Adam Katz seemed to be in the best possible health.
In order to attain what he referred to as “optimal human performance,” 25-year-old Katz, a fitness influencer and content creator with over 100,000 followers, tracked his macros, worked out in the gym for many hours every day, and even used steroids.
He was actually headed toward becoming a professional bodybuilder, thus his hospital stay was rather unexpected.
In order to prepare for a bodybuilding competition, Katz injected himself with retatrutide, a non-FDA-approved weight loss medication known as the “Godzilla” of weight loss injections, which resulted in necrotising pancreatitis.
Katz told the Daily Mail, “I started with retatrutide to help control my hunger. [It was said to be] this new fantastic drug that can speed up fat loss and decrease hunger, so [I thought], if I’m going to start a cut, I should start with retatrutide.”
In April 2025, Katz started taking it in preparation for his August competition. He was exercising and maintaining a calorie deficit by eating only clean meals.
“I continued losing body fat, getting leaner,” Katz said. He began by taking one milligram twice a week, then increased to one milligram three times a week, and finally one milligram every other day.
After using a weight-loss medication that wasn’t FDA-approved, Adam Katz’s aspirations to become a top body builder were halted. He was observed using the medication.
After injecting himself with retatrutide to get ready for a bodybuilding competition, he was shocked to find himself in the ICU with necrotising pancreatitis.
Retatrutide is a triple-agonist that targets three important hormones in the body: glucagon, GIP, and GLP-1. It also increases metabolism and suppresses appetite. In contrast, the well-known weight-loss medication Mounjaro solely targets the hormones GIP and GLP-1.
Dr. Stephanie Redmond, PharmD, CDCES, BC-ADM, told the Daily Mail that “glucagon appears to have introduced a novel weight loss mechanism in that it [speeds up] metabolism – which pairs nicely with a reduction in appetite from the other hormone targets.”
Compared to Mounjaro, which reduces body weight by 15 to 20 percent over 72 weeks, the medication helped patients lose up to 28.7 percent of their body weight after 68 weeks in clinical studies.
The medicine has been all the rage in Hollywood because of how quickly it may cause weight loss. Influencer Clavicular, comedian Becky Robinson, and Bunnie XO have all admitted to taking it.
Additionally, Katz acknowledged that he continued taking retatrutide to maintain his physique and stop his hunger from spiking, even though he first took it for his bodybuilding competition.
For roughly two months following the competition, Katz says, “I was making great progress, controlling appetite, you know, the best I could.”
Katz began using retatrutide in order to get ready for a bodybuilding competition.
In April 2025, Katz started taking it to get ready for his August competition. He was exercising and maintaining a calorie deficit by eating only clean meals. He is seen taking the medicine before (left) and after (right).
But things started to change when he started to “eat his feelings” due to a number of personal difficulties.Due to his hectic social life, he was also indulging in restaurant meals at the same time.
He claimed that he soon experienced serious stomach problems, such as diarrhoea, bloating, and constipation.
Doctors suspected small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a disease frequently linked to GLP-1s, following a visit to the gastroenterologist in October.
But when he started experiencing excruciating abdominal discomfort, things only got worse. His symptoms worsened to the point where he was writhing in agony and had trouble sleeping.
I would essentially have to get up every night between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. He remarked, “I had to go lay in an Epsom salt bath to fall asleep because I couldn’t lay down or it would hurt.”
His mother persuaded him to seek medical assistance at the hospital one evening in December, which ultimately saved his life.
Following testing, medical professionals identified subacute necrotising pancreatitis, a serious and sometimes fatal condition in which a portion of the pancreas dies.
According to their website, it is an uncommon but recognised side effect of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic.
In addition to causing serious infections, pancreatitis can cause internal bleeding, organ failure, and long-term damage that impairs a patient’s ability to properly digest food.
He began taking one milligram twice a week, then increased to one milligram three times a week, and finally to one milligram every other day. He is seen taking the medicine before (left) and after (right).
