The City Where Ozempic Is Fueling Anti-Aging and Biohacking Trends

On a brutally cold January morning in Lone Tree, one of Denver’s polished, well-heeled suburbs, the snow-dusted walking paths were slick — but far from empty.

Mothers in sleek winter athleisure powered through the icy air, jogging behind strollers and braving the chill to keep their fitness routines on track.

In Colorado’s capital region, exercise is not just a hobby. Even during the harshest stretch of winter, staying active is woven into daily life.

Colorado regularly appears near the top of America’s healthiest-state rankings, with obesity affecting less than a quarter of residents. Ski weekends, mountain hikes and long bike rides are treated less like special occasions and more like routine habits.

Yet doctors, medical spa operators and locals say a shift is underway: in some circles, simply being fit no longer seems to be enough.

Across the Denver area, demand for GLP-1 weight loss medications — including compounded or generic-style versions associated with Ozempic and Mounjaro — has surged so dramatically that some residents are reportedly seeking the injectable drugs through unofficial channels.

Medical providers and med spa employees told the Daily Mail that many of the people asking for the slimming injections do not appear to be significantly overweight.

One mother from the Denver area claimed the medications have become so common among parents at her children’s private school that several of the women now “look like skeletons.”

‘Some of them never needed to lose weight to begin with,’ she said, asking to remain anonymous.

‘It’s to the point where I am nervous some of them are too thin.’

For many users, the appeal isn’t simply looking slimmer. It’s about staying young, staying lean and staying at peak performance.

There is some research showing that Ozempic and similar drugs extend lifespans and promote longevity. They also reduce people’s cravings for junk food, alcohol and other vices.

‘It’s not just that they’re aging gracefully – they don’t want to age at all,’ said Dr Edward Cobb, the medical director at The Firm Med Spa in Lone Tree.

Supplements and drugs that have been linked to longevity are big business in Denver and the surrounding Mile High City, which has embraced the growing world of biohacking.

The term describes the practice of using supplements, therapies and medications to optimize the body’s performance and improve health.

‘What we see in Colorado, I’ve got a lot of older patients that are doing 92% as well as they can possibly do,’ Cobb said.

‘Those patients want to get to 97% or 98% peak fitness. So I think that might be a big difference in Colorado, sometimes people use drugs for reasons of performance enhancement as opposed to treating problems.’

Rather than taking large amounts of the medication, many of Cobb’s patients are ‘microdosing,’ using half or even a quarter of the lowest available dose of GLP-1s.

Microdoses have not been studied extensively but there are anecdotal reports of people feeling less bloated and experiencing a more subtle, slower weight loss.

Cobb described many of his patients reporting less joint pain and lower inflammation in their bodies while on the GLP-1s, with Harvard citing recent research that the shots can delay or eliminate the need for knee replacements.

But because many of those using the drugs in Denver are not medically obese, they don’t qualify for traditional prescriptions or insurance coverage.

Instead, they seek out concierge physicians like Cobb, paying out of pocket for personalized treatment plans.

‘Denver is very, very focused on aesthetics,’ said Julie King, owner of The Firm Med Spa.

People often mistake the city’s athletic culture for a lack of interest in appearance, King said, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Both GLP-1 use and plastic surgery follow the same rules in the state capital.

‘What I see is they want to look more natural and subtle,’ King added.

Filler in lips and cheeks, breast augmentations and every other enhancement is alive and well, she said, but is not as noticeable in local women as it is in other cities.

Women in menopause or in perimenopause have also turned to the injections, King said, revealing that the majority of her GLP-1 customers are women in their 40s and 50s battling hormonal weight gain.

All of the people getting GLP-1s from The Firm are under the medical supervision of Dr Cobb. 

Despite Colorado’s reputation as one of America’s healthiest states, prescription data has repeatedly suggested the demand for GLP-1 drugs is unusually high.

Figures from 2023 showed Colorado ranked seventh in the nation for active GLP-1 prescriptions, with Denver leading the state’s usage.

More recent data paints a different picture, with Denver falling outside the nation’s top 20 as Houston, New York and Los Angeles surged ahead.

But prescriptions don’t tell the full story of the popularity of these drugs.

Many Denver residents are paying cash for treatment that never appears in insurance data. Others are bypassing doctors altogether.

The Daily Mail visited several retail stores in the Denver area that openly sold unapproved GLP-1 products labelled ‘not for human consumption.’

At one supplement store in Parker, a salesperson told us: ‘You’re buying research chemicals. These are not for human consumption.’

Two weeks’ worth of a very low dose of what the store claimed was tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro, cost $211.04.

‘That’s how we’re able to give them out at a much cheaper cost because I’m not a doctor and you can buy these without a prescription,’ the storehand said.

‘We sell peptides for research purposes, so I don’t know what you do with it,’ he stated.

He also sold us the liquid that had to be mixed in before the powder tirzepatide could be injected, as well as the syringes.

Before we left we asked him where the chemicals came from.

‘China,’ he said. ‘Everything comes from China.’

Medical professionals strongly warn against obtaining GLP-1 drugs this way.

‘I’m just disgusted and horrified. You have no idea where they’re coming from. They could be made in a bath tub,’ Ashley DeGrush, a nurse practitioner who runs Face Forward Med Spa told Daily Mail.

At least two Americans have died after using counterfeit weight-loss injections, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In the US, 28 people have been classified as having had ‘serious’ outcomes that also include deaths.

DeGrush said the so-called research GLP-1s come with enormous risks because they are unregulated and are not subject to the testing required of medications supplied through doctors or med spas.

‘It blows my mind that a place like this can be in business.’

Cobb said he believes the stores are exploiting a legal loophole.

‘There’s this loophole where you can create a chemical and so long as you say it’s for lab research, it can be sold. It’s not otherwise controlled,’ he said.

‘I don’t think it’s illegal to sell it and I don’t think it’s illegal to take it. The loophole is that everyone is lying about what the original purpose of it is.’

Earlier this year, the FDA began a crackdown on so-called GLP-1s marked ‘not for human consumption’ and ‘research only.’

In warning letters to different companies making the sales, the FDA said selling unapproved, injectable GLP‑1 dupes to consumers while claiming they are for ‘research use only’ violates FDA regulations and may pose serious health risks.