The GLP-1 Thread: Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro etc.

This class of drugs has been around for while, primarily for treatment of diabetes.. but it seems like they've entered the public discourse in a bigger way

Now being prescribed for weight loss as well, it seems like every week there's some new revelation in the press about some new secondary approval - for problem drinking, cardiovascular disease, kidney or liver disease, sleep apnea.. they've taken on an almost 'miracle drug' status

There's also issues with insurance coverage, with access in general, side effects, knockoffs from compounding pharmacies, etc.

Anyway, they seem thread-worthy (I'm not taking any of these drugs! yet), but maybe not? I was surprised there wasn't one already

these are reportedly great for diabetics, i support that, but the way this shit is marketed and prescribed should be illegal

i am so fucking exhausted with living in eating disorder culture

in general we should ban all marketing for prescription drugs

I think some place do that? in Europe maybe?

yeah, I should've added^^^^^: promotion of unhealthy body norms!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/why-are-people-injecting-themselves-with-peptides

I want to be very clear: the line between "promoting unhealthy attitudes to dieting" and "helping people who struggle with weight management" is very blurred, and I would always want to be careful about how I talk about these drugs and what they do. I don't think anyone should be using, or abusing, these drugs to change how their body and their face looks without good health reasons. I don't like that the conversation ten years ago around body positivity is now a conversation around "ozempic face."

Equally I don't think it's fair that we de-value women for not being skinny, but we then de-value women for trying to do something about it. The conversation about these drugs feels misogynistic in just about every way, because it basically wants women to be skinny and only in a certain way through certain methods. How much of it is about controlling women's bodies and how much of it is about weight alone?

But... I have a friend who has started Wegovy and she swears it has changed her life. She has lost 19 pounds in a few weeks. Her PCOS symptoms are much more controlled. She started these drugs on medical advice - she's a larger woman, she's had health issues because of her weight, she's tried to lose it in different ways unsuccessfully.

The thing that blew my mind was watching her eat after she started on it. We had her round for dinner and being lazy we just ordered pizza. The kind of pizza with thick, delicious, gooey cheese topped with crisp veg and sizzling meat. The kind that makes you hungry just thinking about it. I've never known her to refuse a slice of pizza, certainly not one that looked this good. She said that she knows the food is good, but she just felt full and satiated, that she felt the reward of the taste was not worth the feeling of bloating or greasiness, and it could sit in front of her without being desirable. This is so alien to me because I will always want the pizza slice. And I've never known her to not take the slice. The difference in her relationship with food is incredible - she says the constant background noise of crisps/sweets/biscuits just isn't there, she only gets peckish occasionally and now reaches for fruit instead of treats. I couldn't really get my head around it until I saw it in action.

It's still early days so I don't know how this will work out for her long-term. But I can see a difference - not even so much physically but just in how she feels around food and eating.

As soon as you stop taking it, the unwanted behaviors return. Subscription Capitalism Big Pharm style.

(also we're in Scotland so the way this is marketed and allowed is probably very different from how it is stateside)

in general we should ban all marketing for prescription drugs

One thing that I agree with RFKjr on

just in how she feels around food and eating

from what I've read this is the way these drugs operate. they alter the body's chemistry that regulates hunger and appetite, not what the body does with the food once it gets in.

yeah I should make it clear that I have ZERO judgement on anyone taking these drugs for whatever reason(s), I didn't start a thread to pontificate!

I also know that they're currently really fucking expensive and a lot of insurance won't cover them... feels like it's still a privilege to even have access

It seems to turn the volume down on addictive cravings, too. I've heard people say they stopped biting their nails, and others were able to cut way back on drinking alcohol.

yeah that's what the New Yorker article talks about, in part

As soon as you stop taking it, the unwanted behaviors return. Subscription Capitalism Big Pharm style.

tbf that's just how medicine works, it only has effect if you take it. i doubt big pharma is suppressing a secret formulation of this where you take one pill and it works for life.

I know a couple of people taking these things, and probably a couple of others I suspect are, and yeah, it seemingly curtails alcohol cravings for sure, and also greasy food, which apparently makes you more prone to heartburn than usual when you're getting the shots. So even setting aside the other stuff you're not eating, cutting down or out alcohol and greasy food is never a bad thing, and people that do so will probably lose weight regardless.

Another anecdotal observation, this is the first medication since the first Covid vaccines that I've heard of people outright falsify medical status to get, typically online or via teledoc.

