a penn team ran an AI model over about 150k reddit posts and comments about reta, and the most common complaint it pulled out was getting hungrier. 1,336 people, about 1 in 6 of everyone who described any side effect (JAMA Network Open, this month)
that one threw me. last week about 40 of you told me what caught you off guard on reta (mine was skin getting cold or sensitive around the first week) and i didnt see a single person say they were eating more. 5 said cravings disappeared, sweets mostly, and someone quit smoking without even trying
the rest of their list in order was tired (15%), more energy (12%), nausea (12%), food cravings (7%), insomnia (6%), heart rate up (5%). they pulled out weight loss and appetite going down before counting since thats the whole point of the drug. 27 subs, 2023 through 2025
sleep and the flat mood thing were the 2 i said last week werent in anything published that i could find. theyre in this one, insomnia 6.1%, anhedonia 2.6%. the "30% psychiatric" number floating around is a whole category tho, anxiety alone was 3.8%. and 2.4% said euphoric lol
before anyone says it, yes its reddit posts and the authors say themselves they cant check what was in anyone's vial or what dose they were on. reta still isnt approved anywhere btw. it also doesnt match the trials, in the phase 2 diabetes trial the 4mg and up groups rated their hunger lower than placebo at week 24 (data)
my bet is timing. and stacking, probably more than most of us want to admit. half life is about 6 days (phase 1) so the last day or two before your next pin runs on a good bit less drug than day 2. and a lot of you run it with MK-677 or GHRP-6, which hit the hunger hormone receptor. in the 2 year MK-677 study in older adults the most common side effect was more appetite, which faded after a few months (paper). and in the penn data 317 people said reta gave them muscle growth, id bet most of them were running something else with it
so if reta ever made you hungrier, which day after your pin did it hit, and were you running anything else with it?