Continuous Metabolic Monitoring- How To Boost The Efficacy of Mounjaro

Mounjaro (tirzepatide) is the newest injectable medication for treating type II diabetes mellitus and the first and only dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist. GluCare was the first facility outside the United States to receive this as recognition of its clinical outcomes in diabetes and obesity. It is not used in people with type 1 diabetes, and the safety and effectiveness of the medication for children under 18 years of age is not approved. Generally, it is only intended for adults with a body mass index greater than 27.

It is prescribed as an adjunct to diet and exercise, so the maximum benefit of this medication is achieved through a combined intervention of care team engagement, diet and lifestyle adjustments.

At GluCare, we use Mounjaro alongside CMM (Continuous metabolic monitoring), whereby your care team manages you at all times and not episodically. For other similar medications, this approach has shown vastly superior outcomes in the use of these medications vs traditional care settings. This article will give you a deeper insight into the role of diet and exercise in boosting the efficacy of Mounjaro and how to follow them.

How Does It Work?

The medication is delivered in once-weekly subcutaneous injections, and the recommended starting dosage of Mounjaro is 2.5 mg. After four weeks, the dose can be increased by 2.5 mg as required, up to a maximum of 15 mg once weekly. However, the doses are set and monitored by your doctor and are adjusted to help you meet your blood sugar and other metabolic health goals. Under GluCare’s model, we remain continuously engaged with you throughout this period, and our approach allows for titrations to happen in real time, which has proven to be superior in comparison to episodic usual care practiced by most healthcare providers.

Mounjaro is injected under the skin of your stomach (abdomen), thigh, or upper arm. You should not mix insulin and Mounjaro in the same injection. However, you can inject Mounjaro and insulin in the same body region, like the stomach area, but not right next to each other. Your care team will guide you on this.

Dietary Intervention

Mounjaro has no known food-medication interactions, so there are no foods you need to avoid. However, focusing on the quality of food you take and ensuring your body is enriched with the building blocks it needs from what you eat to keep you in balance and control can boost the efficacy of the medication.

Instead of cutting down on calories or restricting your diet, its best to rebalance your diet by:

• Limiting disease-promoting foods like sugar, fast-digesting carbs, and processed foods
• Avoiding fried, greasy, or fatty foods.
• Adding more quality and health-promoting foods—especially those high in protein, fiber, or healthy fats
• Developing an overall healthy relationship with food
• Eating slowly, and smaller meals
• Eating foods that are light and bland, especially at night.

Many of our patients at GluCare use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) in conjunction with Mounjaro to allow for CMM (Continuous Metabolic Monitoring) to be practiced by the care team and allows us to deliver actionable insights continuously, which might include titrating medications, and/or eliminating certain food choices in near real-time. A GluCare dietician is always part of your care team and remains engaged with you via our app.

Making these changes to what you eat doesn’t have to happen immediately or all at once. You can always start small by replacing unhealthy or sugary food with healthy and fresh alternatives. Your GluCare team will provide this feedback to you continuously as you use the food log function on our app. For example, we might ask you to substitute white bread with whole-grain or multi-seed bread and sugary cereals with breakfast smoothies or overnight oats to help improve your glycemic curve from your CGM data This cause and effect approach when used in conjunction with Mounjaro, has been proven to be hugely effective in controlling blood glucose.

The Role Of Exercise

Remember that Mounjaro works best when you can commit to making small but meaningful changes to your life, which includes following an active routine.

The reason exercise affects how well the medication works is easy to understand. Diabetes is a medical condition where glucose, the primary sugar in your blood and the main fuel source for your body, doesn’t break down.

When you exercise or even engage in activities like breathing and talking, these cells start producing energy by breaking down glucose in cellular respiration. This allows you to use more glucose, preventing it from entering your bloodstream before being used as fuel. When there is less glucose in the blood, your body will be able to use insulin effectively – enough to regulate the blood sugar levels.

Following an active lifestyle improves how your body uses insulin and also can reverse the condition in some cases. Reversing the effects of insulin resistance can improve your heart health as well.

The exact type of exercises and the intensity they should be performed vary according to individual profiles and factors like age, gender, and other health conditions you may experience. This is why it is important for healthcare providers to track activity; however, most do not. Every patient at GluCare is offered a commercially available wearable as part of their journey with us.

Unlike traditional providers, the GluCare team tracks activity as part of its Continuous Metabolic Monitoring. We monitor a large amount of additional digital biomarkers that allow us to essentially turbocharge the results of Mounjaro, allowing patients to get better results in less time.