However, he soon started having serious digestive problems, such as diarrhoea, bloating, and constipation.
After spending four days in the hospital, Katz was given very tight orders to consume a diet high in carbohydrates and low in protein. “I didn’t think the doctor was going to say pancreatitis when he walked back in and told me what my diagnosis was.” “It was insane to imagine [necrotising tissue] inside my body, on my pancreas,” Katz remarked. “That wasn’t even on my mind.”
He was still in discomfort after being discharged from the hospital, and just a month later, after an exceptionally active day in which he walked 12,000 steps while in Downtown Disney in Florida, his ailment flared up again, sending him back to the emergency room.
Later, doctors informed him that although the hazardous necrotising phase had passed, the pancreatitis was still present.
Before being discharged, he spent four more days in the hospital. In the meantime, he had to put in a lot of effort to regain the muscle he had lost. Gradually, he was able to raise his protein intake without experiencing stomach discomfort and do a moderate workout without experiencing pancreatic pain.
“”I can have a nice meal at a restaurant and not worry… if I went [to eat] back in October, November, anytime I had anything from restaurant, I would have pain that night,” Katz stated. “Since the middle of February up until now, I’ve been able to progress back up into the gym and start training hard again and eating like normal again.”
According to Jillian Kavanagh, MSN, RN, CNP of Aviva Wellness & Aesthetics in Massachusetts, all of these risks are associated with using medications that have not received FDA clearance.
worst constipation, thirst, pancreatitis, and gastroparesis—a disorder that delays or even partially paralyses the stomach—are among the worst side effects they might cause.
Kavanagh told the Daily Mail, “The consumer is at higher risk not being under the care of a licensed clinician.”
The drug “cannot be considered safe” because it has not yet received FDA approval, Kavanagh continued.
Following testing, medical professionals discovered that he had subacute necrotising pancreatitis, a serious and potentially fatal condition in which a portion of the pancreas dies.
He had to put in a lot of effort to regain the muscle he had lost during his recuperation. Gradually, he was able to raise his protein intake without experiencing stomach discomfort and do a moderate workout without experiencing pancreatic pain.
According to Kavanagh, “I would get stuff from very trustworthy sources that do their testing and show their testing for each batch, so I knew what I had was real and dosed properly,” despite the fact that it cannot be legally prescribed by doctors or sold for use.
You might be surprised to learn how frequent it is. After obtaining retatrutide from a “reputable wellness center” in Nashville, Tennessee, Bunnie Xo, the wife of well-known singer Jelly Roll, cautioned against using illegal substances.
In a January 2026 episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast, the 46-year-old, whose actual name is Alyssa DeFord, talked candidly about the terrifying experience. She told the audience that the drug made her feel ill, unhappy, and “emotionless.”
In the January 11 episode, she said, “I literally got sent into the worst suicidal depression that I’ve had since 2020.”
Kavanagh claims that some individuals are even using social media to market this unlicensed peptide.
“In addition to being illegal, this is extremely dangerous because there is no way of knowing what someone is injecting,” Kavanagh stated. “There are even some TikTok with account names that include “doctor” or “nurse” that are selling this product.”
Lilly, a pharmaceutical business, also strongly advised against buying the peptide.
“Retatrutide is an investigational molecule that Lilly is studying for the treatment of obesity; it is in phase three clinical trials and is not available to patients outside of these trials,” a spokesman told the Daily Mail in September.
“Any product that misrepresents itself as an unapproved Lilly investigational product may expose patients to potentially serious health risks.”
Fortunately, Katz’s pancreatitis has fully recovered, and recent CT scans revealed no evidence of inflammation.
He emphasised to the Daily Mail that unlicensed retatrutide is unquestionably not “harmless,” even though he wouldn’t advise anyone not to take it.
“It’s not a perfect miracle drug,” Katz said. “I don’t think a perfect miracle drug will ever exist.”
