Peptide Purgatory: For Your EDification and Enlightenment

Welcome to my latest weekly offering to you, my incretin curious readers, you cynical seekers of truth and real-world experiences with GLP-1 receptor agonists such as Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound. As you might have noted, I changed the title for this series to Peptide Purgatory instead of Mounjaro Update, Week [whichever], because my senior brain needed to strain to remember which week it was. Further, I wanted the title to reflect that the content here goes beyond weekly reportage of an “it’s all about me and my diabetes” ilk. So I transmogrified it into something suitably cryptic.

For the record, I’ve been on Mounjaro, now at the 7.5 mg dose, for over a year, achieving excellent glucose and weight control results with minimal side-effects. The drug kick-started me toward lifestyle changes that are the key to my long-term success, enabling me to reduce my reliance on prescription medications. And at age 78, the long-term isn’t very long, so every second of quality life counts. What matters above all else at this stage of my life are peace of body and peace of mind.

Leave the Cheerleading to the Cheerleaders

I’ll continue to provide helpful tips based on my experience with Mounjaro and I am always happy to respond to questions. However, I’m not here to tell you how great GLP-1 drugs are or brag about how my wife and I have lost a fully-loaded container cargo ship’s worth of blubber due to their reliance on wonderful, life-changing compounded tirzepatide, like some YouTubers and Instagrammers out there. We’ll leave the cheerleading to the cheerleaders. I maintain that those people are addicts, now slaves to Big Pharma and Little Pharma, the compounder/telehealth axis. They parrot the mantra that obesity is a chronic relapsing disease, a line concocted by Big Pharma during a late-night marketing session in a smoke-filled room. I tell it like it is: you’re fat because your diet is loaded with crap, you eat too much of it, and you don’t get enough exercise. Screw the drugs: use them only when absolutely necessary; otherwise, eat healthy and go to the gym!

Although I’ll lighten up on my personal updates, which are becoming increasingly boring, I’ll continue to bring you interesting news and comment about GLP-1 receptor agonists. Big Pharma and their doctor friends continue to find novel uses for these drugs in their ongoing quest to find new avenues on which to ply their wares. Clearly, creating a world on the hook is their utimate goal. And with half the population fattened up and pre-diabetic or full-blown diabetic, who can blame them for chasing that low-hanging fruit for fun and profit? Scientific literature is peppered with studies confirming that tirzepatide and the like can cure just about anything that ails us. However, here we look at these wonder drugs with a jaundiced eye, extolling their virtues while decrying their abuse as we see it.

Getting Off… (the Drug, I Mean)

Additionally, Peptide Purgatory expresses my desire to discontinue Mounjaro before year-end. While the drug has helped me get closer to my blood glucose and weight goals, I hope to be able to break the mold by getting off and staying off—without the well-documented rebound in both areas. I believe that my lifestyle adaptations are the key to getting off the weekly injection and staying off it. Thus, I’m still in Peptide Purgatory for now, paying my penance, anxiously waiting to see what is on the other side.

This week’s feature story is right up Big Pharma’s alley—the expansion of GLP-1 RAs into the collective corpora cavernosa of one of their other popular cash cows: erectile dysfunction. Little Pharma’s compounding pharmacies and the tele-health facilities that love them are champing at the bit waiting to rake in the profits portended by a recent finding I’ll present below.

The Curious Case of the Geriatric Testosterone Surge (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the GLP-1)

Let’s get one thing straight: Last February, I wasn’t expecting to walk out of the lab with the testosterone level of a 30-year-old MMA fighter. But when the phlebotomy dust settled, there it was: 745 ng/dL. Not bad for a 78-year-old diabetic who lifts weights, counts macros, and has a long-standing monogamous relationship with Mounjaro.

Naturally, I assumed the lab had misrouted my blood sample—maybe to some juiced-up bro on TRT. But lo and behold, along comes a Healio article suggesting that GLP-1 receptor agonists may actually increase testosterone levels and improve erectile function in men with Type 2 diabetes. That’s right. Not only do these peptides shrink your waistline and mop up your HbA1c, but they might also be polishing your prostate trophy while you sleep.

In Naples, Where Men Are Men…

According to researchers from the University of Naples, men on GLP-1 RAs saw significant increases in total and free testosterone and, more importantly to some, had improved erectile function scores. The mechanisms? Improved insulin sensitivity, weight loss, reduced inflammation, and possibly even a whisper from the endocrine gods. Or as I prefer to call it: the Holy Incretin Trinity of Boner Restoration.

