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You can't stop the muscle loss. The drug doesn't actually do anything except that it makes you starve yourself. The people are losing muscle because they're sta

You can't stop the muscle loss. The drug doesn't actually do anything except that it makes you starve yourself. The people are losing muscle because they're starving.

cyanydeez 3y ago
dont think you understand how technological progress work. We don't ask "should this tech even exist", we ask, "what tech can we figure out that offsets the bad things from this"
- two_handfuls 3y ago
  This is very true in my experience. Including in cases where taking a step back would be the better choice.
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  No I mean more like this doesn't seem to work as well as you expected. It only sort of masks one of the symptoms. We absolutely should ask if the advantages outweigh the drawbacks, and only use it in cases where it does. Not every new thing is good, in fact most new things are crap. New only seemed to equal better when people were more careful and only adopted the new things that were better. It isn't given in any way. You do need that bit of neophobia to get real progress instead of confused wandering around.
adrian_b 3y ago
Then someone must teach those people that for weight loss only the intake of carbohydrates and that of non-essential fats must be reduced, while the intake of proteins and essential fats must remain the same. The daily intake of proteins must never be less than 60 g to 100 g, depending on body size. Even the older recommended in USA daily intakes of proteins of less than 1 g per kg of body weight have been discredited as too low, especially for elderly people, and now better recommendations are between 1 and 1.5 g of proteins per kg of body weight and per day (towards the upper limit if the proteins are of vegetable origin, when a lower fraction is digested). Even when you are not hungry or you follow a weight loss diet, you must still take care to eat the minimum necessary to keep you healthy.
- postalrat 3y ago
  Are you saying as long as you eat the same amount of protein you won't lose muscle no matter how many calories you eat?
  - adrian_b 3y ago
    If you eat much less calories than necessary, e.g. 1000 kcal/day or even less, you will also lose muscle mass. However, if you do not eat enough proteins, you will lose muscular mass and the albumin amount in blood will diminish, regardless how many kcal are provided by your food. So for preserving muscular mass, both enough proteins and a minimum intake of kcal per day, which varies between people, but it is typically somewhere between 1500 and 2000 kcal/day, are required. Nevertheless, usually only the amount of proteins requires special care, because it is extremely easy to eat enough kcal per day when you eat enough proteins. Normally a great effort is required to diminish the amount of kcal of the food that contains enough proteins, especially if it is of vegetable origin or of dairy origin. The only natural source of proteins without extra kcal is lean meat, like turkey breast or chicken breast or cod fillet. Fat meat, most dairy and raw vegetables have a kcal content that is usually more than double of what corresponds to their protein content. For example, when the easy method of eating lean meat is excluded, enough proteins for a male of average size could be provided by eating 500 g of wheat flour and 167 g of lentils per day. That alone would provide 2235 kcal/day, which is too much for someone with a sedentary life. Preserving the amount of proteins and also allowing the eating of other food besides that, without using industrial methods of protein extraction that are expensive and require energy and chemicals, could be achieved by making dough from the flour and washing it to remove most of the starch. This example is meant to show that unless you eat only turkey breast or the like, as long as you eat enough proteins you normally have no need to worry about eating enough kcal.
  - icegreentea2 3y ago
    No. Enough protein intake is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue (and all other tissue). The amount that it rebuilds is effected by many things like protein availability, and (basically) how much you have been using the muscle. This is why staying active is important. In addition, since your body has a limit of how quickly it can metabolize fat, even if you had sufficient protein intake and sufficient activity to signal to your body to retain muscle mass, if your caloric deficit is large enough, your body may still be forced to burn protein (ie directly or indirectly reduce muscle mass) to stay alive. These are factors that you can usually manage around with some careful, but relatively straight forward planning. EDIT: Note that the 'careful but straight forward planning' is basically exactly the same planning for "a diet". Traditionally, you'd see diets aim for no more than a 300-500kcal deficit for this exact reason. It's not just a question of keeping the food reduction minimal to help your brain stick to the plan, but also as your calorie deficit becomes larger, it becomes much more difficult to fit in all of your proteins (amongst other things).
nathanyz 3y ago
It helps you eat at a caloric deficit. I wouldn't say that is starving yourself. It is basically the same mechanism for how any weight loss would work. Less calories consumed versus burned on a daily basis. There are additional mechanisms that are still being studied, but at minimum it is helping people to eat at a level that supports weight loss.
thriftwy 3y ago
Once being skinny becomes a sign of drug ingestion rather than fitness, its desirability would vanish fast. People will choowe whatever form they are comfortable with.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Isn't this already the case with nicotine and cocaine?
- stavros 3y ago
  Nobody likes skinny people because they're fit. People like skinny people because it's rare, because food is so abundant. 200 years ago, it was beautiful to be fat, because everyone was skinny (because poverty). Being skinny because of drugs will still be desirable, because only rich people can afford these drugs right now. Once we see generics, maybe that will change.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
This is a ridiculously pessimistic take. I'd hardly say that a drug which is used by obese people which lowers their appetite to more normal levels "makes you starve yourself". I've yet to see any reports of people on Ozempic et al who lost so much weight that they died. Usually it's more like they went from obese to "just overweight". They are losing muscle because whenever someone loses overall body weight there is less mass to carry, so their muscle adjusts accordingly. Similarly, if you put on a fat suit that added 50 pounds to your frame and walked everywhere in it you'd quickly gain muscle.
- aszantu 3y ago
  it's true though, younger folks need like 1 gram/kg of weight in protein daily or so. When you're female and over 40 that goes up to 1.6 grams up to 2.0 grams/kg. If you think you can get that from lentils, you might wanna look into bio-availability. AND if you have any problems with absorbing nutrients in your gut, you are probably not getting enough of everything, no matter how healthy you eat. Protein needs https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/current-dietary-guidelines https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/diet... bio-availability https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Literally nothing you have written is evidence for the idea, which I was challenging, that Ozempic-like drugs "make you starve yourself". Most of the people, currently anyway, who are prescribed these drugs are morbidly obese. There are an entire host of well-known, evidence-supported extremely negative consequences from being obese. So why are you talking about, basically, "eating too many lentils??" in the scope of this conversation? We weren't exactly talking about ensuring vegans get enough nutrients.
    - aszantu 3y ago
      I probably mixed something up in the structure of the thread, sorry I threw it at you
jupp0r 3y ago
Weight loss is not starving yourself, it's a great improvement for lots of western adults health if done responsibly.

