7 ms·

Weight-loss drugs seem like another bit of sci-fi becoming fact

32 points by danboarder 3y ago

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Paul Ford was super early to call this out with his use of Mounjaro, & to expand the idea a little more too: that sci fi ideas of self modification in general are kind of arriving. And asking how and where that interacts with our idea of what drugs are; things that merely fix defects versus much more open toolkits. https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-mounjaro/ https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-m...
miamibre 3y ago
However it is more akin to the modern dystopian sci-fi than the bubbly and optimistic sci-fi of the 60's. The moment you stop taking the drugs you gain the weight back in pretty much a year unless you made significant lifestyle changes, which most don't because you lose so much weight without doing anything [1] So once you are on the dose you are pretty much hooked for life especially once you are over 60. Gaining 30+ lbs in such a short time is a recipe for a short life. It's always sad seeing people who struggle with weight loss due to hormonal issues but I hope patients due their due diligence before going to a doctor for a quick solution that doesn't solve behavior that leads to obesity. [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9542252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9542252/
nathanyz 3y ago
These GLP-1 drugs are going to have as significant an impact on humanity as antibiotics, and vaccines. History will look back at their invention as one of the key advances in medicine.
- tgv 3y ago
  And once people are addicted, and using it on a large scale, the side effects will turn out to be unpleasant.
- rglullis 3y ago
  With the difference that it wasn't humanity that invented pathogens or viral infections, while the obesity pandemic is arguably a product of industries (Food, Pharma) that profit more from keeping our unhealthy lifestyle than providing a holistic solution. Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not seriously be seen as a good thing.
  - orwin 3y ago
    >> Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not be seriously be seen as a good thing. I don't think it's true. Obesity increase hunger, prevent you to walk and/or exercise for long stretch of time (chaffed thighs, you don't want to experience it), and disturb your sleep which in turn increase your hunger. It's easy to become obese when you're overweight and have bad eating habits, and it's very rare for people like me that were in very good shape at 18 to be clinically obese at 27 (it took a heart issue, then a badly broken ankle (4 years of rehab) to do it). If the drug fix your food issues for 2 years, you're set imho.
  - nathanyz 3y ago
    We did create transmission of diseases across the planet by sending explorers between continents. The same way we enabled COVID spread through international travel. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but yes as humans advance we both improve and worsen things. The hope is for a net positive for the human race, but I'll leave that topic alone as it is its own can of worms. As far as taking them continuously, there are many chronic conditions that people take medication for life to resolve. For example high blood pressure, they put you on medication and its expected you will be on it for life, it isn't always solvable by any other means. Many other examples of chronic conditions which means ongoing medication must be taken. What I think will be interesting is the higher order impacts to the major food companies. If enough people are on medication to disrupt the desire to eat sweets and highly processed foods, the incentive for the food companies is to try to find a way to bypass the effects of the medication.
  - OrwellianChild 3y ago
r00fus 3y ago
Nothing in this article talks about the longer-term efficacy of weight loss drugs for the patients. I've heard some anecdotal evidence that they do work, but with some extremely gross side effects (I wouldn't be surprised if these drugs and the Delta diarrhea plane [1] are related). [1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-diarrhea-biohazard/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-diarrhea-biohazard/i...
moonchrome 3y ago
[flagged]
- kypro 3y ago
  As a European, please stop. I don't know why we have to be so petty towards Americans. There are kinder and more effective ways to make the point you're trying to make. The only thing ironic here is that you probably wrote this from an iPhone.
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    I'm saying that EU is again lagging in providing new effective treatment - just like they were with COVID vaccine because of beurocratic penny pinching. So I'm praising the US fast adoption of an effective treatment.
    - fpgaminer 3y ago