Equally I don't think it's fair that we de-value women for not being skinny, but we then de-value women for trying to do something about it.

ok who is doing this

i doubt big pharma is suppressing a secret formulation

gastric bypass?

i am genuinely a person who believes all diets are eating disorders, i do not have a calm or equivocating attitude about this shit

But I can see a difference - not even so much physically but just in how she feels around food and eating.

what you’re telling me is that she eats less, which is therefore good. what i am suggesting is that idk this might not be good

It seems to turn the volume down on addictive cravings, too. I've heard people say they stopped biting their nails, and others were able to cut way back on drinking alcohol.

i was reading it also may have chilling effect on relationships as well by reducing the reward signals gained from those connections.

whoa wild

but we then de-value women for trying to do something about it
ok who is doing this

there has been an element of this, in the sense that's these drugs are 'cheating' or you didn't lose weight the old fashioned way, by starving yourself in a steam room on a treadmill.. I'm not saying that, but some folks are understandably shy about broadcasting their use

Probably veering off-topic a little bit but I'm currently reading Ultra-Processed People and it makes a pretty convincing case that ultra-processed food is responsible for obesity and a bunch of other modern diseases.

the reason I am personally so interested in this stuff:

I'm from a family of larger people. Not just, "a bit overweight" but the kind of people who in attract judgemental looks when out and about. I've got distant aunts and cousins who are breathless at rest in their 40s and 50s. One cousin had a gastric band fitted. In my late 20s I started to feel the change and now in my late 30s I'm an obviously fat man, maybe not obese in the way you think when you hear that word but easily in the medical sense.

I wasn't always like this. At 22 I was about 10 stone, and then I started taking an anti-depressant that caused me to completely lose my appetite (not a common reaction, I know). I remember one day I couldn't eat anything but half a yoghurt bar because I felt so sick at the prospect of putting food in my mouth and swallowing it. I was down to 8 stone, which for a man of my height was close to malnourishment territory.

I've been both a skinny person and a larger person, and even when I was a skinny person I had a slight belly because I've never been toned or athletic. I haven't changed my eating habits in the 15 years or so as my weight has fluctuated and changed.

I'm always thinking about sweets, I love sugar, and I'm only half-joking when I say I can't cope if I don't have something in a cupboard to snack on every night. I'm curious about the prospect of silencing that food noise and if it would help me control it, but equally I do not want to go back to looking like a weak-looking skinny shell of a man. I want to be healthier and I don't think it's wrong that I'm curious to try something that would help me in a way that other techniques have failed.

xxp yeah 100% theres an element out there who see "taking a pill" as a lack of willpower, lazy, vain, etc. lots of folks out there who project morality onto bodies, weight, food.

society tells women they have to be skinny, which is unfair in itself, but then women become skinny they're accused of "cheating" becuase they're using weight loss drugs instead of doing it the "proper" way ie starving and exercise. It is basically shit to be a woman because you will always be commented on and scrutinised and it is massively unfair and I do not think any woman should ever feel pressured to lose weight for their appearance.

Wanting to not have increased risks of heart disease, cancer, strokes - that's a different conversation. My friend has had gallbladder and kidney issues due to their weight, and that's why they're pursuing this.

I'm curious about the prospect of silencing that food noise

yeah I just heard a radio interview with a woman who said that taking the drug freed up a lot of time.. that she was normally semi-obsessed with what the next snack or meal would be, and the drug just silenced all that internal chatter. She left her family to mostly fend for themselves food-wise, and she found she had so much more free time in life

My pal has also said that their food expenditure has decreased by a noticeable level.

what i am suggesting is that idk this might not be good

any medicinally active substance is going to have unwanted side effects, usually including some serious ones. even aspirin with more than a century of widespread and unrestricted over the counter use has some potentially severe or fatal side effects. Americans have a well-known penchant for overuse and abuse of every drug under the sun (if a little is good, more is always better) and nothing much is going to keep capitalists from profiting from that. otoh, there are undoubtedly people whose fundamental health will benefit from these drugs alongside people who'll just treat them like the newest fad diet or an alternative to cosmetic surgery. in short, GLP-1 drugs are a land of contrasts.

“ As soon as you stop taking it, the unwanted behaviors return. Subscription Capitalism Big Pharm style.”

I see this attitude all the time and it pisses me off because tons of medications work this way. If I stop taking my SSRI my severe anxiety will come back. Lifelong medications with side effects are a balance that you carefully weigh: how badly do the side effects affect my quality of life/length of life vs how badly does the disease.

