6 ms·

I think Ozempic is a treatment of a symptom but not the underlying condition, but unlike many of the posters here, I do not think the underlying condition is "o

I think Ozempic is a treatment of a symptom but not the underlying condition, but unlike many of the posters here, I do not think the underlying condition is "obesity". The below is mostly speculation. Research especially into people with healthy body weight seems to indicate that there is something going on that is causing widespread obesity. That is, there's some sort of environmental "GLP-1 Turbocharger". Maybe it relates to processed food, maybe it relates to microplastic contamination, maybe it's in the cheese, maybe it's an innocuous viral agent, maybe it's gut biome, maybe it's ADHD drugs, maybe it's SSRIs. I suspect that Ozempic is helping us get back to a baseline level of exposure by counteracting this. And in the future if we're lucky we'll figure out what it is and try to correct it at the source.

jncfhnb 2y ago
You think ozempic is counteracting this mystery force and it is mere unrelated coincidence that it results in eating substantially less?
- andrewla 2y ago
  Yes? A lizard whose bite makes its prey eat less is crazy but it exists. A lizard whose bite makes its prey eat more is also crazy, but maybe it exists? The first lizard is literal, the second lizard is a stand-in for whatever mystery force I am postulating the existence of. When you look at the historic literature on diet and nutrition from the first half of the century it's like looking into another universe. People are obsessed with getting people to eat more to prevent malnutrition even when food is freely available. Something changed.
  - squidgedcricket 2y ago
    The food changed substantially. Lot's of other stuff changed too, but we're talking about the transition from malnutrition to obesity over a few generations and the make up of what we ingest strongly impacts that. Mass production and consumerism of food created perverse incentives that resulted in drastic changes to diets - different macronutrient profiles, new ingredients (emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners), and new manufacturing byproducts (residual solvents, pfas, plastic). You can still opt-out of mass produced food and move to the bush to live a subsistence life, and you'll still be ingesting plastic and pfas. Part of the reason this is so hard to grapple with is that (in the USA) almost no one alive was an adult before the food industry industrialized. I'm 40 and my parents and grandparents rode the initial waves of processed garbage.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    I feel it’s still not clear if you understand that ozempic causes weight loss because it causes reduced eating or if you believe ozempic causing less eating is incidental to the weight loss
    - andrewla 2y ago
      So yes, it "causes reduced eating". That's a hell of a crazy thing though. Someone joked on twitter that you can save a lot of money if you just eat the same amount of food that you would eat if you were on ozempic, because you'd see the same weight loss. My only point is that it is not absurd to think that just as ozempic causes you to eat less, it is not ridiculous to speculate that other agents that can cause you to eat more.
supportengineer 2y ago
We all know the problem: processed food and lack of exercise. We all know the solution: Organic vegetables, lean protein, and lots of exercise.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  Just reducing the vast intake of refined sugar in the US would help a lot.
- andrewla 2y ago
  Maybe? I don't think we all know this. And some research, especially into people with unusual metabolism (but not necessarily known metabolic disorders) indicates that even with these restrictions, they need to operate at a significant calorie deficit simply to maintain a healthy weight. [1] It might be that they are already exposed to enough processed food and pesticides that simply getting those things out of their diet is not sufficient, but I think it's clear that there's more going on here than a simple answer. And, I think, most damningly, there are many people who maintain a healthy weight with no active efforts to maintain that weight, including a lack of exercise and consumption of processed food. It might be that a significant fraction of people are resistant to this effect or might just not enjoy the taste of processed food so naturally gain the benefits of avoidance. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/
- crazygringo 2y ago
  We really don't all know these. There isn't anything even remotely close to a scientific consensus on any of those. There are plenty of scientists who tell you to stop exercising when you want to lose weight, because the exercise leads you to eat more than you would otherwise, and is ultimately self-defeating -- to focus entirely on eating less, and then only add exercise back in once you've reached you target weight. And "processed food" is a highly non-scientific category that is way, way too disparate to be useful at all. Organic vegetables might be nice, but there's zero evidence that organic vegetables are better at weight loss than non-organic. Also zero evidence regarding lean protein as opposed to fatty -- there's a big argument that fatty meat is better for weight loss, because the fat satiates so you wind up eating less calories overall.
kfinley 2y ago
I couldn't agree more. Out of curiosity, last year, I purchased some test strips to test my drinking water. The strips showed typical contaminates: arsenic, lead, copper etc. they all registered in the "acceptable range". In the test, there was a test strip for QUATs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium_cation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium_cation), which caught my attention. It wasn't something that I would have thought to test for, but my water tested positive. I was curious, so I started testing other local water sources including bottled water from various brands; to my surprise they all tested positive for QUATs. The only local water I could find that didn't contain QUATs was distilled. I thought maybe it was just in my area, so I started taking the test strips with me when I traveled. In the last year, I've tested the drinking water in multiple states and countries, and only one source has tested negative for QUATs. It was the water from a drinking fountain in the San Francisco Airport, interesting enough. My suspicion is that QUATs are often flushed down the drain, and the molecules must be too small to be filtered out in the water treatment process. I haven't found much research on the impact of QUATs on the human body, but I can help but think our mitochondria would be susceptible to damage.
avelis 2y ago
I could suppose it's some of all of this. But my money is on UPF. The author of Ultra Processed People has an identical twin in NJ while he lives in the UK and their weights are vastly different.
__turbobrew__ 2y ago
My bet is pollutants in the water. The further up the waterstream (and higher elevation) the thinner on average people get.
grecy 2y ago
You are doing an awful lot of mental gymnastics in search of a boogeyman that does not exist. How mammals ingest, process, store and burn energy has been well understood for a very long time. You know why some domestic dogs and cats are overweight? Is it ADHD or microplastics? Of course not, it’s because they’ve been eating more energy thaN they have been burning for a while. Ozempic only stops you wanting to eat more, which perfectly proves the point. The boogeyman you are searching for is eating more energy than you burn.
- cubefox 2y ago
  Obviously he suspects environmental contaminants mess up hormons such that we get more hungry than we are supposed to.

