While cocaine was once the drug of choice, bankers are now reportedly turning to the ADHD medication for work days that can last as long as 22 hours, along with nicotine patches and energy drinks. 90-hour-a-week Wall Street bankers snorting lines of Adderall at their desks – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/15/90-hour-a-week-wall-street-bankers-snorting-adderall-desks/
It never ceases to amaze this Old Underwriter how people manage to find creative ways to kill themselves.
Caroline Apovian, MD, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston.
“Doctors who are obesity medicine specialists like myself in academic centers do not prescribe compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide,” she said.
Many of the compounded prescriptions, she said, come from telehealth virtual–only companies interested in profits.
GLP-1 Prescribing Decisions: Compounded or Brand-Name? – Medscape – November 14, 2024 – https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/glp-1-prescribing-decisions-compounded-or-brand-name-2024a1000krd?
To be clear, all of my GLP-1 posts are not anti-pharma. If you can afford these medications and they work for you on your weight loss journey that’s great. Just be aware of the possible side effects and the fact these medications are for life. You will regain all that you’ve lost if you stop taking the drug.
Here’s the link to Complications? What Complications? (just another GLP-1 receptor agonist post)
More good news since I posted Mind The Gaps.
On November 5, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated the labels for all glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA) with a warning about pulmonary aspiration during general anesthesia or deep sedation. The affected drugs are semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy); liraglutide (Saxenda, Victoza); and the dual glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP)/GLP-1 tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound). FDA Updates GLP-1 Label With Pulmonary Aspiration Warning – Medscape – November 06, 2024. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/fda-updates-glp-1-label-pulmonary-aspiration-warning-2024a1000k84?src=rss
Interesting potential side effect. This is from the FDA on regulated GLP-1 RA drugs. But since I know a lot of you out there are using the compounded version…
Death is also a potential side effect of the FDA regulated version.
Susan McGowan, 58, took two low-dose injections of tirzepatide, known under the brand name Mounjaro, over the course of about two weeks before her death on 4 September.Her death certificate, seen by the BBC, lists multiple organ failure, septic shock and pancreatitis as the immediate cause of death – but “the use of prescribed tirzepatide” is also recorded as a contributing factor…There have been 23 suspected deaths linked to semaglutide in the UK via the yellow card scheme since 2019. Nurse’s death linked to approved weight-loss drug – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6jg6nw2zeo?
Yikes.
Telehealth company Cerebral has agreed to pay a fine of more than $3.6 million for allegedly attempting to boost prescriptions of Adderall and other controlled substances, the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration said Monday.
Regulators allege Cerebral’s initial visit metric didn’t consider medical literature or whether prescriptions would be clinically appropriate for patients. The company also used financial incentives to spur providers to meet prescribing metrics — and even considered disciplinary measures for those who hadn’t prescribed enough stimulants for ADHD patients, according to a press release.
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/cerebral-controlled-substance-prescribing-fine-doj-dea/732108/
This company agreed to a fine it was unable to pay so the regulators deferred payment.
Huh?
The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use any drugs made by a compounding pharmacy in California after regulators realized the pharmacy was making drugs that need to be sterile—particularly injectable drugs—without using sterile ingredients or any sterilization steps.
The products made by the pharmacy, Fullerton Wellness LLC, in Ontario, California, include semaglutide, which is intended to mimic brand-name weight-loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. Fullerton also made tirzepatide, which is intended to mimic weight-loss and diabetes drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro. Drugmaker shut down after black schmutz found in injectable weight-loss drug — https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/11/drugmaker-shut-down-after-black-schmutz-found-in-injectable-weight-loss-drug/
I’ve read the FDA advisory. The FDA warns patients and health care professionals not to use compounded drugs from Fullerton Wellness — https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-warns-patients-and-health-care-professionals-not-use-compounded-drugs-fullerton-wellness
Yikes.
New cultivation methods are making psychedelic mushrooms stronger, and fiendishly potent varieties are kicking in faster and lasting longer—even if you eat only a fraction of what you would with another variety. Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Getting Much, Much Stronger – https://www.wired.com/story/breeding-stronger-magic-mushrooms/
Have a nice trip. When you see God tell her I said hello.
The adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to cannabis, especially today’s higher-potency products, which put teens at risk for impaired brain development; mental health issues, including psychosis; and cannabis use disorder (CUD). That was the message delivered by Yasmin Hurd, PhD, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai in New York, during a May 6 press briefing at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) 2024 annual meeting.
“We’re actually in historic times in that we now have highly concentrated, highly potent cannabis products that are administered in various routes,” Hurd told reporters. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentrations in cannabis products have increased over the years, from around 2%-4% to 15%-24% now, Hurd noted. High-Potency Cannabis Tied to Impaired Brain Development, Psychosis, CUD – Medscape – May 13, 2024. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/high-potency-cannabis-tied-impaired-brain-development-2024a1000935
Earlier posts on this topic:
Marijuana is Too Strong (THC turbocharged)
Cannabis Use and Psychosis Risk
This was a retrospective longitudinal cohort study of adults aged 60 years and older.
An increase in polypharmacy severity was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of all-cause hospitalization within 1 year, but not a hospitalization related to IBD. Use of a PIM (potentially inappropriate medication) was also associated with a higher probability of all-cause hospitalization compared with patients without. Hospitalization Risk in Older Adults With IBD Associated With Severe Polypharmacyhttps://www.gastroenterologyadvisor.com/news/hospitalization-risk-in-older-adults-with-ibd-associated-with-severe-polypharmacy/
For some, it can be dangerous. In the past few years, reports have swelled of people, especially teens, experiencing short- and long-term “marijuana-induced psychosis,” with consequences including hospitalizations for chronic vomiting and auditory hallucinations of talking birds. Multiple studies have drawn a link between heavy use of high-potency marijuana, in particular, and the development of psychological disorders, including schizophrenia, although a causal connection hasn’t been proved. “It’s entirely possible that this new kind of cannabis—very strong, used in these very intensive patterns—could do permanent brain damage to teenagers because that’s when the brain is developing a lot,” Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and a former drug-policy adviser to the Obama administration, told me. Humphreys stressed that the share of people who have isolated psychotic episodes on weed will be “much larger” than the number of people who end up permanently altered. But even a temporary bout of psychosis is pretty bad. Marijuana Is Too Strong Now – https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/high-potency-marijuana-regulation/679639/
Professor Emmerson says Queensland’s Metro North Health — Australia’s largest public health service, based in north Brisbane and the surrounding region — is seeing increased presentations of psychosis due to medicinal cannabis.”The Metro North early psychosis service reports 10 per cent of their new presentations — so these are kids aged 16 to 21 — are people who’ve ended up on medicinal cannabis and are becoming psychotic,” the Brisbane-based psychiatrist says.
Doctors warn of significant increase in people hospitalized with psychosis after being prescribed medicinal cannabis — https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-21/medicinal-cannabis-psychosis-harm-risk-prescription-marijuana/104116952
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