Some people are hitting a weight loss plateau with GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic, so they’re turning to a stronger variety that promises even more dramatic weight loss — up to more than 70 pounds in some instances, The Atlantic reports.
There’s a small wrinkle: the US Food and Drug Administration has yet to officially approve this medication — technically called retatrutide but cheekily nicknamed a “GLP-3” by users — because it’s still in clinical trials. So the market for it is black, or at least severely grey, with shady overseas companies exploiting a legal loophole to get around regulatory barriers.
In other words, everyone taking retatrutide is basically taking part in an unregulated experiment that could have disastrous results. Sure, you can effortlessly melt off the pounds with the synthetic peptide, but some users have reported disturbing side effects — such as dysesthesia, when your body processes normal sensations but you perceive them as painful, similar to the nerve pain diabetics feel in their feet.
In the grand scheme of things, “GLP-3” users are part of a burgeoning group of people who have turned to foreign-made drugs, many other peptides that are also lacking federal approval. These substances, often manufactured in China, have become wildly popular in recent years for their purported anti-aging and longevity boosting potential, among other miraculous claims.
Companies that sell these drugs are able to skirt federal regulations by writing all over their website that the compounds are not for human consumption and are instead meant for research lab purposes — advice that users are pretty clearly not following.
“All of this stuff just scares the crap out of me,” Randy Seeley, a University of Michigan medical professor and GLP-1 agonist expert, told The Atlantic in reference to the unknown side effects of gray market drugs.
One danger with these drugs, Seeley said, is that their formulations aren’t known and they have the potential to be contaminated with bacteria and other substances. (To allay those concerns, some companies post lab results attesting to the purity of their products.)
Of course, everybody thinks their dealer is an exception.
“There’s a lot of people who just get these things and shoot them,” Marco, a retatrutide user who has bought the drug from what he considers trusted sources, told The Atlantic. “I don’t judge them in any way, but I think those people are out of their minds.”
Injecting GLP-1 agonist drugs into the human body boosts the levels of hormones GLP-1 and GIP, which trigger the release of insulin into your bloodstream. Retatrutide does that and more: it mimics another hormone, glucagon, found in the pancreas. This addition further revs up people’s metabolism, making them lose more weight compared to Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonist drugs.
Once clinical trials are done, FDA is expected to approve retatrutide, which will no doubt be a bestseller and make its manufacturer, Eli Lilly, even wealthier.
But even if it’s given the green light, it’s not a guarantee that the demand in the gray market will dissipate, especially if normies find the price too weighty to bear.
More on weight loss drugs: Low Doses of Ozempic-Like Drug Can Counteract Aging in Older Mice, Study Finds