jncfhnb 2y ago

You think ozempic is counteracting this mystery force and it is mere unrelated coincidence that it results in eating substantially less?

andrewla 2y ago
Yes? A lizard whose bite makes its prey eat less is crazy but it exists. A lizard whose bite makes its prey eat more is also crazy, but maybe it exists? The first lizard is literal, the second lizard is a stand-in for whatever mystery force I am postulating the existence of. When you look at the historic literature on diet and nutrition from the first half of the century it's like looking into another universe. People are obsessed with getting people to eat more to prevent malnutrition even when food is freely available. Something changed.
- squidgedcricket 2y ago
  The food changed substantially. Lot's of other stuff changed too, but we're talking about the transition from malnutrition to obesity over a few generations and the make up of what we ingest strongly impacts that. Mass production and consumerism of food created perverse incentives that resulted in drastic changes to diets - different macronutrient profiles, new ingredients (emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners), and new manufacturing byproducts (residual solvents, pfas, plastic). You can still opt-out of mass produced food and move to the bush to live a subsistence life, and you'll still be ingesting plastic and pfas. Part of the reason this is so hard to grapple with is that (in the USA) almost no one alive was an adult before the food industry industrialized. I'm 40 and my parents and grandparents rode the initial waves of processed garbage.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  I feel it’s still not clear if you understand that ozempic causes weight loss because it causes reduced eating or if you believe ozempic causing less eating is incidental to the weight loss
  - andrewla 2y ago
    So yes, it "causes reduced eating". That's a hell of a crazy thing though. Someone joked on twitter that you can save a lot of money if you just eat the same amount of food that you would eat if you were on ozempic, because you'd see the same weight loss. My only point is that it is not absurd to think that just as ozempic causes you to eat less, it is not ridiculous to speculate that other agents that can cause you to eat more.

supportengineer 2y ago

We all know the problem: processed food and lack of exercise. We all know the solution: Organic vegetables, lean protein, and lots of exercise.

ninalanyon 2y ago
Just reducing the vast intake of refined sugar in the US would help a lot.
andrewla 2y ago
Maybe? I don't think we all know this. And some research, especially into people with unusual metabolism (but not necessarily known metabolic disorders) indicates that even with these restrictions, they need to operate at a significant calorie deficit simply to maintain a healthy weight. [1] It might be that they are already exposed to enough processed food and pesticides that simply getting those things out of their diet is not sufficient, but I think it's clear that there's more going on here than a simple answer. And, I think, most damningly, there are many people who maintain a healthy weight with no active efforts to maintain that weight, including a lack of exercise and consumption of processed food. It might be that a significant fraction of people are resistant to this effect or might just not enjoy the taste of processed food so naturally gain the benefits of avoidance. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/
crazygringo 2y ago
We really don't all know these. There isn't anything even remotely close to a scientific consensus on any of those. There are plenty of scientists who tell you to stop exercising when you want to lose weight, because the exercise leads you to eat more than you would otherwise, and is ultimately self-defeating -- to focus entirely on eating less, and then only add exercise back in once you've reached you target weight. And "processed food" is a highly non-scientific category that is way, way too disparate to be useful at all. Organic vegetables might be nice, but there's zero evidence that organic vegetables are better at weight loss than non-organic. Also zero evidence regarding lean protein as opposed to fatty -- there's a big argument that fatty meat is better for weight loss, because the fat satiates so you wind up eating less calories overall.

kfinley 2y ago

I couldn't agree more. Out of curiosity, last year, I purchased some test strips to test my drinking water. The strips showed typical contaminates: arsenic, lead, copper etc. they all registered in the "acceptable range". In the test, there was a test strip for QUATs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium_cation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium_cation), which caught my attention. It wasn't something that I would have thought to test for, but my water tested positive. I was curious, so I started testing other local water sources including bottled water from various brands; to my surprise they all tested positive for QUATs. The only local water I could find that didn't contain QUATs was distilled. I thought maybe it was just in my area, so I started taking the test strips with me when I traveled. In the last year, I've tested the drinking water in multiple states and countries, and only one source has tested negative for QUATs. It was the water from a drinking fountain in the San Francisco Airport, interesting enough. My suspicion is that QUATs are often flushed down the drain, and the molecules must be too small to be filtered out in the water treatment process. I haven't found much research on the impact of QUATs on the human body, but I can help but think our mitochondria would be susceptible to damage.

avelis 2y ago

I could suppose it's some of all of this. But my money is on UPF. The author of Ultra Processed People has an identical twin in NJ while he lives in the UK and their weights are vastly different.

__turbobrew__ 2y ago

My bet is pollutants in the water. The further up the waterstream (and higher elevation) the thinner on average people get.

grecy 2y ago

You are doing an awful lot of mental gymnastics in search of a boogeyman that does not exist. How mammals ingest, process, store and burn energy has been well understood for a very long time. You know why some domestic dogs and cats are overweight? Is it ADHD or microplastics? Of course not, it’s because they’ve been eating more energy thaN they have been burning for a while. Ozempic only stops you wanting to eat more, which perfectly proves the point. The boogeyman you are searching for is eating more energy than you burn.

cubefox 2y ago
Obviously he suspects environmental contaminants mess up hormons such that we get more hungry than we are supposed to.