      If I may take a guess, your previous comment may be getting downvoted because people misread it as fat-shaming the U.S. (which is one of the world's leaders when it comes to being overweight). That's definitely how I read it the first time, having forgotten the kerfuffle the EU went through with the COVID vaccine.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    As a Swede: please stop pretending that a European identity is a thing.
    - kypro 3y ago
      Ha. Yes, will do. I always feel weird calling myself "European". I only did that because the parent comment was doing a EU vs US thing. Plus, I'm British and we are probably the least European Europeans.
OrwellianChild 3y ago
GLP-1 receptor agonists are game-changing for weight loss, but there is even broader applicability emerging for _addictions of all kinds_. [1] This is super hopeful both because of the applicability to alcoholism, etc, but also because of how this demonstrates the function of food addiction as a driving factor for weight issues. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(23)00207-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...
HumblyTossed 3y ago
https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/ https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-un... so, what the hell happened in the 80s and 90s that caused such a large jump? what changed? Diet sodas? super size me? what caused this? Can we undo this so that we don't need a magic pill?
- megiddo 3y ago
  Money and economies of scale. Food got cheap, people got rich, and humans are designed to eat whatever they can see. 200,000 years of living feast to famine tells you "if can get calorically dense food, eat as much as you can, you'll need it later", except your lizard brain never gets the "there's no famine later" message because it's dumb.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    Simplified to the point of stupidity. We have been rich for longer than that and wages have stagnated/flatlined compared to wealth creation since about the 80's. And (as sibling comment says) people of more means (say upper-middle class) aren't more obese than poor people. It's more like the opposite. This is just the myth of the pleasure-button rat extrapolated to humans, which has been debunked in any case.
  - philipkglass 3y ago
    Food also got a lot more convenient at the same time it was being optimized toward a "bliss point" that would encourage you to always eat one more bite. Americans in the middle income quintile already had easy access to more calories than they should eat in 1960. But boiling another pot of potatoes wasn't as fast or delicious as microwaving another frozen mini-pizza, so there were fewer temptations to overeat.
  - throwaway1777 3y ago
    Also processed junk food got way more cheap and common and unhealthy right? almost everyone’s brain is wired to love sugar and salt, and we found good ways to hack that.
howmayiannoyyou 3y ago
"Just eat less and exercise" My primary doctor's advice 4 years ago. "You lost the genetic lottery and I'm putting you on Ozempic to address your metabolic disorder" My endocrinologist's response 2 years and 50lbs of weight loss ago. Since then every health marker has improved substantially, and with it clarity of thought and energy. Broad insurance coverage for these medications should be a slam dunk for insurers.
- OrwellianChild 3y ago
  It's hugely encouraging that we're starting to see frontline medical practice step out of the frame of mind that this is a "willpower" issue. If GLP-1 analogs work against both food compulsions and alcohol/drug compulsions [1], this re-contextualizes metabolic disorders as another form of addiction. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097922/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097922/
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    While this is a great first step to get populations help immediately, it creates a chronic need for these drugs. Gene therapy must come next to fix root cause.
    - tomrod 3y ago
      I'm curious what the recurrence rate for weight gain. As well as yo-yo use -- perhaps its cost efficient to prescribe it off and on, as desired.
  - melling 3y ago
    People might want to wait at least a few years before the “large scale study” is completed. Tens of millions of people are about to begin “ most common Ozempic side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and constipation. Serious Ozempic side effects include allergic reactions, changes in vision and pancreatitis. Ozempic has an FDA boxed warning for the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors.”
nocoiner 3y ago
I wasn’t in horrible shape, but my BMI was juuuuuust high enough to get my insurer to cover Ozempic. I’ve dropped 20+ pounds since June, and am now at my ideal weight, or at least quite close to it. Pretty incredible. I hope that everyone soon gets the same access to these drugs that I’ve been able to enjoy. Seems like it would be a real public health revolution.
tekla 3y ago
[flagged]
nwienert 3y ago
