray or black market sourcing, have 11 million prescriptions in the US for Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) - depending on average refill frequency, that’s about 2-4 million patients. One meta-analysis of a collection of surveys put general steroid use at 6.4% among gym-going men (though

There was some moment that passed by, largely unnoticed, where widespread use of drugs for cosmetic and performance reasons became mainstream in the US. GLP-1s: About 1 in 5 (18%) adults in the United States has used a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro at some point, and 12% are actively on it. GLP-1s went from 1% of all prescriptions at the start of 2021 to 5.4% of all prescriptions in September 2024. Plastic Surgery: The U.S. performed over 6.1 million cosmetic procedures in 2024 (it was 1 million in the 90s). Botox procedures increased roughly 10x from 2000 to 2024, from under 800,000 to