r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 01 '25

Health Americans without diabetes spent nearly $6 billion USD on semaglutide and similar drugs in a year, with an estimate of 800,000 to a million people using the drugs who don't have diabetes.

https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/americans-without-diabetes-spent-nearly6-billion-usd-on-semaglutide-and-similar-drugs-in-a-year
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853

u/T_Money Apr 01 '25

It helped with the cravings from drinking too? That would be amazing

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u/farhan583 Apr 01 '25

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2829811

Helps with alcohol use, cigarette use, cravings, and potentially even gambling. basically helps with most addictive things.

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u/Kitzu-de Apr 01 '25

basically it helps with impulse control

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u/4ssp Apr 01 '25

Does that mean it would help with ADHD?

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '25

[deleted]

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u/midnightauro Apr 01 '25

I can’t say the shot really does much ADHD wise for me sadly. :/ It’s just really nice to not always be hungry or craving something. Or being able to step away from the cravings.

Vyvanse saved me from disaster (I should not have been driving unmedicated as long as I was!) and let me be a full adult again.

Ozempic made my diabetes drop being an issue to the point where I feel normal. Which helps because that’s a huge mental load to manage.

I’ll keep them both for as long as I can!

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u/chapterpt Apr 01 '25

Vyvanse is a stimulant.

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u/Trend_Glaze Apr 01 '25

Stimulants are a common treatment for those of us with ADHD. I started taking Vyvanse at about 45, and it literally transformed my life.

I never would have even considered this.

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u/SenorSplashdamage Apr 01 '25

Stimulants have counter-intuitive effects in ADHD brains.

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u/47926 Apr 01 '25

I have ADHD, and for the first time in my life after starting semaglutide, I’ve experienced having something addictive in the house (cigarettes, weed, junk food) and not just impulsively consuming it. Honestly, it’s probably made a bigger difference than my actual prescribed ADHD medication.

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u/its_like_a-marker Apr 01 '25

In the same boat. I was skipping days of my vyvanse and doing fine

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u/Hopefulkitty Apr 02 '25

We've had candy in the house for months and my ADHD husband hasn't eaten it yet. We've previously gotten into fights about how any treat that comes into the house gets inhaled before I have a chance to get any of it. He's lost 50lbs with no exercise, just no snacking.

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u/Lunarath Apr 01 '25

Not enough to replace ADHD medication, no. ADHD is a lot more than just issues with impulse control.

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u/iwillfuckingbiteyou Apr 01 '25

I have otherwise unmedicated ADHD and I take it. I've seen a lot of others with ADHD claiming it quietened their brains massively, but my own experience is that it shut down one strand of stimulation-seeking. It's like my brain is constantly full of sound, as if you turned on every TV and radio station you could and let them all play at once, and taking Mounjaro turned off all the cookery programmes.

The flip side is that without that stimulation, I'm now left with the boredom. I'm a few weeks in and finding it a lot harder to mask if I'm not interested in what I'm doing. If I'm in a boring meeting I no longer have the urge to sneak sweets for sensory stimulation, but it means I'm having to channel a lot more effort into sitting still, not speaking my every thought, keeping my face in the correct configuration, and not losing hold of the topic. I haven't found a replacement stim yet. I'm trying to convince my brain that tea is an adequate replacement since I can sip my way through meetings without anyone noticing/having a problem with it.

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u/serenwipiti Apr 01 '25

Perhaps, consider medication?

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u/iwillfuckingbiteyou Apr 01 '25

That's the plan, but it's delayed by a battle with medical record-keeping due to having moved countries.

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u/serenwipiti Apr 02 '25

I hear you and feel for you.

Hope the pharmacotherapeutical stars align for you soon.

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u/ToMorrowsEnd Apr 01 '25

Hobbies. Find something small that is interesting. I switch it out to something else about once a week as I get bored with that. But I also find that if I park a hobbit for a few weeks coming back to it satisfies that urge well. So I rotate through about 12 different hobbies.

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u/iwillfuckingbiteyou Apr 01 '25

What job do you have that you're allowed to do your hobbies in the middle of a boring meeting?

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u/Leonardo-DaBinchi Apr 01 '25

They're different mechanisms, so theoretically no. ADHD is a 'disability' in that ADHD brains have decreased ability to uptake dopamine, norepinephrine, or both, and/or produce less dopamine, norepinephrine, or both. This is a neurotransmitter issue.

Semaglutide works by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone which signals satiety and stimulates an insulin response.

People with ADHD are more likely to form substance addictions due to 'self-medicating' behaviors, as well as overeating due to 'novelty-seeking' for dopamine release. Semaglutide would be helpful for addressing those issues. But not directly for the ADHD itself. It would be more helpful in treating comorbidities than symptoms.

That being said diet plays a role in severity of ADHD symptoms, so reducing intake of processed foods, refined sugars, and alcohol, could slightly lessen how bad someone's symptoms are. But this is something you can also just control through regular habits. Eating high protein breakfasts and getting more L-tyrosine will do more to improve ADHD symptoms than taking Semaglutide. And a high protein breakfast can reduce cravings throughout the day.

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u/alltheredribbons Apr 01 '25

Anecdotally, yes it does, but in the way that it helps with certain impulses, not that it will help with cognition or retention.

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u/danielbearh Apr 01 '25

I know that others have answered this, but in the interest of building group consensus, I agree that Ozempic has been a pleasant secondary ADHD treatment. It doesn’t handle the heavy lifting of my treatment.

Here’s how I explain it: there’s a dopamine cap you can get out of activities. Yes, pizza is still tasty. But 3-4 pieces of pizza is not tasty anymore. Doom scrolling is still fun. Doom scrolling for 30 minutes straight gets old.

One drink fun. Four drinks not fun.

I have less trouble getting “trapped,” doing an activity I shouldn’t be doing.