I think they are even bigger than you may think. Addictive behavior is dramatically turned down while not affecting normal desires somehow. I've noticed this quite starkly, and my sister as well who tried it (a lifelong nail-biter who's since stopped). It seems to fix my autoimmune condition as well, which is even more crazy. Hand and back pain gone, even the flare ups are largely minimized. Finally, for some reason it fixes my sleep? I was an incredibly light sleeper who couldn't touch coffee because even a morning cup would interrupt my sleep. Now, I can drink coffee until noon and sleep like a baby. Btw tizepatide works way better than semaglutide, in my experience.
- soperj 3y ago
  Why would you start drinking coffee?
  - throwaway1777 3y ago
    Because coffee is awesome if you avoid the negative effects like sleep disruption?
    - soperj 3y ago
      So is meth apparently if you can avoid the negative effects.
      - nwienert 3y ago
        In low doses it is quite useful, as is its cousin amphetamine. Luckily caffeine is even safer, possible net benefit to health, has been in wide use for thousands of years, and smells and tastes amazing.
        soperj 3y ago
        I've heard lots of people who like the smell of coffee, I've never met anyone who's liked the taste of coffee the first time they drank it. There's a reason people put milk and sugar in it.
optimalsolver 3y ago
As someone into heavy women, I'm genuinely concerned about the future. I don't want a skinny-girl dystopia.
- fpgaminer 3y ago
  Perhaps a joke, but it's a legitimate concern of a very complex topic. U.S. society has gone through a golden era of accepting that weight is often outside of people's control. All of us are addicted to something, it's just that people who are overweight were forced to wear their addictions for everyone to see and laugh at. And fact of the matter is, some people would happily choose to be overweight, just like some would choose to be skinny. Not all of our life choices have to be "perfect" (with respect to "ideal" health, which is its own complex set of variables). Just as some people like yourself have a range of desires for their partners. That's all healthy and normal diversity that we should celebrate. But when we live in a world where people can easily choose what weight they want to be, will society revert to ostrasizing those that choose to live outside the "norm"? Or will this soceital shift persist. I certainly hope for the latter, but there is a genuine concern here. Bioshock actually does a good job exploring this dystopia. In that world a chemical know as Adam allows, amongst other things, a whole host of cosmetic surgeries that were not possible before. Now everyone can be "beautiful". Just like these drugs will enable people to be To quote the game: > With genetic modifications, beauty is no longer a goal or even a virtue, it is a moral obligation. Do we force the healthy to live with the contagious? Do we mix the criminal with the law abiding? Then why are the plain allowed to mingle with the fair?!
- networkchad 3y ago
  [dead]
swader999 3y ago
Don't think this would be my first choice: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ozempic-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ozempic-side-effects.html
Hayvok 3y ago
> In the first half of this year, Danish GDP rose at a 1.7 percent annualized rate thanks to the contribution of Novo Nordisk, the drug maker responsible for anti-obesity blockbusters Ozempic and Wegovy. Without soaring production and profits at Novo Nordisk, Danish GDP would have shrunk by 0.3 percent. Incredible. While people are sharing anecdotes, I’ll add mine. My wife went on Wegovy in January — she’s lost over 50 pounds. (Having four kids really does a number on you.) She’s sick less often, she’s stopped complaining about her knees hurting, she’s more active. She looks like a different person! All around, a huge win. I really pray there’s no long-term side-effects lurking for everybody who’s benefiting from these drugs.
Blahah 3y ago
I have a tentative vision of a future where people having access to tools like these breaks the incentive for companies to make people addicts. If drugs free them from the tyranny of companies exploiting biological weaknesses to make people addicted to what they sell, people regain agency in so many aspects of their lives. Food, drink, drugs, media consumption, consumerism. There's a glimpse of a power structure being dismantled, and humanity being able to take a collective deep breath and think about what we actually want.
- zpeti 3y ago
