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(NewsNation) — Oprah Winfrey recently shared a video on Instagram, deadlifting weights at the impressive age of 72.
“Life at 72 is looking different than every other decade,” Winfrey wrote in her caption. “Two summers and two new knees ago, I decided to add strength training to my workouts because we all need to maintain muscle as we get older.”
The media mogul has openly discussed her weight loss journey and the use of prescription GLP-1 medications in recent years.
Winfrey has ‘complicated financial connection to’ GLP-1’s
Winfrey published a book in January alongside Dr. Ania Jastreboff, an endocrinologist at the Yale School of Medicine, titled “Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like to Be Free.”
The book discusses the role of GLP-1 medications in promoting weight loss and “how understanding the science behind obesity can transform the way we think about health, weight, and self-worth,” according to Oprah Daily.
Health and fitness expert Jillian Michaels recently joined “On Balance” with Leland Vittert and revealed that Winfrey has a “very complicated financial connection to” GLP-1 medications.
“Her co-author … has very significant financial ties to these pharmaceutical companies that make these (GLP-1) drugs,” Michaels said.
Patients sue GLP-1 drugmakers
The release of the book and Winfrey’s promotion of GLP-1’s comes as thousands of patients have filed lawsuits against the companies behind the medications, alleging severe health effects.
Since 2023, roughly 4,400 patients have filed lawsuits against weight loss drugmakers — including Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, which produces Mounjaro, Zepbound and Trulicity — according to USA Today.
The plaintiffs, who range in age from 18 to 87, have pointed to severe, undisclosed side effects, including blindness, loss of brain function and organ damage. About 75% of plaintiffs say they have been left with gastroparesis, a condition that delays stomach emptying, while another 8% report extreme gastrointestinal injuries.
NewsNation’s Brooke Shafer and Taylor Delandro contributed to this report.
