OPINION
This is probably going to give you a level of insight into my brain that you don’t really need to or want to have but, just a few days ago, I was going about my business (and by “business” I mean watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives while eating an Oreo ice cream sandwich) when the thought dawned on me: it’s been a while since I’ve seen any headlines about the Kardashians. It was a good thought, a happy thought. The Kardashians were off my news feed, Oasis were reuniting, a pgymy hippo was born in Thailand … nature was healing.
And then, as if I’d summoned her, there it was – a post about Kourtney Kardashian’s latest venture into the celebrity-loving and very dubious world of wellness supplements (I wrote about her Lemme vaginal gummies last year), in the shape of what’s been described as an “Ozempic-like” supplement.
The Lemme GLP-1 Daily is a supplement that claims to reduce hunger and help with weight-loss management.
Kourtney, hun, just because you discovered the DNA emoji on your phone, it doesn’t mean you’re a scientist, girl.
Kourtney Kardashian knows the world is going through a bit of an Ozempic craze and many people wish there was an easy, affordable, over-the-counter, way of trying the drug – so that’s what she is claiming to have created.
Do her supplements work? No one knows but, since I know at least as much biology as Kourtney Kardashian, I’m going to go ahead and guess “no”. Supplements like these are not properly regulated and experts (actual experts) don’t have great things to say about them either.
Professor Gunter Kuhnle, an expert in nutrition and food science at the University of Reading, described it to the Daily Mail as “very clever marketing”.
“The ingredients are probably reasonably cheap – but even if the extracts help slight weight loss, they would not work in the same way as GLP-1 drugs, i.e. reducing hunger signals in the same powerful way,” Kuhnle said. “So I doubt there will be much more effect than placebo.”
Dieтιтian Lauren Harris-Pincus told Page Six that “no supplement can come close to mimicking the effects of the GLP-1 agonist medications like Ozempic and Wegovy”. “It’s like the difference between an eye dropper and a garden hose,” she added.
Harris-Pincus says that, while they’re not likely to be harmful, they’re likely to be pretty useless for people looking to lose weight.
One thing that is likely to get thinner if you go on this supplement is your bank account. The pills cost NZ$144 for a one-time purchase (slightly cheaper if you go on a subscription plan). Another thing you can do with those $144 is put them into a high-interest savings account which is an organic, gluten-free, vegan-certified way to naturally boost your personal savings while protecting you from unscientific wellness grifts.
It’s not like I expect Kourtney Kardashian to become the patron saint of body positivity but I do expect a certain degree of accountability when it comes to messing with people’s health.
Speaking of accountability, it’s also worth mentioning that, on top of the lack of FDA approval, Zimmerman Reed, a class action litigation firm, has launched an investigation into Lemme, over allegedly deceptive advertising. This kind of supplement appears to exist in a grey area in that some of its claims are true but perhaps not to the degree that the marketing of them attempts to convey. In short, its benefits are potentially greatly exaggerated for the purposes of getting you to buy them.
A lot is said about the Kardashian sisters but one thing we have to admit: they know how to monetise people’s insecurities. Kourtney Kardashian is simply cashing in on our society’s obsession with thinness, while propagating the idea that being thin somehow equals being healthy. We’ve got to at least admire the hustle.
What we don’t have to do, however, is buy into it.
If you want and/or need weight loss medication, please take advice from a doctor, not a Kardashian.