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.
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.
Have you tried non-stimulating adhd meds? Other than terrible heartburn during the tritation period (meaning, it’s gone by now), I’ve had no change in gut feel
Yeah, those are actually also fine for my hunger, but even after 4-6 weeks of use, they make me need to sleep about 15 hours a day. While taking stimulants, I only want to sleep like that on the day of the first missed dose. After the third day, I’ve got a basically normal sleep schedule (at least normal for someone with ADHD missing medication), so it’s not withdrawal from stimulants that causes it.