  What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? Everything we do, even artistic expression etc is about gaining status, which is ultimately about reproductive success. If we take away the addictive parts of life, which are actually designed for our survival, maybe all our motivation is gone to do anything? I don’t have any answers, but I feel these types of interventions might have huge unforeseen circumstances. I’m still not sure we’ve processed as a species how to handle contraception. We might be heading to massive population collapse because of it. This might be good or bad, I’m not judging, but it’s a massive change in our fundamental workings as a species.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    > What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? All the billboards say no. So I guess not.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Maybe you should be mindful of the needle in your own eye? From atop your high horse. There are human weaknesses to be sure, but the power structure is money, armies, governments, corporation, not “hacking human weaknesses”—that we are helpless to stop the hacking of our “weakness” is just that propaganda itself toned down by one degree. That all it takes is for someone to inject some extra fat and salt into something and then we are powerless to resist. It IS the case that they are doing this. But they are successful because of the sheer, massive scale of it all. Not because there are pleasure-buttons that they can just boop at will. The perennial myth is this Skinner Box idea. But people don't just fall into that mold if you just give them a cheeseburger. They fall into it when the forces against them are overwhelming. Which is the case for the power structure. (People self-regulate just fine in a healthy environment. They don't have to frickin' throw away all earthly temptation—people naturally have the ability to “delay gratification”. But the environment must be healthy. Thus it is wrong to say that people have “biological weaknesses”—people manifest biological weaknesses in unhealthy environments.) The problem IS the power-structure itself. And as long as they exist they will just morph into something else to exploit us. But technologists are often believers in these one-weird-tricks. But no drug will pull the wool from people's eyes—always “people” by the way, something other—in the sense that the power structure will just disappear with the disinfectant of illumination. Of course these technologists/scientists are often better-off with the usual things that correlate with economic means (not education) like being more healthy. And thus it serves their self-aggrandizement to believe that poorer people can be manipulated by just promising them a slice of pizza—helpless to resist their “biological weakness”.
myth_drannon 3y ago
I'm now reading a book called "Do you believe in magic"/ Paul Offit, it's on topic of alternative medicine. In 70's there was a very popular (and bogus) cancer cure called Laetrile (Hygrogen Cyanide) that was pushed by some doctors and organizations. Horrible stuff that caused more damage than helped but too many people were trying to sell it as a magic cancer cure. Also there were coffee enemas... My point is, if it's sold like a magic cure it potentially might be a bogus one? How many times humanity won the lottery prize and discovered something revolutionary like penecillin?
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Every psychiatric drug I take contributes to weight gain. And my doc gets so disappointed when I refuse/quit a drug because of shitty side effects like that. Now she's all up in my grill about HBP and obesity, well girl, what did you really expect now?
asow92 3y ago
Would love to see a study comparing taking ozempic to a (healthy) ketogenic intermittent fasting diet with no change in exercise.
- OrwellianChild 3y ago
  Not trying to single you out as this has been brought up in multiple comments in-thread, but I think this is apples-to-oranges. Diets work when followed. The problem is that the vast majority of people struggle to adhere to them. This drug aids in reducing the urge to eat, which reduces/eliminates the need for scrutiny over intake. It's "diet autopilot", which is why it's so powerful.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    I don't think bringing up keto is terribly on-topic, but my experience with low-carb wasn't like that at all. Most low-carb isn't about miserly “calorie-counting” and willpower. It's about establishing a routine where you can comfortably just not-eat for those windows, which turned out to be easier for me than to stick to my previous eating schedule but eating (say) 20% less.
    - asow92 3y ago
      Both involve weight loss via reducing insulin response and improving insulin resistance. It’s certainly on-topic.
  - asow92 3y ago
    The ends are the same and the means are different. The metabolic actions between the two are similar. It's not an unfair comparison. One might have adverse longterm side effects and the other might not. This is something further study could help answer.
    - OrwellianChild 3y ago
      I mean that the reason you'd need semaglutide is that you can't keep to a diet. If you could keep to keto IF, you wouldn't need the drug in the first place. It's not option A or option B. It's "if A fails, fall back to B".

