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A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

nature.com

41–50 of 162 posts

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#41
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. Controlling your food environment is so important. It's candy on desks season again. I can usually walk past the candy, but not always.

Willpower is a finite resource indeed, you can't rely on that.

Current research suggests that willpower is not a finite research and "ego depletion" was a spurious finding.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020...

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.

A more appropriate drug for this is probably Ozempic/Wegovy (Semaglutide), or an even more effective version available in the US, Tirzepatide. I've personally been on the former and after 4.5 months, I've lost ~20% of my body weight

Metformin is well-understood, old, safe, and has various health benefits.

Surprisingly, metformin seems to be almost a pure win, even for healthy people: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-metformin-a-wonder-dr...

In contrast, GIP analogues like semaglutaide present real risks and are less well understood. For some people, with serious health problems, GIP analogues make sense. But generally you don't want to be taking them if you're healthy.

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.

A more appropriate drug for this is probably Ozempic/Wegovy (Semaglutide), or an even more effective version available in the US, Tirzepatide. I've personally been on the former and after 4.5 months, I've lost ~20% of my body weight

Aren’t those hard to get and then super expensive if you do quality?

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#44
post #9

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others.…

I agree that appetite is the most important factor. But I think CICO is still helpful. It's not a panacea, lots of people struggle to just eat the right amount (see appetite). But you can use CICO as a check to make sure you aren't bullshitting yourself. If you try a diet (eg. cut sugar, intermittent fasting, low carbs, etc), you will only lose weight if you have a caloric deficit. Eg. if you cut sugar from your diet…

Other measures are also helpful but we don't generally think about them. For example, carefully counting "water-in, water-out" (WIWO) seems like it'd be necessary to avoid dehydration. However in normal circumstances (i.e., when you're not running marathons or exerting yourself in the desert) we don't need to think about this very much. Your body will manage its own hydration levels by making you thirsty only at the appropriate times. WIWO is still a thing but we don't obsess about it.

Now imagine your body couldn't manage its own hydration properly, perhaps because we contaminated our water supplies with something that disregulates the thirst response. Then you'd have a society that spends a lot of time talking about WIWO and it'd be a pretty sick place to live. It's much healthier to treat the underlying disregulation than to force people to constantly be thirsty.

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#45
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many foods you used to like (e.g., sweets) will be nauseating. Other foods remain delicious. For example, eggs and cheese and meat. But basically, your interest in food will be drastically reduced, and you will eat just enough. This is an important part of metformin's beneficial effect on lifespan and health.

Admittedly, I’m on a fairly low dose (500mg x 2), but I can still kill a bag of Haribo when the mood hits. It doesn’t , quite as often, but I’ve noticed no changes in flavor.

Thanks for the anecdote. Biological variation, we're all different!

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#46
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more appropriate drug for this is probably Ozempic/Wegovy (Semaglutide), or an even more effective version available in the US, Tirzepatide. I've personally been on the former and after 4.5 months, I've lost ~20% of my body weight

Aren’t those hard to get and then super expensive if you do quality?

No idea, in the EU I pay ~85 EUR/mo

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#47
post #9

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others.…

Appetite differences are almost certainly the primary factor in why some people get heavy and others don't, but that isn't inconsistent with CICO at all.

It’s not inconsistent (obviously, because thermodynamics), but it does make CICO a pretty useless contribution to the conversation. Not the silver bullet that proponents position it as.

Successful dieting is about managing the sensation of hunger. That’s it.

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#48
post #9

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others.…

We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.

Yeah tell that to my stress eating family members who all have metformin prescriptions.

This may be true for some people but definitely not a universal

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#49
post #9

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others.…

We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.

> Because the vast majority of research regarding metformin included only people with diabetes or prediabetes, it’s unclear whether these potential benefits are limited to people with those conditions, or whether people without diabetes may derive benefit as well.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-metformin-a-wonder-dr...

Re: A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

#50
post #31
post #9

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others.…

> What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others. This is a half truth. If you cut down portion size your stomach will shrink over time. I eat a lot less before feeling full now, and I only changed my life a year ago. It's also important that you eat stuff that makes you feel full, fibers and greens. Changing diet also changed my taste, so I crave more healthy things now…

> It's also important that you eat stuff that makes you feel full, fibers and greens. Changing diet also changed my taste, so I crave more healthy things now, while the food I used to eat honestly don't appeal to me any longer or tastes empty.

Having tried this, by basically eating a lot of carrots, its uh, not the same as being full/satiated. Feeling like your stomach is full is just a completely different feeling from feeling like you ate a satiating meal.

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