- Marc Andreessen said on a podcast he’d been taking a medication for suppressing appetite.
- Studies have found semaglutide, a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, can help people lose weight.
- “This might finally be the silver bullet for this raging epidemic of metabolic disease,” he said.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Marc Andreessen is trying to eat right in lockdown, just like millions of people around the world. The tech investor says he reads dietary guidance from experts — vegetables, good; vegetable oil, maybe bad — but it’s hard keep up.
“I’m trying to do my best but then I’m hungry all the time. You know, it’s like, f–k. I got to concentrate on my work and I want to spend time with my kids and I don’t want to be hungry all the time,” Andreessen said on a podcast.
Now, the six-foot-five venture capitalist says he’s found a “miracle drug” and he sees it as a cure for the obesity epidemic.
On the “Lindy Talk” podcast in early March, Andreessen told host Paul Skallas that he had been taking a version of semaglutide, a drug used to treat type 2
diabetes
, for about 40 days and that it stopped his hunger pangs.
The drug semaglutide was found in one recent study to help people with obesity lose more weight than any other medicine on the market, although it’s only approved by regulators for use in adults with
type 2 diabetes
.
“I’ve been taking this now for like 40 days, and I gotta tell you, it’s freaking amazing,” Andreessen said on the podcast. “It’s just like absolutely amazing. It just completely changes your relationship with food. You’re just not hungry.”
Andreessen said he’s taking a brand-name version called Rybelsus, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, which was not the brand used in the study. He said he now only gets hungry every six to eight hours and eats about a third of the food he would have eaten before.
“Then you’re full, and you’re just fine. You’re not jumpy. Your sleep isn’t disrupted. You’re not irritable. You’re not even thinking about food,” Andreessen said.
The drug helps curb appetite, but it can have side effects
Semaglutide can be taken orally or by injection, says Novo Nordisk, and it works by increasing the production of insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps regulate blood sugar. Research has shown it also reduces cravings and appetite, helping people lose weight and body fat by eating less.
The most common side effects of the drug are temporary and usually mild cases of nausea and diarrhea. About 75% of people have experienced these symptoms while taking the drug for
weight loss
in studies.
Dr. Scott Butsch, the director of obesity medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, previously told Insider that the side effects of semaglutide are no riskier that those of other medications for chronic illnesses like
hypertension
and
high cholesterol
.
People who stop taking the drug regain weight, studies show
On the podcast, Andreessen did not say if he’s lost weight using semaglutide, and a spokesperson for the firm declined to comment on his use. If he has lost weight, he will probably need to continue taking the drug in order to keep it off.
Research suggests that people can lose a significant amount of weight using semaglutide, in combination with a healthy diet and exercise. But those benefits only last as long as they stay on the medication.
In a recent study of once-a-week injections of semaglutide, patients lost about 10% of their body weight in 20 weeks, on average. They regained nearly all of it once they switched to a placebo. Another group in the study continued taking semaglutide and lost another 8% of their body weight over 48 weeks, a dramatic difference between the groups.
Andreessen: ‘This might finally be the silver bullet’
Paul Sakuma/AP
The prescription medication doesn’t come cheap.
At the time the drug was approved for diabetes treatment, news reports said it cost $772 for a 30-day supply, or about $9,400 a year. The online pharmaceutical database Drugs.com says it currently costs $812 to $862 per 30-day supply.
Because semaglutide is only labeled for use to treat type 2 diabetes, it is not available for the general public wishing to use it as an appetite suppressant.
That may one day change. On the “JAMA Clinical Review” podcast this week, Dr. Tom Wadden, an obesity and weight loss researcher and an investigator on the recent studies of semaglutide, said physicians may someday prescribe semaglutide to their patients before they recommend gastric bypass and other weight-loss surgeries, if the drug becomes more widely available.
Based on his experience, Andreessen said he expects the drug to have “dramatic uptake” when that day comes.
“I mean, we’ll see, it’s early, but this might finally be the silver bullet for this raging epidemic of metabolic disease that’s increasingly taking over our society and our healthcare system,” Andreessen said.
Are you a biohacking insider with insight to share? Contact Melia Russell via email at mrussell@insider.com or on Signal at (603) 913-3085. Open DMs on Twitter @meliarobin.