32 points by danboarder 3y ago

Paul Ford was super early to call this out with his use of Mounjaro, & to expand the idea a little more too: that sci fi ideas of self modification in general are kind of arriving. And asking how and where that interacts with our idea of what drugs are; things that merely fix defects versus much more open toolkits. https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-mounjaro/ https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-m...

miamibre 3y ago

However it is more akin to the modern dystopian sci-fi than the bubbly and optimistic sci-fi of the 60's. The moment you stop taking the drugs you gain the weight back in pretty much a year unless you made significant lifestyle changes, which most don't because you lose so much weight without doing anything [1] So once you are on the dose you are pretty much hooked for life especially once you are over 60. Gaining 30+ lbs in such a short time is a recipe for a short life. It's always sad seeing people who struggle with weight loss due to hormonal issues but I hope patients due their due diligence before going to a doctor for a quick solution that doesn't solve behavior that leads to obesity. [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9542252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9542252/

nathanyz 3y ago

These GLP-1 drugs are going to have as significant an impact on humanity as antibiotics, and vaccines. History will look back at their invention as one of the key advances in medicine.

tgv 3y ago
And once people are addicted, and using it on a large scale, the side effects will turn out to be unpleasant.
rglullis 3y ago
With the difference that it wasn't humanity that invented pathogens or viral infections, while the obesity pandemic is arguably a product of industries (Food, Pharma) that profit more from keeping our unhealthy lifestyle than providing a holistic solution. Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not seriously be seen as a good thing.
- orwin 3y ago
  >> Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not be seriously be seen as a good thing. I don't think it's true. Obesity increase hunger, prevent you to walk and/or exercise for long stretch of time (chaffed thighs, you don't want to experience it), and disturb your sleep which in turn increase your hunger. It's easy to become obese when you're overweight and have bad eating habits, and it's very rare for people like me that were in very good shape at 18 to be clinically obese at 27 (it took a heart issue, then a badly broken ankle (4 years of rehab) to do it). If the drug fix your food issues for 2 years, you're set imho.
- nathanyz 3y ago
  We did create transmission of diseases across the planet by sending explorers between continents. The same way we enabled COVID spread through international travel. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but yes as humans advance we both improve and worsen things. The hope is for a net positive for the human race, but I'll leave that topic alone as it is its own can of worms. As far as taking them continuously, there are many chronic conditions that people take medication for life to resolve. For example high blood pressure, they put you on medication and its expected you will be on it for life, it isn't always solvable by any other means. Many other examples of chronic conditions which means ongoing medication must be taken. What I think will be interesting is the higher order impacts to the major food companies. If enough people are on medication to disrupt the desire to eat sweets and highly processed foods, the incentive for the food companies is to try to find a way to bypass the effects of the medication.
- OrwellianChild 3y ago

r00fus 3y ago

Nothing in this article talks about the longer-term efficacy of weight loss drugs for the patients. I've heard some anecdotal evidence that they do work, but with some extremely gross side effects (I wouldn't be surprised if these drugs and the Delta diarrhea plane [1] are related). [1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-diarrhea-biohazard/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-diarrhea-biohazard/i...

moonchrome 3y ago

[flagged]

kypro 3y ago
As a European, please stop. I don't know why we have to be so petty towards Americans. There are kinder and more effective ways to make the point you're trying to make. The only thing ironic here is that you probably wrote this from an iPhone.
- moonchrome 3y ago
  I'm saying that EU is again lagging in providing new effective treatment - just like they were with COVID vaccine because of beurocratic penny pinching. So I'm praising the US fast adoption of an effective treatment.
  - fpgaminer 3y ago
    If I may take a guess, your previous comment may be getting downvoted because people misread it as fat-shaming the U.S. (which is one of the world's leaders when it comes to being overweight). That's definitely how I read it the first time, having forgotten the kerfuffle the EU went through with the COVID vaccine.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  As a Swede: please stop pretending that a European identity is a thing.
  - kypro 3y ago
    Ha. Yes, will do. I always feel weird calling myself "European". I only did that because the parent comment was doing a EU vs US thing. Plus, I'm British and we are probably the least European Europeans.

