4 ms·

You've got a crowd of people raised in a Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering, you've got people who feel this is a cheat where disc

You've got a crowd of people raised in a Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering, you've got people who feel this is a cheat where discipline should win out, and you have a bunch of people who are used to all easy solutions coming with either a bad lottery ticket or externalities on other people/the environment. They can all agree that they're waiting for the other shoe to drop. That said, we are at a point where people are overweight enough that getting exercise has its own risks, and taking a medication that allows you to be more active is likely to cancel out some of those downsides. As long as you do both I have no problem with people taking ozempic, mounjaro, etc. I would prefer if we figured out what other than cultural changes is making everyone have symptoms of inflammatory dysfunctions. There is more than one thing going on. Processed foods, contamination, some microbe that doesn't culture in agar. And it's spreading to more of the world.

rglover 1y ago
> That said, we are at a point where people are overweight enough that getting exercise has its own risks, and taking a medication that allows you to be more active is likely to cancel out some of those downsides. And yet we rarely ask or say "maybe I should just eat fewer calories?" Unless you have some other disorder that prevents normal bodily function, that does work (and would be viable I'd imagine for the majority of people being prescribed). But it requires patience and discipline which are basically non-existent for the majority of the population.
- eclipxe 1y ago
  You think that is rarely asked?
  - rglover 1y ago
    In an honest way? Absolutely. Most people suffer from severe self-delusion to avoid the mental pain of coming face to face with their shortcomings.
- gtr 1y ago
  As someone who has been fat and not-fat throughout my life, I think literally everyone knows that it is simple to lose weight by eating fewer calories. That does not mean it is easy. If you are already fat, which can happen almost without you noticing by eating 200-300 calories too much a day over a year say, or as a result of some brain malfunction (both have happened to me), then eating the calorie deficit require to lose weight is mentally very hard to to. As a thought experiment, imagine what you eat per day. Now halve it. Would you be having a good time?
  - rglover 1y ago
    I've been fat/not-fat my whole life too. I'm fat right now (working too much and not watching diet). > That does not mean it is easy. If you are already fat, which can happen almost without you noticing by eating 200-300 calories too much a day over a year say, or as a result of some brain malfunction (both have happened to me), then eating the calorie deficit require to lose weight is mentally very hard to to. You install an app. You honestly track what you eat. Set a goal for how many calories per day. Done. I've intentionally set my calories at 1,300 per day. Low, yes, but I allow myself to eat over that to satiation. The end result is that I'm still in a deficit relative to my actual caloric needs (e.g., maybe I eat 300-500 extra calories and my daily total rounds out around 1600-1800), so I lose weight. I've started eating less and tracking calories and I'm losing weight (I'm not even exercising—I sit most of the day programming). Nothing extreme, just a simple mental hack. I've done this before to the tune of losing 70-80 pounds. Literally just tracking calories and not even really exercising beyond walking. I wasted years on different workouts and diets all just to come back to realizing "yeah if you just eat less calories (and increase your intake of whole foods, not boxed slop), you lose weight." Much better choice than shooting up with pharma syrup that has god knows what in it that's a ticking time bomb.
ninwa 1y ago
> I would prefer if we figured out what other than cultural changes is making everyone have symptoms of inflammatory dysfunctions. I personally hope it's just cultural and sugar/hfcs. Because some alternatives might be grim to reckon with just from a humanistic/grief perspective: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/
nomel 1y ago
> Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering Or, some of us older folks have been around long enough to understand that we are, in an uncontroversial and factual way, the long term medical trial, and long term effects found in that trial, along with the eventual market withdrawal, may not show up until 10 to 20 years later, creating a healthy distrust in the money/corporations behind the, sometimes outright crafted [1], early medical trials. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02299-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02299-w
- johncolanduoni 1y ago
  How many times has a drug had negative effects that only showed up after 10-20 years? Out of all the drugs that have been widely prescribed in, say, the last 100 years? And it’s not even actually a new drug class - Liraglutide was approved in 2010! Should we wait until the clinical trial participants all die of old age until we put a drug on the market?
  - djtango 1y ago
    Most the nonpharmaceuticals I could list from memory, I had to google the medication Nonpharmaceuticals - microplastics - bisphenol A - asbestos - nicotine - DDT - fungicides like HCB - PFAS Pharmaceutical - benzodiazepines - Terfenadine - Benfluorex Of the 528 new drugs approved over the period of interest, a total of 22 (4.2%) were eventually withdrawn. Between 3.9% and 4.4% of the drugs approved in each 5-year period were eventually withdrawn (χ2 = 0.04, p = 0.99 for difference among 5-year periods). The median time between approval and withdrawal was 1271 days (interquartile range 706–2876).[0] By some estimates 7% of US have used semaglutides. That is 24.5M people. That could be 24.5M people who have benefitted but if it turns out that there are long term consequences, that's a lot of people who are now all in that ship together when at least some of those users could have chosen lifestyle intervention rather than chemical intervention. If we take the 4.2% recall rate that gives an EV of 980k people in the US who will suffer adverse effects from semaglutides [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085091/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085091/?utm_source...
Levitz 1y ago
You've also got the crowd who would argue that there's nothing wrong with being fat in the first place and that are scared of society pressing on this matter again after years of pushback.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  As someone who was 100 pounds overweight for a long time, and now isn't, that mindset is really dangerous and preventing a lot of people from living life to its fullest. There is never any reason to be cruel or unkind to people who are overweight, but pretending that it doesn't have negative consequences or is even "healthy for me" or whatever is really harmful.
- myvoiceismypass 1y ago
  I think there is a large chance that this crowd referenced arguing for "this" is even smaller than than the population of (25? 50?) trans ncaaa athletes that all the rubes believed was ruining america. Loudmouths on the internet exist and suck but don't represent everyone.
grigri907 1y ago
That first paragraph could be the preamble to every conflict in my life and it would be evergreen
myvoiceismypass 1y ago
This comment summarizes a lot of things I struggled to vocalize, thank you.

