First randomized trial of Ozempic for alcoholism shows big drops in drinking

I’ve been on Zepbound since January and my craving/desire for any alcohol basically is gone. I have gone periods without drinking before while trying to lose weight but I always felt like I was missing out because I was only not drinking to help lose weight, I would avoid some social gatherings just because it wasn’t fun to be there and not “socialize”. Now I just don’t want to and I don’t care about saying no thanks or even think about it. And if I do have a drink it’s usually literally just a drink and even then I might not even finish it.

I’m down 60+ lbs so far.

Addictive or not, it's a long-term use pharmaceutical.

Have Ehlers Danlos and another thing, with quite a few effects I get ongoing, it's actually why I try experimenting with drugs in general. I wasn't much overweight but gave it a shot since it seemed like a fascinating drug, and the results were shocking to me.

Perennial light sleeper, couldn't drink caffeine either due to extreme long half life and sleep issues. On it, fall asleep at night like a "normal" person for the first time. Able to drink coffee too. I chalked that up to the fact it does have a bit of a drowsiness effect, but... then I noticed I was just having a bit less back pain. Noticed my tingling in feet and muscle fasciculation was down.

I've been on and off it now ever since, but I take lower doses/breaks since I don't need it for weight. But I was getting "attacks" of inflammation every ~6 months, since doing it for 1.5 years not a single attack (knock on wood).

My thought there is - yes fasting is great for a lot of things and maybe helped, but I can't help but think it's other effect. I've tried a lot of things, even other peptides that supposedly work and had 0 effects across hundreds of supplements. This stuff had huge effects.

The friend I can't speak to much, simply that they told me they started it and without my prompting told me a couple months later about the allergy thing.

South Park just did a whole show on this.

Novo Nordisk is running their lines at max capacity and cutting production of some other drugs. I think the last number I saw was new weekly prescriptions are up 3x from Dec 2023.

Unlike Eli Lilly (who use chemical synthesis for Zepbound) they use yeast for synthesis and have decided not to contract out production to protect manufacturing trade secrets which makes ramping up slower, have to wait for their Denmark plant upgrade to come online.

The FDA allows drugs declared in shortage to be mixed, with slight alterations, by compounding pharmacies. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/drug-compou...

> One of the conditions of section 503A restricts compounded drugs that are essentially copies of commercially available drugs, but FDA does not consider a drug to be commercially available when it appears on FDA’s drug shortages list.

I know for a fact you can obtain compounded semaglutide.

It is actually very easy to obtain compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide right now if you qualify for a prescription and can pay a few hundred dollars a month.

>If one volunteers to participate in a study of a drug suspected to reduce drinking, that itself is a contradiction of the exclusion criteria.

no, it isn't. many trials offer financial compensation -- they may not be seeking treatment but rather just a payout.

I'm not disagreeing with that, just stating how they define the term.