Participants who took a placebo saw their A1C drop by 0.45 percent.
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“The drug treats the disease that drives the diabetes and the diabetes itself,” Dr. Srivastava says.
People Are Buying Bootleg Retatrutide Online, But Experts Say ‘Don’t Do It’
The buzz around retatrutide has contributed to a thriving gray market serving people looking for serious weight loss who aren’t interested in waiting for the FDA to approve the drug. They are going online to buy medications marketed as reta from websites hawking bootleg versions labeled “for research purposes.”
This has led to concerns in the medical community. “The clinical trial results are really promising, so I completely understand why people are interested, but what’s being sold online isn’t necessarily the same product that’s being studied in clinical trials,” says Christine Bonarrigo, PharmD, a weight management pharmacist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “There’s a big difference between participating in a clinical trial and buying an unregulated vial off the internet.”
“Don’t do it,” Srivastava says. “Anything sold online right now is not a regulated pharmaceutical product.” As a result, she points out that there’s no way to know what’s actually in the vial, whether the dosing on the label is accurate, and even if the product is sterile.
“This is also a potent drug with real side effects, including drops in blood pressure, that should be monitored by a clinician,” Srivastava says.
FDA-approved, effective obesity medications are available — Srivastava recommends speaking to your healthcare provider about those “instead of taking a gamble with your health.”
Who Might Benefit Most From Retatrutide
Retatrutide may provide the most benefit to a particular subset of people.
“If it’s approved, I expect it to be especially valuable for people with obesity who need substantial weight loss to improve serious complications, like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, or joint disease, and for people who haven’t responded well enough to current medications,” Srivastava says.
The medication may also be helpful for people who aren’t candidates for bariatric surgery or who prefer a drug treatment to surgery, Dr. Bonarrigo says. “Retatrutide appears to push the field closer to achieving those larger, clinically meaningful weight loss targets with medication alone,” she says.
Larger, sustained weight loss efforts above losing 10 percent of body weight are often what lead to diabetes remission and meaningful improvements in blood pressure, liver health, and mobility, Srivastava says.
But she stresses that not everyone needs the most powerful drug. “Obesity treatment should be individualized, and having more tools lets us match the medication to the patient,” she says.