I started ozempic about 3 years ago, because my A1C was over 7 and I was pretty fat. The food noise stopped almost immediately. If you’ve never experienced food noise, lucky you, but it’s hard to explain. It’s not exactly addiction, not exactly obsession or compulsion, it’s… a noise. A constant one.

I didn’t consciously change my eating habits or start exercising. I just ate when I felt hungry and stopped eating when I was full, I was more ok with foregoing snacks and sugar. I ate a lot less and I lost 25lbs in 3 months. It was awesome! I was still fat but I was way more comfortable in my body (physically, just easier to do a lot of things carrying less weight) and I was back just inside a size that isn’t impossible to find nice clothes in.

But I remained on the low dose for a couple of years because my labs were still good even though the food noise came back within 18 months and I gained the 25lbs back. I was on seroquel up until I started ozempic, so it’s possible just going off that was enough to return my labs to normal.

I didn’t have really any major side effects - just occasional and brief bouts of nausea and a couple episodes of really severe gastric distress - but earlier this year that turned into gastritis so I went off ozempic.

I could’ve avoided that if I’d eaten better. I was pretty negligent about making sure my fiber and protein intake was sufficient, I def didn’t drink enough water.

The only way to lose a really significant amount of weight on a glp-1 is if you do all the things fat phobic people already tell us to do: calorie deficit and exercise (mostly calorie deficit). It’s just less mentally draining/damaging to incorporate this stuff into your life when you don’t have the food noise tv constantly humming in your head.

have a similar relationship & history with food/weight as boxedjoy and in that sense its really hard for me to see these drugs as anything other than something that offers overweight people access to an additional 5, 10, or more years of life (especially now being at an age where its increasingly common to see weight-related illnesses catch up with people & kill them). whatever the surrounding debates are re:body image, societal pressure, people taking it for the "wrong reasons", idgaf we can sort that out later, or not even bother

im fat, and im going to die fat ihibidtae

interesting little video

https://www.nytimes.com/video/well/100000010986709/can-ozempic-make-you-live-longer.html

I'm curious to try GLP-1s to see what they do and I'm not all that fussed what people think about it. It's my life.

Yeah I take mounjaro and am pretty overall positive about it but ultimately I also can’t wait to not be on it. I don’t like the amount it costs (in the UK you need like 4/5 conditions to have it and I have NONE of them). I don’t like the fact that I feel sick for at least two days a week and I don’t like the side effects which are well documented. However:

- as the possessor of a long term eating disorder that will kill me eventually if I don’t do something about it, I reached a turning point last year. On the cause of my issues I work on that with my therapist every week and have made great progress on it, though I still struggle cos guess what? It doesn’t solve the why all the way and you still have to do the work.

- however, I see great great value in relief of the symptoms. I have said often that the problem with eating disorders besides the obvious fact that it afflicts something you have to do every single day multiple times, is the fact that your struggles are often visible on your person.

- how these two interact: it’s really weird having largely reduced appetite. I’m under no illusions that eventually I will stop and I’ll have to work out how the rest of my life works for me but this time now is about me trying to adopt healthy habits that last the rest of my life while I work on the causes. I was talking to someone else near and dear to me currently taking it and they were freaked out by the fact that they had NO appetite and they started worrying “am I eating enough? Should I be eating?” I had this too but I recognised it as simply, when you are eating every single day and thinking about what you’re eating later, now, when you go out for dinner this week and then all of a sudden it’s not there anymore? That’s an awful lot of mental energy freed up.

- also I had basically everything tested last year and my bloods hormones cholesterol etc was all normal but I also knew that that’s not something that would last forever. I used to avoid the doctor out of pure fear of this - and of course this is a huge thing with eating disorders, the shame and difficulty of doing anything about it, including how medical professionals interact with you - and I judged the fact that I had made this conscious “actually I would like to look after my health because I deserve to be healthy” choice as symptomatic that my therapy is working and I’ve started on the road out of various problems.

For me personally, extremely beneficial. Have lost a ton of weight and last year was a real nadir in terms of being at my highest adult weight, and I know now I’ll never be back there again and that makes me very happy.