OrwellianChild 3y ago

GLP-1 receptor agonists are game-changing for weight loss, but there is even broader applicability emerging for _addictions of all kinds_. [1] This is super hopeful both because of the applicability to alcoholism, etc, but also because of how this demonstrates the function of food addiction as a driving factor for weight issues. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(23)00207-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...

HumblyTossed 3y ago

https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/ https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-un... so, what the hell happened in the 80s and 90s that caused such a large jump? what changed? Diet sodas? super size me? what caused this? Can we undo this so that we don't need a magic pill?

megiddo 3y ago
Money and economies of scale. Food got cheap, people got rich, and humans are designed to eat whatever they can see. 200,000 years of living feast to famine tells you "if can get calorically dense food, eat as much as you can, you'll need it later", except your lizard brain never gets the "there's no famine later" message because it's dumb.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Simplified to the point of stupidity. We have been rich for longer than that and wages have stagnated/flatlined compared to wealth creation since about the 80's. And (as sibling comment says) people of more means (say upper-middle class) aren't more obese than poor people. It's more like the opposite. This is just the myth of the pleasure-button rat extrapolated to humans, which has been debunked in any case.
- philipkglass 3y ago
  Food also got a lot more convenient at the same time it was being optimized toward a "bliss point" that would encourage you to always eat one more bite. Americans in the middle income quintile already had easy access to more calories than they should eat in 1960. But boiling another pot of potatoes wasn't as fast or delicious as microwaving another frozen mini-pizza, so there were fewer temptations to overeat.
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  Also processed junk food got way more cheap and common and unhealthy right? almost everyone’s brain is wired to love sugar and salt, and we found good ways to hack that.

howmayiannoyyou 3y ago

"Just eat less and exercise" My primary doctor's advice 4 years ago. "You lost the genetic lottery and I'm putting you on Ozempic to address your metabolic disorder" My endocrinologist's response 2 years and 50lbs of weight loss ago. Since then every health marker has improved substantially, and with it clarity of thought and energy. Broad insurance coverage for these medications should be a slam dunk for insurers.

OrwellianChild 3y ago
It's hugely encouraging that we're starting to see frontline medical practice step out of the frame of mind that this is a "willpower" issue. If GLP-1 analogs work against both food compulsions and alcohol/drug compulsions [1], this re-contextualizes metabolic disorders as another form of addiction. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097922/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097922/
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  While this is a great first step to get populations help immediately, it creates a chronic need for these drugs. Gene therapy must come next to fix root cause.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    I'm curious what the recurrence rate for weight gain. As well as yo-yo use -- perhaps its cost efficient to prescribe it off and on, as desired.
- melling 3y ago
  People might want to wait at least a few years before the “large scale study” is completed. Tens of millions of people are about to begin “ most common Ozempic side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and constipation. Serious Ozempic side effects include allergic reactions, changes in vision and pancreatitis. Ozempic has an FDA boxed warning for the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors.”

nocoiner 3y ago

I wasn’t in horrible shape, but my BMI was juuuuuust high enough to get my insurer to cover Ozempic. I’ve dropped 20+ pounds since June, and am now at my ideal weight, or at least quite close to it. Pretty incredible. I hope that everyone soon gets the same access to these drugs that I’ve been able to enjoy. Seems like it would be a real public health revolution.

