More Than One-Third of Middle-Aged Adults with Diabetes Prescribed GLP-1 RAs: Daily Dose

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Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On August 15, 2025, we reported on findings from a National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Data Brief report that aimed to describe the percentage of adults with diagnosed diabetes who were taking an injectable GLP-1 medication at the time of interview.

The study

The nationally representative 2024 NCHS household survey of the US civilian, non-institutionalized population, collected self-reported data on medication use and defined GLP-1 use as use of injectable medications intended for blood glucose control or weight management, excluding insulin. Respondents were classified by age, race/ethnicity, BMI, family income (relative to the federal poverty level [FPL]), and concurrent diabetes medication use.

The findings

• In 2024, the percentage of adults with diagnosed diabetes who used GLP-1 injectables was 26.5%; use increased with age between adults ages 18–34 (25.3%) to 50–64 (33.3%) years and then decreased among those aged 65 years and older (20.8%).

• GLP-1 RA use was highest among Hispanic adults (31.3%), followed by Black non-Hispanic (26.5%) and White non-Hispanic adults (26.2%).

• Adults with obesity were more likely to report GLP-1 use (32.4%) compared with those in lower BMI categories (16.7%).

• Among adults with diabetes, those who took insulin (31.3%) or oral glucose-lowering medications (28.1%) were more likely to use GLP-1 injectables compared with those who did not take those diabetic medications (24.5% and 22.2%, respectively).

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