So now it makes sense. I wasn’t imagining things. My testosterone didn’t just survive a year of weight loss, calorie restriction, and endocrine meddling—it flourished. Maybe those twice-weekly deadlifts did their part, but I suspect Mounjaro has been pulling some strings behind the curtain.

Now here’s the fun part.

You just know that the compounding telehealth cowboys are going to milk this like an underdosed alpaca. Picture it:

“Introducing ZepBoner™, the only compounded tirzepatide plus sildenafil troche formulated for morning wood and metabolic harmony.”

What’s Next?

Next up? A half-baked startup promising bioidentical incretin-mimetic hormone replacement therapy (™ pending), administered by a nurse practitioner in scrubs made entirely of affiliate links. They’ll call it something aspirational and vaguely European—like “EndoÉlan”—and pitch it as a subscription-based path to virility, vitality, and vaguely improved venous compliance.

And God help us all, it will probably work.

So here I am: a septuagenarian who no longer needs metformin, uses half the losartan, weighs 75 pounds less, and has the testosterone of a porn star from the 1990s. If that’s not an endorsement of Mounjaro’s extra-credit endocrine effects, I don’t know what is.

But rest assured: I will not be launching a supplement line. I’m already pumping iron. That’s enough pumping for me.

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Sidebar: How GLP-1 RAs May Rescue Testosterone and Erectile Function

Emerging data suggest that GLP-1 receptor agonists like tirzepatide and semaglutide can improve erectile function and boost testosterone levels in men with Type 2 diabetes. The mechanisms appear to be multifactorial:

1. Improved Insulin Sensitivity

Hyperinsulinemia suppresses the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis. By reducing insulin resistance, GLP-1 RAs allow the pituitary to restore luteinizing hormone (LH) signaling, which in turn stimulates testosterone production in Leydig cells.

2. Weight Loss = Hormonal Rebalancing

Adipose tissue—especially visceral fat—is an endocrine disrupter. It increases aromatase activity, converting testosterone into estradiol and creating a negative feedback loop. GLP-1–induced weight loss reduces this estrogenic drag, boosting free and total testosterone.

3. Reduction in Systemic Inflammation

Chronic low-grade inflammation impairs both testosterone synthesis and nitric oxide–mediated vasodilation (crucial for erections). GLP-1 RAs reduce inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-alpha, which may restore endothelial and testicular function alike.

4. Enhanced Endothelial Function

GLP-1 receptors are expressed on endothelial cells. Their activation improves nitric oxide bioavailability, critical for achieving and maintaining erections—especially in diabetics with vascular impairment.

5. Direct Testicular Effects?

Some preclinical studies suggest that GLP-1 receptors are present in testicular tissue, implying a possible direct stimulatory role. This remains speculative but intriguing.

In short: GLP-1s don’t just fix blood sugar. They also repair the hormonal and vascular machinery underpinning male sexual function—without the need for a little blue pill (or a second mortgage).

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My Week on Mounjaro

On Monday, I concluded six weeks of twice-weekly physical therapy for my sore left knee with a final evaluation from Cruella, the therapist. She noted some improvement; I didn’t. I have a follow-up with the sports med doc on Friday to discuss other non-surgical, non-corticosteroid interventions, if any exist. I believe I’m dealing with chronic tendonitis in that knee. The right knee is bone-on-bone, a likely knee replacement candidate at some future juncture. However, it is not the painful one at the moment, and the older I get, the more concerned I am about negative sequels to invasive surgery. Old age is a juggling act, to be sure.

My numbers for the week were flat. No sense boring you with the same numbers week after week. If anything significant happens, you’ll be the first to know.

Conclusion: The Purgatory Continues

So, what have we learned this week, my fellow peptide pilgrims?

That Mounjaro might secretly double as a hormone whisperer. That Big Pharma never met a revenue stream it couldn’t convert into a deluge. That compounding pharmacies will gleefully mash up molecules, slap on a catchy label like “ZepBoner™,” and sell it to you in a bubble mailer marked “discreet.” And that even as I inch closer to my goal of getting off the drug, its aftershocks are still reshaping my labwork, my outlook—and now, apparently, my endocrine swagger.

But Peptide Purgatory isn’t over just yet. I’m still walking the line—between pharmacological freedom and the siren song of the syringe. Stay tuned. This ain’t your average before-and-after story. It’s the long middle part that nobody Instagrams.

See you next week—same compound time, same compound channel.

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For an annotated catalog of all my Mounjaro updates, please visit my Mounjaro Update Catalog page.