tekla 3y ago

[flagged]

nwienert 3y ago

I think they are even bigger than you may think. Addictive behavior is dramatically turned down while not affecting normal desires somehow. I've noticed this quite starkly, and my sister as well who tried it (a lifelong nail-biter who's since stopped). It seems to fix my autoimmune condition as well, which is even more crazy. Hand and back pain gone, even the flare ups are largely minimized. Finally, for some reason it fixes my sleep? I was an incredibly light sleeper who couldn't touch coffee because even a morning cup would interrupt my sleep. Now, I can drink coffee until noon and sleep like a baby. Btw tizepatide works way better than semaglutide, in my experience.

soperj 3y ago
Why would you start drinking coffee?
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  Because coffee is awesome if you avoid the negative effects like sleep disruption?
  - soperj 3y ago
    So is meth apparently if you can avoid the negative effects.
    - nwienert 3y ago
      In low doses it is quite useful, as is its cousin amphetamine. Luckily caffeine is even safer, possible net benefit to health, has been in wide use for thousands of years, and smells and tastes amazing.
      - soperj 3y ago
        I've heard lots of people who like the smell of coffee, I've never met anyone who's liked the taste of coffee the first time they drank it. There's a reason people put milk and sugar in it.

optimalsolver 3y ago

As someone into heavy women, I'm genuinely concerned about the future. I don't want a skinny-girl dystopia.

fpgaminer 3y ago
Perhaps a joke, but it's a legitimate concern of a very complex topic. U.S. society has gone through a golden era of accepting that weight is often outside of people's control. All of us are addicted to something, it's just that people who are overweight were forced to wear their addictions for everyone to see and laugh at. And fact of the matter is, some people would happily choose to be overweight, just like some would choose to be skinny. Not all of our life choices have to be "perfect" (with respect to "ideal" health, which is its own complex set of variables). Just as some people like yourself have a range of desires for their partners. That's all healthy and normal diversity that we should celebrate. But when we live in a world where people can easily choose what weight they want to be, will society revert to ostrasizing those that choose to live outside the "norm"? Or will this soceital shift persist. I certainly hope for the latter, but there is a genuine concern here. Bioshock actually does a good job exploring this dystopia. In that world a chemical know as Adam allows, amongst other things, a whole host of cosmetic surgeries that were not possible before. Now everyone can be "beautiful". Just like these drugs will enable people to be To quote the game: > With genetic modifications, beauty is no longer a goal or even a virtue, it is a moral obligation. Do we force the healthy to live with the contagious? Do we mix the criminal with the law abiding? Then why are the plain allowed to mingle with the fair?!
networkchad 3y ago
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swader999 3y ago

Don't think this would be my first choice: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ozempic-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ozempic-side-effects.html

Hayvok 3y ago

> In the first half of this year, Danish GDP rose at a 1.7 percent annualized rate thanks to the contribution of Novo Nordisk, the drug maker responsible for anti-obesity blockbusters Ozempic and Wegovy. Without soaring production and profits at Novo Nordisk, Danish GDP would have shrunk by 0.3 percent. Incredible. While people are sharing anecdotes, I’ll add mine. My wife went on Wegovy in January — she’s lost over 50 pounds. (Having four kids really does a number on you.) She’s sick less often, she’s stopped complaining about her knees hurting, she’s more active. She looks like a different person! All around, a huge win. I really pray there’s no long-term side-effects lurking for everybody who’s benefiting from these drugs.

Blahah 3y ago

I have a tentative vision of a future where people having access to tools like these breaks the incentive for companies to make people addicts. If drugs free them from the tyranny of companies exploiting biological weaknesses to make people addicted to what they sell, people regain agency in so many aspects of their lives. Food, drink, drugs, media consumption, consumerism. There's a glimpse of a power structure being dismantled, and humanity being able to take a collective deep breath and think about what we actually want.

