[sReinwald]

One thing I have noticed on Mounjaro is a (at least subjectively) significant decrease in impulse spending / buying random crap off Amazon. I have ADHD and that has been a real problem for quite a while - even with ADHD medication (Elvanse/Vyvanse in my case).

The part of Mounjaro that regulates the craving side of the weight loss equation (like reducing 'food noise' and the desire for sugary and fatty foods) seems to also affect other behaviors due to Mounjaro's effect on the brain's reward circuitry. I believe there are also early preliminary studies that indicate it can help with addictions like alcoholism.

Those drugs really are quite something. Shame they're so damn expensive. Insurance here in Germany is unfortunately legally prohibited from covering GLP-1 class drugs for weight loss unless you have a diabetes diagnosis.

[LeifCarrotson]

Are the drugs actually expensive, or just expensive for now because they can be?

Modern society basically decided that adding flouride to drinking water and iodine to table salt for everyone was better than dealing with tooth decay and gout.

I understand that peptide synthesis and cold-chain logistics are not as trivial as these elements, but this paper [1] estimates that GLP1 manufacturing costs can be under a dollar per person per month, orders of magnitude less than current market rates!

Perhaps our future society will normalize taking a daily GLP-1 agonist with their other multivitamins at breakfast.

[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

[sReinwald]

I suspect a big reason for why Mounjaro is still fairly expensive here in Germany (I pay nearly €400 for a 10mg Qwickpen - a 12.5mg Qwickpen is nearly €500) is due to health insurance not being allowed to cover them for anything but diabetes treatment.

If health insurance companies would be able to cover these drugs, there'd have to be negotiations between Eli Lilly and the insurance companies, and insurance companies have a bigger lever than individual patients who pay out of pocket. Self-payers are just price-takers. We pay whatever Eli Lilly wants us to pay.

[nerdsniper]

China can sell (at a profit) >99.8% pure tirzepatide, semaglutide, and retatrutide for <$3/weekly dose. This supply ends up at compounding pharmacies like Hims/Hers, but sometimes more directly to consumers through gray/black markets.

Another way to check if the marginal cost of production contributes to the cost of the drug is to compare the price of injectable semaglutide (~$1200) for around 10mg/month, to the price of oral semaglutide (Rybelsus), which is also (~$1,000) for around 420mg/month. That indicates that the cost of manufacturing semaglutide does not significantly contribute to the cost of the FDA-approved drug.

[MattGaiser]

They are cheap now if you dig deep enough. Lots of vendors selling peptides.

[zemvpferreira]

I've been on Mounjaro and find it pretty inexpensive, but I'm using a high-dose pen for a low-dose injection. One 15mg pen is going to last me around 6 months at my current rate, so around 15 euros per week.

[sReinwald]

You are essentially amortizing a single dose over 6 months by micro-dosing and receiving a clearly sub-therapeutic dose. While that may work for your specific usage, it doesn't change the unit economics for someone who needs the standard therapeutic dose, which in my case at 10 mg is roughly €400 every 4 weeks.

It’s a bit like arguing that a Porsche GT3 RS is an 'affordable' car because the monthly payment is low, provided you finance it over 30 years. The sticker price hasn't changed, you've just engaged in extreme creative accounting to make it fit a monthly budget.

[deinonychus]

That’s really neat.

I’m ashamed that I have this wish that I were overweight and had an excuse to try a GLP1 just to see how it would affect my impulse control with non-food habits.

I guess there’s not much stopping me from buying some unregulated drugs from the internet and self-experimenting, but I haven’t heard experiences from people deliberately using them for anything but weight.

[sigilis]

If it helps, I don't think that there is anything to be ashamed of to want to try new things even if you recognize it is inadvisable. If there were no physical consequences, I'd like to try all sorts of medicines to see what effect they would have on me.

As a user of Mounjaro, obtained from a doctor, I find the experience very interesting. It has all sorts of weird side effects that I don't expect. As a bioinformatician in training it's great fun to speculate about the causes, pathways, signals, and whatnot that might be involved as this drug perturbs so much stuff in my system.

It's not pleasurable per se, but it is interesting. I have changed my food habits significantly without actually trying. I think I was too impatient to eat to cook if that makes sense. Weirdly, foods taste better to me which I did not expect. I also have found myself really enjoying my hobbies more. This has resulted in a lot of 3d printer filament purchases, so my impulse control may not have been helped much.

As far as experimenting on yourself, it will likely require the cumulative effect of weeks or months to notice changes in non-food habits if such changes occur at all.

There's probably some online doctor that will prescribe this thing to you for several hundred dollars/euros or whatever. You may suffer greatly for your curiosity, though. There are instances of very unpleasant side effects, some of which I experience personally.

[papascrubs]

Depending on your appetite for risk, there's always the gray market. It's also a lot cheaper depending on what your insurance covers. I think I picked up a year's supply of semaglutide for under $200. I've been on some form of GLP for the last 2 years and for me there have been several tangible benefits related to ADHD.

https://gray.guide is a good starting point.

[sReinwald]

It would probably be interesting, but if you are not overweight, the appetite suppression will likely make this not a very healthy or very fun experiment. I started at 5mg in October, and even on that smaller dose I had to force myself to eat even just ~800kcal a day - especially in the early weeks. When you have a lot of weight to lose, that's a pretty welcome effect. When you are already at a healthy weight, not so much. That caloric intake would put most adults into a pretty deep caloric deficit.

I'd suspect if the effects on non-weight indications check out in studies, we might see drugs that could specifically target those effects without also slowing down your digestive tract. Addictions like nicotine and alcoholism and their consequences cost health insurance companies (and us as a society) billions of Euros/Dollars each year, so there'd be a strong incentive to pursue this.

[thinkingtoilet]

That would go in line with what I've read of it helping people with mild addictions.

[01100011]

On Wegovy(semaglutide) I haven't noticed any change in my binges or impulsiveness. Slightly worse(not dramatic) depressive episodes but that's about it.

[bluescrn]

I may well have done more hobby-related shopping 'binges'/impulse buying in place of eating/drinking binges while on Mounjaro.

But that wasn't such a bad thing - it was mostly due to feeling a bit more awake/alive in the evenings compared to when I'd be drinking or overeating.