Mounjaro, Mounjaro. Rah rah rah!

Welcome to this week’s discussion of Mounjaro, including tidbits from my personal experience with the therapy. I am now into my ninth week on Mounjaro for diabetes, with the secondary object of losing excess weight.

To reiterate my cynical allusion, I do not regard this serious therapy as a “journey”, or as some now are calling it, an “adventure”. Whoop de doo! This is a serious undertaking with an unknown endpoint. I’ll say a few words relating to my chosen title for this week’s column before I update you on my progress.

Many vlogs and blogs are cheerleaders for Mounjaro, Zepbound, Ozempic, Wegovy, or their generic equivalents. Some of them are paid for their promotional efforts while others just want to spread the word about something new and exciting. The latter category of town criers pops up every time a new, miracle cure for obesity emerges, be it diet, exercise, or drug. This speaks to the futility of prior efforts, which doesn’t portend well for their future performance on the latest and greatest. Lots of past “journeys” to temporary nirvana followed by a return to old habits, old pathology, and old tonnage, make them ripe targets for the latest “guaranteed” weight-loss product.

Oh, but this is different. Yeah, right!

Do Your Own Research

The jungle of misinformation should impel you to avert the cheerleaders and do your own research on Mounjaro. Reading medical research papers can be tedious, and one must be careful to understand who funds the studies they describe. However, they are much better sources of information than the filtered, crowd-sourced, anecdotal crap you will find on YouTube. Even better, you don’t need to watch some moody woman babbling about how she transgressed by eating some Doritos the other day in the course of a boring, poorly edited video production. These “influencers” are funding their drug purchases and in some cases earning a living through YouTube’s funding algorithm by developing large audiences where they can preach to the choir. YouTubers thrive on lazy people who want their pablum spoon-fed to them in palatable dollops.

Sure, I sound like a broken record, but I urge caution for good reason. Many of those YouTubers are pushing telehealth operations and compounding pharmacies, and some receive valuable consideration for doing so. Be cynical about such recommendations and be careful about whose comments you take seriously. Magical cures bring subscibers; healthy diet, exercise, and cognitive behavior training are dull topics in comparison. So, watch these non-doctors for entertainment, but remember to take their medical advice and counsel with a grain of salt.

It’s A Jungle Out There

Don’t listen to bullshit. Listen to your doctor — a REAL doctor with whom you have a face-to-face relationship and who has an interest in your long-term outcome, not some PA working for a weight-loss specific telehealth operation where you pay $99 per month for access to the compounded version of Mounjaro, which costs another $350 or so per month. These mills are capitalizing on the current craze. Be assured that a market shake-out somewhere down the road will eliminate the weaker competition.

Many desperate dieters are hopping on that telehealth/compounding train, so there’s plenty of money to be made and lots of greedy start-ups willing to capitalize on the trend under the guise of helping people through their “journey.” Once you express interest somewhere — anywhere — in losing weight, you’ll soon see glitzy adds pandering their services and their wares. Do you know anything at all about these companies? Or do you just take their word for their legitimacy, sign up, and send them your money? How long will their business be viable? Be smart! Do your research!

My Weekly Mounjaro Recap

Once again, please recall that after eight weeks I am still taking the loading dose of Mounjaro, which is 2.5 mg injected subcutaneously once per week. Based on flattening of my numbers, it might be appropriate to titrate upward to the minimum therapeutic dose of 5 mg. I will discuss that with my doctor this week taking many other factors into account.

All that having been said, my glucose was flat from the prior week, averaging about 102 mg/dL, as was morning fasting glucose at 106 mg/dL.My weight was down 1.4 lbs for the week, but I had gained one pound during the previous week. Thus, the net weight loss over two weeks was only 0.4 lbs.

I will offer an interesting observation in connection with appeitite. Jenny and I went to a local steakhouse for a wedding anniversary celebration dinner last night, which screwed with my numbers somewhat. The notable thing about that meal was the return of my appetite. I devoured a 14-ounce ribeye, which I would not have been able to do a couple of weeks ago. To me, this is a strong indication that my body is getting acclimated to Mounjaro and might need a boost in dosage to achieve consistent effects going forward.

One of the most appealing things about Mounjaro and other GLP-1 agonsists for the weight-loss crowd is the associated appetite suppression. Fat people tend to think about food all the time, to the extreme of thinking about what we’ll have for our next meal before finishing the one in front of us. So, the ability of a silver bullet drug to turn off that part of our brain is a big thing. YouTubers call this “food chatter” or “food noise”. Mounjaro puts the food chatter under the Cone of Silence.

Wrapping it Up and Putting a Mounjaro Bow on It

I don’t have a lot for you this week, but I want to reiterate that regardless of your chosen method, please do not try to do too much, too fast. Last week I mentioned a painful neuropathic condition arising from too rapid a drop in HbA1c. This subject is certainly an appropriate thing to discuss with your doctor.

I’ll wrap up this week by wishing you well in your metabolic progress and thanking you for taking the time to read this.

I’ll be back next week with more observations and opinions.