You can't stop the muscle loss. The drug doesn't actually do anything except that it makes you starve yourself. The people are losing muscle because they're starving.

cyanydeez 3y ago

dont think you understand how technological progress work. We don't ask "should this tech even exist", we ask, "what tech can we figure out that offsets the bad things from this"

two_handfuls 3y ago
This is very true in my experience. Including in cases where taking a step back would be the better choice.
Anotheroneagain 3y ago
No I mean more like this doesn't seem to work as well as you expected. It only sort of masks one of the symptoms. We absolutely should ask if the advantages outweigh the drawbacks, and only use it in cases where it does. Not every new thing is good, in fact most new things are crap. New only seemed to equal better when people were more careful and only adopted the new things that were better. It isn't given in any way. You do need that bit of neophobia to get real progress instead of confused wandering around.

adrian_b 3y ago

Then someone must teach those people that for weight loss only the intake of carbohydrates and that of non-essential fats must be reduced, while the intake of proteins and essential fats must remain the same. The daily intake of proteins must never be less than 60 g to 100 g, depending on body size. Even the older recommended in USA daily intakes of proteins of less than 1 g per kg of body weight have been discredited as too low, especially for elderly people, and now better recommendations are between 1 and 1.5 g of proteins per kg of body weight and per day (towards the upper limit if the proteins are of vegetable origin, when a lower fraction is digested). Even when you are not hungry or you follow a weight loss diet, you must still take care to eat the minimum necessary to keep you healthy.