rglover 1y ago

> That said, we are at a point where people are overweight enough that getting exercise has its own risks, and taking a medication that allows you to be more active is likely to cancel out some of those downsides. And yet we rarely ask or say "maybe I should just eat fewer calories?" Unless you have some other disorder that prevents normal bodily function, that does work (and would be viable I'd imagine for the majority of people being prescribed). But it requires patience and discipline which are basically non-existent for the majority of the population.

eclipxe 1y ago
You think that is rarely asked?
- rglover 1y ago
  In an honest way? Absolutely. Most people suffer from severe self-delusion to avoid the mental pain of coming face to face with their shortcomings.
gtr 1y ago
As someone who has been fat and not-fat throughout my life, I think literally everyone knows that it is simple to lose weight by eating fewer calories. That does not mean it is easy. If you are already fat, which can happen almost without you noticing by eating 200-300 calories too much a day over a year say, or as a result of some brain malfunction (both have happened to me), then eating the calorie deficit require to lose weight is mentally very hard to to. As a thought experiment, imagine what you eat per day. Now halve it. Would you be having a good time?
- rglover 1y ago
  I've been fat/not-fat my whole life too. I'm fat right now (working too much and not watching diet). > That does not mean it is easy. If you are already fat, which can happen almost without you noticing by eating 200-300 calories too much a day over a year say, or as a result of some brain malfunction (both have happened to me), then eating the calorie deficit require to lose weight is mentally very hard to to. You install an app. You honestly track what you eat. Set a goal for how many calories per day. Done. I've intentionally set my calories at 1,300 per day. Low, yes, but I allow myself to eat over that to satiation. The end result is that I'm still in a deficit relative to my actual caloric needs (e.g., maybe I eat 300-500 extra calories and my daily total rounds out around 1600-1800), so I lose weight. I've started eating less and tracking calories and I'm losing weight (I'm not even exercising—I sit most of the day programming). Nothing extreme, just a simple mental hack. I've done this before to the tune of losing 70-80 pounds. Literally just tracking calories and not even really exercising beyond walking. I wasted years on different workouts and diets all just to come back to realizing "yeah if you just eat less calories (and increase your intake of whole foods, not boxed slop), you lose weight." Much better choice than shooting up with pharma syrup that has god knows what in it that's a ticking time bomb.

ninwa 1y ago

> I would prefer if we figured out what other than cultural changes is making everyone have symptoms of inflammatory dysfunctions. I personally hope it's just cultural and sugar/hfcs. Because some alternatives might be grim to reckon with just from a humanistic/grief perspective: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/

nomel 1y ago

> Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering Or, some of us older folks have been around long enough to understand that we are, in an uncontroversial and factual way, the long term medical trial, and long term effects found in that trial, along with the eventual market withdrawal, may not show up until 10 to 20 years later, creating a healthy distrust in the money/corporations behind the, sometimes outright crafted [1], early medical trials. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02299-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02299-w

johncolanduoni 1y ago
How many times has a drug had negative effects that only showed up after 10-20 years? Out of all the drugs that have been widely prescribed in, say, the last 100 years? And it’s not even actually a new drug class - Liraglutide was approved in 2010! Should we wait until the clinical trial participants all die of old age until we put a drug on the market?
- djtango 1y ago
  Most the nonpharmaceuticals I could list from memory, I had to google the medication Nonpharmaceuticals - microplastics - bisphenol A - asbestos - nicotine - DDT - fungicides like HCB - PFAS Pharmaceutical - benzodiazepines - Terfenadine - Benfluorex Of the 528 new drugs approved over the period of interest, a total of 22 (4.2%) were eventually withdrawn. Between 3.9% and 4.4% of the drugs approved in each 5-year period were eventually withdrawn (χ2 = 0.04, p = 0.99 for difference among 5-year periods). The median time between approval and withdrawal was 1271 days (interquartile range 706–2876).[0] By some estimates 7% of US have used semaglutides. That is 24.5M people. That could be 24.5M people who have benefitted but if it turns out that there are long term consequences, that's a lot of people who are now all in that ship together when at least some of those users could have chosen lifestyle intervention rather than chemical intervention. If we take the 4.2% recall rate that gives an EV of 980k people in the US who will suffer adverse effects from semaglutides [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085091/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085091/?utm_source...

Levitz 1y ago

You've also got the crowd who would argue that there's nothing wrong with being fat in the first place and that are scared of society pressing on this matter again after years of pushback.

CalRobert 1y ago
As someone who was 100 pounds overweight for a long time, and now isn't, that mindset is really dangerous and preventing a lot of people from living life to its fullest. There is never any reason to be cruel or unkind to people who are overweight, but pretending that it doesn't have negative consequences or is even "healthy for me" or whatever is really harmful.
myvoiceismypass 1y ago
I think there is a large chance that this crowd referenced arguing for "this" is even smaller than than the population of (25? 50?) trans ncaaa athletes that all the rubes believed was ruining america. Loudmouths on the internet exist and suck but don't represent everyone.

grigri907 1y ago

That first paragraph could be the preamble to every conflict in my life and it would be evergreen

myvoiceismypass 1y ago

This comment summarizes a lot of things I struggled to vocalize, thank you.