zpeti 3y ago
What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? Everything we do, even artistic expression etc is about gaining status, which is ultimately about reproductive success. If we take away the addictive parts of life, which are actually designed for our survival, maybe all our motivation is gone to do anything? I don’t have any answers, but I feel these types of interventions might have huge unforeseen circumstances. I’m still not sure we’ve processed as a species how to handle contraception. We might be heading to massive population collapse because of it. This might be good or bad, I’m not judging, but it’s a massive change in our fundamental workings as a species.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  > What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? All the billboards say no. So I guess not.
avgcorrection 3y ago
Maybe you should be mindful of the needle in your own eye? From atop your high horse. There are human weaknesses to be sure, but the power structure is money, armies, governments, corporation, not “hacking human weaknesses”—that we are helpless to stop the hacking of our “weakness” is just that propaganda itself toned down by one degree. That all it takes is for someone to inject some extra fat and salt into something and then we are powerless to resist. It IS the case that they are doing this. But they are successful because of the sheer, massive scale of it all. Not because there are pleasure-buttons that they can just boop at will. The perennial myth is this Skinner Box idea. But people don't just fall into that mold if you just give them a cheeseburger. They fall into it when the forces against them are overwhelming. Which is the case for the power structure. (People self-regulate just fine in a healthy environment. They don't have to frickin' throw away all earthly temptation—people naturally have the ability to “delay gratification”. But the environment must be healthy. Thus it is wrong to say that people have “biological weaknesses”—people manifest biological weaknesses in unhealthy environments.) The problem IS the power-structure itself. And as long as they exist they will just morph into something else to exploit us. But technologists are often believers in these one-weird-tricks. But no drug will pull the wool from people's eyes—always “people” by the way, something other—in the sense that the power structure will just disappear with the disinfectant of illumination. Of course these technologists/scientists are often better-off with the usual things that correlate with economic means (not education) like being more healthy. And thus it serves their self-aggrandizement to believe that poorer people can be manipulated by just promising them a slice of pizza—helpless to resist their “biological weakness”.

myth_drannon 3y ago

I'm now reading a book called "Do you believe in magic"/ Paul Offit, it's on topic of alternative medicine. In 70's there was a very popular (and bogus) cancer cure called Laetrile (Hygrogen Cyanide) that was pushed by some doctors and organizations. Horrible stuff that caused more damage than helped but too many people were trying to sell it as a magic cancer cure. Also there were coffee enemas... My point is, if it's sold like a magic cure it potentially might be a bogus one? How many times humanity won the lottery prize and discovered something revolutionary like penecillin?

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

Every psychiatric drug I take contributes to weight gain. And my doc gets so disappointed when I refuse/quit a drug because of shitty side effects like that. Now she's all up in my grill about HBP and obesity, well girl, what did you really expect now?

asow92 3y ago

Would love to see a study comparing taking ozempic to a (healthy) ketogenic intermittent fasting diet with no change in exercise.

OrwellianChild 3y ago
Not trying to single you out as this has been brought up in multiple comments in-thread, but I think this is apples-to-oranges. Diets work when followed. The problem is that the vast majority of people struggle to adhere to them. This drug aids in reducing the urge to eat, which reduces/eliminates the need for scrutiny over intake. It's "diet autopilot", which is why it's so powerful.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  I don't think bringing up keto is terribly on-topic, but my experience with low-carb wasn't like that at all. Most low-carb isn't about miserly “calorie-counting” and willpower. It's about establishing a routine where you can comfortably just not-eat for those windows, which turned out to be easier for me than to stick to my previous eating schedule but eating (say) 20% less.
  - asow92 3y ago
    Both involve weight loss via reducing insulin response and improving insulin resistance. It’s certainly on-topic.
- asow92 3y ago
  The ends are the same and the means are different. The metabolic actions between the two are similar. It's not an unfair comparison. One might have adverse longterm side effects and the other might not. This is something further study could help answer.
  - OrwellianChild 3y ago
    I mean that the reason you'd need semaglutide is that you can't keep to a diet. If you could keep to keto IF, you wouldn't need the drug in the first place. It's not option A or option B. It's "if A fails, fall back to B".