postalrat 3y ago
Are you saying as long as you eat the same amount of protein you won't lose muscle no matter how many calories you eat?
- adrian_b 3y ago
  If you eat much less calories than necessary, e.g. 1000 kcal/day or even less, you will also lose muscle mass. However, if you do not eat enough proteins, you will lose muscular mass and the albumin amount in blood will diminish, regardless how many kcal are provided by your food. So for preserving muscular mass, both enough proteins and a minimum intake of kcal per day, which varies between people, but it is typically somewhere between 1500 and 2000 kcal/day, are required. Nevertheless, usually only the amount of proteins requires special care, because it is extremely easy to eat enough kcal per day when you eat enough proteins. Normally a great effort is required to diminish the amount of kcal of the food that contains enough proteins, especially if it is of vegetable origin or of dairy origin. The only natural source of proteins without extra kcal is lean meat, like turkey breast or chicken breast or cod fillet. Fat meat, most dairy and raw vegetables have a kcal content that is usually more than double of what corresponds to their protein content. For example, when the easy method of eating lean meat is excluded, enough proteins for a male of average size could be provided by eating 500 g of wheat flour and 167 g of lentils per day. That alone would provide 2235 kcal/day, which is too much for someone with a sedentary life. Preserving the amount of proteins and also allowing the eating of other food besides that, without using industrial methods of protein extraction that are expensive and require energy and chemicals, could be achieved by making dough from the flour and washing it to remove most of the starch. This example is meant to show that unless you eat only turkey breast or the like, as long as you eat enough proteins you normally have no need to worry about eating enough kcal.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  No. Enough protein intake is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue (and all other tissue). The amount that it rebuilds is effected by many things like protein availability, and (basically) how much you have been using the muscle. This is why staying active is important. In addition, since your body has a limit of how quickly it can metabolize fat, even if you had sufficient protein intake and sufficient activity to signal to your body to retain muscle mass, if your caloric deficit is large enough, your body may still be forced to burn protein (ie directly or indirectly reduce muscle mass) to stay alive. These are factors that you can usually manage around with some careful, but relatively straight forward planning. EDIT: Note that the 'careful but straight forward planning' is basically exactly the same planning for "a diet". Traditionally, you'd see diets aim for no more than a 300-500kcal deficit for this exact reason. It's not just a question of keeping the food reduction minimal to help your brain stick to the plan, but also as your calorie deficit becomes larger, it becomes much more difficult to fit in all of your proteins (amongst other things).

nathanyz 3y ago

It helps you eat at a caloric deficit. I wouldn't say that is starving yourself. It is basically the same mechanism for how any weight loss would work. Less calories consumed versus burned on a daily basis. There are additional mechanisms that are still being studied, but at minimum it is helping people to eat at a level that supports weight loss.

thriftwy 3y ago

Once being skinny becomes a sign of drug ingestion rather than fitness, its desirability would vanish fast. People will choowe whatever form they are comfortable with.

smileysteve 3y ago
Isn't this already the case with nicotine and cocaine?
stavros 3y ago
Nobody likes skinny people because they're fit. People like skinny people because it's rare, because food is so abundant. 200 years ago, it was beautiful to be fat, because everyone was skinny (because poverty). Being skinny because of drugs will still be desirable, because only rich people can afford these drugs right now. Once we see generics, maybe that will change.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

This is a ridiculously pessimistic take. I'd hardly say that a drug which is used by obese people which lowers their appetite to more normal levels "makes you starve yourself". I've yet to see any reports of people on Ozempic et al who lost so much weight that they died. Usually it's more like they went from obese to "just overweight". They are losing muscle because whenever someone loses overall body weight there is less mass to carry, so their muscle adjusts accordingly. Similarly, if you put on a fat suit that added 50 pounds to your frame and walked everywhere in it you'd quickly gain muscle.

aszantu 3y ago
it's true though, younger folks need like 1 gram/kg of weight in protein daily or so. When you're female and over 40 that goes up to 1.6 grams up to 2.0 grams/kg. If you think you can get that from lentils, you might wanna look into bio-availability. AND if you have any problems with absorbing nutrients in your gut, you are probably not getting enough of everything, no matter how healthy you eat. Protein needs https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/current-dietary-guidelines https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/diet... bio-availability https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Literally nothing you have written is evidence for the idea, which I was challenging, that Ozempic-like drugs "make you starve yourself". Most of the people, currently anyway, who are prescribed these drugs are morbidly obese. There are an entire host of well-known, evidence-supported extremely negative consequences from being obese. So why are you talking about, basically, "eating too many lentils??" in the scope of this conversation? We weren't exactly talking about ensuring vegans get enough nutrients.
  - aszantu 3y ago
    I probably mixed something up in the structure of the thread, sorry I threw it at you

jupp0r 3y ago

Weight loss is not starving yourself, it's a great improvement for lots of western adults health if done responsibly.