| The posts on Instagram and TikTok make an alluring promise: Weight loss, reduced food cravings and lower hunger levels, all delivered via a humble skin patch without any pesky needles. Influencers tout the benefits, posing with patches on their wrists or holding aesthetically pleasing packaging in dappled light.
But are these products anything more than stylish-looking stickers capitalizing on society's desire for a quick-fix weight-loss solution? Kind Patches sells something called Weightless, which until recently was named the GLP-1 Patch. ("Same patch, new name," according to the company's website, which claims the product helps "support healthy weight and appetite balance.") Weightless doesn't contain any of the active ingredients found in the injectable obesity drugs known as GLP-1s, such as Wegovy or Zepbound. Instead, the patches contain berberine, a plant compound, among other ingredients. There is some, very limited evidence that berberine may help to lower cholesterol and treat diabetes.
Many other weight-loss patches are available online. The Diet Patch, from Your Daily Patch, contains ingredients including a concentrated form of caffeine and taurine, found in energy drinks. Neither company responded to Bloomberg's requests for comment. Nerys Astbury, associate professor of diet and obesity at the University of Oxford, told me there are two major issues with the weight-loss patches currently on the market. "You absolutely can deliver active compounds in transdermal patches," she said. Nicotine, contraceptives and insulin can all be delivered transdermally, or through the skin. But there's currently no evidence that compounds proven to suppress appetite or reduce energy intake can be delivered this way, Astbury said. And as far as she is aware, the patches don't contain those active ingredients anyway. "Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon," she said, when I asked if using the term GLP-1 was misleading.  Source: Kind Patches website Weightless and the Diet Patch are part of a wider trend. Online, I can easily buy patches promising to boost my collagen, energy or even libido, each at a cost of about £12 ($15.55) a month. According to Vogue UK, patches will be one of 2025's top wellness trends. You only have to open Instagram or TikTok to see youthful women giving glowing reviews of stickers that purportedly help with sleep and anxiety. On the plus side, patches are probably relatively low-risk. Nutraceuticals — foods or dietary supplements that claim health benefits — don't go through the same regulatory processes as medicines but can sometimes be very potent, Astbury said. With transdermal wellness patches, the biggest worry is that you might get a skin rash, she said. "With any new innovation like this, one needs to put them to the gold standard test of randomized controlled trials," Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, told me in an email. "Especially for innovations targeting weight and related outcomes."
Many companies are undertaking this process as they race to find the next generation of anti-obesity medicines. Some, such as Boston-based biotech Anodyne Nanotech, are even trialing weight-loss patches.
But they're a long way from being available in drugstores or online. It's likely we'll see weight-loss drugs in pill form first. — Ashleigh Furlong | 
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