However, two issues I have:

- the ready availability and fame of these drugs meaning that people are not shy about suggesting them to others. Weight loss is really personal and often extremely mental in scope. I would never ever suggest this to someone else, if they asked me it’s a different story. Also the not that subtle insinuation that if you’re still overweight or obese, like why are you, when these are so readily available? The better choice is that they’re an option, and one that is ideally approached as part of a long term solution for the person’s health. Also, I don’t care if other people are overweight or obese, it’s not a moral fucking failing.

- People who are a normal weight taking them, like what the fuck are you doing? It’s an incredibly unpleasant experience. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need to!

Also I know someone who came off it and given it’s a hormonal treatment I imagine the raging appetite you get is related to the big hormonal swing? Idk seems unpleasant but that also goes back to normal eventually.

_just in how she feels around food and eating_

from what I've read this is the way these drugs operate. they alter the body's chemistry that regulates hunger and appetite, not what the body does with the food once it gets in.

This isn’t exactly true at least not of Mounjaro. Mounjaro slows down your digestion (hence some unpleasant symptoms) and initially when I started taking it I had a couple of incidences where I would get sick and look into the toilet bowl (or one time, the sink) and see yesterday’s barely digested food there. Honestly quite disgusting. However, has been really valuable for helping me cut down even my limited Coke Zero consumption as a result.

sorry to immediately get aggro about this, heartening to read about how these drugs have helped people, again i think my primary objection is in the popular marketing of these drugs in the u.s. which i can only see causing untold damage

looks like Medicare will start covering some of them starting tomorrow

Millions of Medicare enrollees will gain their first-ever coverage for drugs for weight loss under a temporary pilot program that launches July 1.

Yeah, I didn't mean to throw shade on those who take these and benefit from them. I've been curious to try Ozempic myself. My biggest hesitation is I'm afraid I'll get hooked, so that's the angle I approached it from.

I see this attitude all the time and it pisses me off because tons of medications work this way. If I stop taking my SSRI my severe anxiety will come back. Lifelong medications with side effects are a balance that you carefully weigh: how badly do the side effects affect my quality of life/length of life vs how badly does the disease.

― just1n3, Tuesday, June 30, 2026 12:46 PM (one hour ago)

right! i mean i'm not going to judge other people. it's a really really complicated topic and it is good for a lot of people, i'm sure

back when i was working for a health insurance company, there was a certain amount of trepidation about how we'd handle it when we had to start paying for ozempic. good news! the company i worked for dodged that bullet by driving themselves out of business through gross executive mismanagement!

the way SSRIs work for me is... like, yeah, they don't fix my problems. what antidepressants that work do is kind of kickstart my brain until i get to a point where i can deal with my own problems. there are reasons i'm depressed... it's not just a "brain chemistry" thing. however to deal with my depression i do _have_ to deal with the brain chemistry.

i mean, am old enough to remember when prozac was super controversial... like really, a lot of the concerns people have about GLP-1s remind me a lot of the objections to SSRIs. do i like being dependent on an SSRI? nope. i've been dependent on them for 30 years, and basically the first thing they did was fuck up my sexual response (a side effect the big pharma companies insisted was "very rare" lol).

i'm body positive and i also, you know, i know that being what's clinically called "morbidly obese" for a long period of time does have serious long-term effects on quality of life. i'm 5'7" and my weight has fluctuated between 160 and 250 pounds, which hasn't had terribly severe effects on me, but i have plenty of friends with EDs - "eating disorders", in my community. i know the pharma companies wanted to make "EDs" stand for something else and nah i don't know people who worry about _that_ as much as we worry about eating disorders. funnily enough, one of the things that is a problem is... i've dated women who are 400+ pounds, and it can make sex difficult!

i did have some initial trepidation about GLP-1s because, i mean, it's not going to solve the underlying problem. obesity, i mean, it's not simply a matter of laziness or caloric intake, a lot of times having a disordered relationship with food is a _trauma response_. i don't think of myself as having an eating disorder but yeah i self-soothe with food. i don't drink, i don't do drugs. when i feel bad emotionally, one of the ways i deal with that is by eating. it's one of those problems i'm aware of, and i'm consciously not worrying about it right now, because i have other problems i'm focusing on. which, i think, again, is where something like a GLP-1 could be advantageous - being able to manage one's weight more effectively _without_ having to commit so much emotional energy to the task could be advantageous, and could have benefits in other areas of life.

in addition... i mean, patriarchal beauty standards suck, and so does dysphoria, and dysphoria is real and i think it's ok to treat it. i am trying to get a referral for fat grafting... it'll take a while, and i've thought a lot about it, but yeah, i do have dysphoria over the fact that my fat tends to be concentrated more around my tummy than it is around my hips and butt. i know _intellectually_ that having the body i do doesn't make me any less of a woman, but i can't just argue away dysphoria. i have had one surgery that gets considered "cosmetic" and i'm actively seeking another, and so i don't really see the benefit in judging another woman - hell, another person - about how much they've personally internalized patriarchal beauty standards!

