When Byetta Fails

John Dodson is the poster boy for the Byetta revolution. The New York Times featured and photographed him in perhaps the most influential article ever about Byetta, Alex Berenson’s “A Ray of Hope for Diabetics,” in its March 2 issue.

That article reported that John had then lost almost 60 pounds since starting Byetta in June 2005. By the end of June 2006 he had lost 88 pounds.

Then in the middle of August, Byetta stopped working for weight loss. John was sure that his blood glucose would rise, but it didn’t. His A1C remained at 6.0 and his twice daily blood glucose tests ran then, as they do now, between 73 and 110.

But John’s appetite came roaring back. His weight returned with it. In the next three months he gained back 15 pounds.

“I couldn’t stop grazing,” John recalls. “One night I ate a whole quart of ice cream.”

Desperate, John tried everything that he and his endocrinologist could think of – Hoodia, Phentermine, and “even a couple of those preparations “guaranteed to help you lose weight” that they sell in health stores.

“I was getting depressed and couldn’t believe what was happening,” he recalls. “I was less effective and feeling pretty much a failure. There was nothing I did that was successful. I didn’t have any will power in the face of my enemy – my appetite.”

He stopped tracking his weight regularly. “I never get on the scales when I’m not losing weight,” John told me. “That is an unwritten law when you are gaining. We are great deniers – at least I am.”

Finally, on October 8, John says that he decided he “had to do something or die.”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” I asked him. “No, that’s how I felt,” John replied. “I’m dead if I go back to where I was, and I would not make it. I am still scared to death I am going to lose it all. Constant vigilance!”

Eventually, John figured out the way to get back on the weight loss track. Take more Byetta.

How did you think of that? I asked him. “It was because of a statement that Dr. Joe made,” John told me, “even though I didn’t realize the importance of it at the time.”

“Dr. Joe” is what we call Dr. J. Joseph Prendergast, a leading endocrinologist who directs the Endocrine Metabolic Medical Center in Redwood City, California. Early this year I reviewed his book, The Uncommon Doctor: Dr. Joe’s Rx for Managing Your Health on my website.

“Dr. Joe said that the best way to lose weight is to repeat the method that you were successful with before,” John continued. “As I drove back home from my appointment with him, I thought more about what he had said. The only thing that has ever been successful for me was Byetta. So, I should look to Byetta for the answer. And that’s when I decided to increase the Byetta dosage to four times a day.”

For a week John took two shots of 10 mcg of Byetta in the morning and two more shots at night. It was too much. At the end of the week he got violently ill.