When Nell Jensen, a 41-year-old customer service worker from Brighton, turned to Wegovy in 2023, she expected a breakthrough.. Instead, she lost less than 11 pounds in five months and regained it all after stopping the medication. Two years later, a psychologist diagnosed her with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — a condition experts say drives compulsive 'dopamine snacking' that weight-loss drugs alone cannot fix, as the report details.

The £160-per-month Wegovy experiment that ended with less than 11 pounds lost

Jensen paid roughly £160 per month for the weight-loss injection, a significant outlay for a customer service worker.. But after five months, the results were minimal. according to the source article, her weight returned to its peak soon after she stopped taking Wegovy. The case illustrates what many clinicians are beginning to recognize: that semaglutide drugs like Wegovy may not address the underlying neurochemistry of compulsive eating in patients with ADHD.

'Dopamine snacking' and the 3 million undiagnosed women in the UK

ADHD affects about 3 million people in the UK, and many women go undiagnosed until their 40s, the report notes. This late diagnosis can mean years of misattributed symptoms — including binge eating. Jensen described her behavior as 'dopamine snacking,' driven by low levels of the neurotransmitter in ADHD brains. Experts cited in the source explain that individuals with ADHD often turn to food for a quick mood boost,creating a cycle that standard appetite suppressants cannot break. The broader context here is a growing recognition that obesity may be a symptom of untreated neurodevelopmental conditions, not simply a failure of will or diet.

Why bupropion, not semaglutide, became the solution

After her ADHD diagnosis, Jensen's psychologist prescribed bupropion, a dopamine-boosting medication. Within weeks, her snacking decreased and she improved her diet, leading to sustainable weight loss. The source article frames this as a case study in treating the root cause rather than the symptom. However,important questions remain unanswered. One is whether bupropion would be effective for all ADHD patients struggling with weight, or if results are highly individual. Another is the relative lack of large-scale studies comparing ADHD treatment to weight-loss drugs like semaglutide . As the report notes, this single anecdote does not constitute clinical evidence — but it does highlight a blind spot in standard obesity care.