I’m a better living through chemistry type myself, as I inch closer to 50 I’m ready for a one shot cocktail of Cialis, testosterone and GLP-1s. If it kills me at 65 instead of 70, fine.

a one shot cocktail of Cialis, testosterone and GLP-1s

https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/02/1200/675/rfk-jr-and-kid-rock-shirtless.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

I've been on Trulicity since November 2024 and it's been 100% beneficial for me. One of these days I need to ask my PCP why she's partial to dulaglutide over semaglutide and the others.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in November 2014 and managed it reasonably well with metformin and glipizide and some diet changes for 10 years, with my A1C staying between 6.2 and 6.6, but control over food intake was always a hill I couldn't get over. Food was too fucking awesome a physical pleasure, and it still is, but as mentioned upthread, the NOISE is gone between meals, and my body says "that's enough" sooner. Meals are smaller, snacks are smaller or nonexistent. I still do food crimes, but I can do them thoughtfully and not feel the beast trying to take over my mind. A1C now runs between 5.4 and 5.8, below diabetes threshold.

My insurer, Cigna, balked at covering the drug in Feb. 2025 but approved it on appeal so I'm paying $6.25 per weekly shot. Unfortunately Cigna is getting out of Obamacare coverage in my state (maybe everywhere, I'm not sure) so I assume I'll have to go through the approval gauntlet again in January.

Side effects: slight laxative effect on shot day, that's it. The first four months or so, the laxative effect on shot day was followed by constipation the rest of the week, but that eased up. I dropped a quick 20 lbs., plateau'ed for several months then dropped another 10 or so. Went from ~225 to ~195.

one shot cocktail of Cialis, testosterone and GLP-1s

George Thorogood anthem for the new millenium

upon starting a fairly low dose of adhd medication early last year i immediately noticed the eradication of "food noise" that had driven my approach to food for my entire adult life

adhd diagnosis coincided with (or was the culmination/peak of) a long buildup and release of the old and a hard focus (now possible for me) on the new and i lost 40lbs in four months from march through july

i kept stable after that until christmas, but at about the same time as i started to feel the adhd meds effect start to fade in other ways, my eating habits and cravings started to creep back in- im now halfway back to where i was.

my father and brother each went on weight mgmt pills (is this the term?) during last year and have seen good results til now, the latter with heavy side effects for at least the first while.

im averse to that route, though i dont judge others for taking it.

i do think that meds already had a big input into my own progress so it isnt that side of it.

i think that having gotten to that weight without a wonder pill (one with a fifty fifty chance of unpleasant knock on effects) id feel very determined to try to make progress back towards that with the same behavioral changes that worked for me previously before seeking specially targeted meds. i cant really stand over thst as a logical decision tho

I’m a better living through chemistry type myself, as I inch closer to 50 I’m ready for a one shot cocktail of Cialis, testosterone and GLP-1s. If it kills me at 65 instead of 70, fine.

― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Tuesday, June 30, 2026 3:24 PM

i mean, sure, you could do an all-in-one cocktail, but if that's what you're looking for, a topical application of testosterone might do you...

(looks around)

uh, shit, forget i said anything

As soon as you stop taking it, the unwanted behaviors return. Subscription Capitalism Big Pharm style.

― beard papa, Wednesday, July 1, 2026 4:47 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

At a recent GP placement we had someone come in for a renewal of their script. They seemed really happy with the results they were getting from their glp-1 and thought that maybe after a few months, they'd be at a weight were it wouldn't be necessary to continue taking the drug. I asked the GP after they left "this drug doesn't work like that right? You get the benefits while you use and you lose them when you don't?" GP says basically yes.... the tension of the unsaid question "then why didn't you correct her idea of how the drug works?" hung in the air for a bit then we moved on to the next patient.

I guess that's my main worry. Do people know what they're getting themselves into? The comorbidities of obesity are significant and so hitting that metabolic syndrome right at the core with glp-1 is great if previous non-pharma therapy hasn't worked. But lack of education on the drug, and the drugs potential for abuse are worrying. Like any drug.