In an extremely odd case, a single 79-year-old patient was granted early access to Eli Lilly’s powerful, still-experimental obesity drug retatrutide through the Food and Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program—raising immediate questions if that sole patient is President Donald Trump, according to a report by Stat News.
Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1. It is currently in late-stage trials to treat obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and other conditions. Data from a Phase 3 trial that Lilly released in May indicates that patients with obesity (but without diabetes) who took the drug for 80 weeks lost 28 percent of their weight, an amount comparable to bariatric surgery.
Millions of Americans with obesity are eager to get the drug, with options being limited so far to enrolling in a clinical trial or trying to obtain it by dodgy methods.
But according to a barebones public notice and Stat’s sources, a single person has been granted early access through the expanded access, aka “compassionate use” pathway, which is typically used to grant access to patients with a “serious or immediately life-threatening disease or condition” and who are not able to enroll in a clinical trial, often because they are too ill.
The access request was first made in April, when the person was 79 years old (Trump turned 80 on June 14). It was made by a senior clinician at the National Institutes of Health named Ranganath Muniyappa, who requested it on behalf of a patient with refractory obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, and pulmonary hypertension, which is high blood pressure in the lungs. Sources told Stat this patient had spent a year on tirzepatide, a drug that targets the GLP-1 and GIP hormones. But the patient had achieved only moderate weight loss on the drug.
Question for someone who knows more about GLP-1 drugs than myself - if you’re taking the drug regularly, and you’re also self-administering a medicinal Whopper and large fries >1x per day, will you still lose weight? The stuff works but thermodynamics still applies?
probably also suppressing his cocaine and adderal addiction too.
The class of drugs works by suppressing appetite. So you just eat less and feel good about it. Which makes restaurant chains very, very nervous.
They should just charge more for less amount of testier food.
Personally I’m not a fan of the thought of eating testes. There are markets for it, but do you think this has the required mass market appeal to save the chains?
Been on a GLP-1/GIP compounded injection for a year. Lost 90lbs.
I physically have a hard time overeating on fats/protiens. Like I want to vomit. Meat consumption is way down from before.
Simple carbs like starches and sugar I can overinduldge on but seem to get sick faster than before taking the medication.
It mostly helps with food related cravings but its not a silver bullet. I can still fallback to emotional eating under high stress and fluctuate +5 lbs with water retention. Its just much easier to recover.
I lost about 1/3 the weight on my own tracking everything. With the medication it tripled the rate of loss and I didn’t need to track anymore. I’m much more able to trust my body and hunger signals developing a healthier relationship with food.
Meds kill hunger. You just feel full quickly and for a long time. My coworker brings a normal portion of food to work and only eats maybe half. They told me they don’t really feel hungry, but know they have to eat. They eat once a day. I’m pretty sure its just anorexia in a shot. Also this helps with physical hunger, so, if you emotional or stress eat, it won’t help as much/lose weight as quickly.
Thanks for the info! So it just makes you feel full, but wont neccesarily help with an eating disorder.
It can actually help with eating disorders in that apart from making you feel full sooner, it also seems to have a reduction in addictive behaviours of all sorts. There’s talk of research being done for things as diverse as opiate addiction and ADHD - where improved executive function might look very like more will-power/thinking time around impulsive behaviours.
Have ADHD. I’ve been taking a GLP-1/GIP compounded injection for a year and it has done nothing for nicotine or poor impulse control shopping. If anything it made the shopping worse as clothes no longer fitting becomes a great excuse to shop. At least that’s my experience.
I would love an ADHD medication that had no effect on my hunger. I eat normally when unmedicated (but everything else falls apart), but every medication either makes me voracious or slightly nauseated at the idea of food.
Probably a silly question, but have you asked your doctor if you could combine or cycle medications that push your appetite up and down so they balance out?
That’s kind of what I do- vyvanse works best for me, and when my doctor gets too worried about my weight, she’ll switch me to strattera for a month or two- but I do worry about essentially having a yearly hibernation cycle with body fat.