Some users of GLP-1 weight loss drugs are reporting an unexpected side effect: a new obsession with perfume. Patients say they have developed a strong craving for sweet, dessert-like fragrances, leading them to spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds on bottles of vanilla and cinnamon perfumes.
Katie, a 46-year-old teacher from the Washington, D.C., suburbs, started taking Eli Lilly's Zepbound in March 2024 after a total hysterectomy. She told The Independent: 'I was always mildly into fragrance, but it increased by a factor of a thousand.' She now owns over 50 full bottles, mostly from niche brands, and estimates she has spent around $3,000 on perfume in two years.
Reddit users have coined the phenomenon 'Ozempic smell', sharing recommendations and photos of their collections. One user wrote: 'I started taking a GLP-1 last May and I’ve gone from owning two perfumes to 24. I’m a total gourmand girl, I just want to smell like a bakery all the time.' Another noted: 'I can smell a gourmand, sweet fragrance and enjoy it without getting ravenously hungry.'
Scientists suggest the drugs may affect the brain's olfactory processing. Leslie Kay, a professor at the University of Chicago, said: 'The drugs could help engage the olfactory pleasure circuits and feelings of satisfaction, hijacking them for non-real food smells.' Paule Joseph of the National Institutes of Health added that GLP-1 receptors sit on mitral cells in the olfactory bulb, which carry smell signals to the brain.
Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke School of Medicine theorised that the effect occurs in the brain, not the nose, as GLP-1 drugs influence nerve cells related to nausea. Catherine Dulac of Harvard University noted that the sense of smell is affected by internal states, such as hunger, making the side effect 'not extremely surprising'.
Dr Luke Pratsides, chief medical officer at UK-based GLP-1 supplier Get A Drip, said the side effect has not been reported in his patients. Katie, who stopped Zepbound for six months after surgery, said her interest in fragrance persisted, adding: 'I’ve learned so much, and am fascinated by the whole process.'
