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‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

nature.com

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Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#51

Post by Izkata »

gnicholas wrote: post #3

> After decades of work, researchers are finally seeing signs of success: a new generation of anti-obesity medications that drastically diminish weight without the serious side effects that have plagued previous efforts. … > Nutter is concerned that people might start these treatments — whose side effects, such as nausea and vomiting, can be severe — to escape weight stigma, rather than to serve a true health need So…

Leaking medical jargon and mixing it with regular usage: "serious" means needing medical attention, "severe" means hospitalization/long-term disability or worse. They seem to be using medical "serious" and colloquial "severe", which gives the the appearance of reversing their meanings.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#52

Post by Tade0 »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #4

> The results astonished researchers: a weekly injection for almost 16 months, along with some lifestyle changes, reduced body weight by at least 20% in more than one-third of the participants Why would they introduce lifestyle changes alongside the drug? Doesn't that complicate the analysis?

I suppose it actually makes it simpler, because you control for lifestyle changes.

Who says some participants wouldn't just start eating trash? I know I did after I lost some weight due to a bad case of something my child brought in from daycare.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#53

Post by PuppyTailWags »

nscalf wrote: post #31
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #16

Have we actually studied if the weight loss is resulting in better health outcomes for the people in question? Outside of diabetics (there is evidence that significant weight loss can relieve the effects of type 2 diabetes), I would like to know if just weight loss benefits the cardiovascular system, blood pressure, etc. These aren't as intuitive as we'd like, for example, it turns out that low fat diets didn't make…

Yeah, there are a lot of published studies showing this is very impactful. Within certain thresholds, losing weight has been shown to be the biggest change to all cause mortality rates. If you are obese, the most impactful thing on health is losing weight. This obviously isn't true for people with very low BMIs, but there have been a lot of population level studies looking at all cause mortality.

What are the certain thresholds? Can we be more specific than lowered all-cause mortality, such as specific diseases we know have causal relationships with obesity specifically? I'm asking because I'm not that educated, but if you know there are studies showing e.g. purely losing weight with no lifestyle changes means less heart attacks, less joint replacements, less cancer, etc. please share.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#54

Post by iammjm »

awillen wrote: post #28
iammjm wrote: post #20

At a risk of being ignorant: Isn’t obesity a function of calories intake and calories burn rate? If so, why do we even need a drug for that? What should a possible drug target here? Assuming no changes in behaviour and thus a continued steady daily caloric surplus, would it even work?

Because many people just aren't able to get that ratio to a point that they're at a healthy weight (for numerous reasons - behavioral, medical, etc.). "Assuming no changes in behavior" doesn't make sense, because the drug makes people feel full after a smaller amount of calories and thus changes behavior.

Don’t you ever eat sweets despite of not being hungry? I don’t think the issue is people overdosing rice or legumes because they are so hungry. The issue seems to me like quick comfort foods that we eat not to get full but because they just feel so good in our mouths. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten ice cream out of hunger:)

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#55

Post by v4dok »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #16

Have we actually studied if the weight loss is resulting in better health outcomes for the people in question? Outside of diabetics (there is evidence that significant weight loss can relieve the effects of type 2 diabetes), I would like to know if just weight loss benefits the cardiovascular system, blood pressure, etc. These aren't as intuitive as we'd like, for example, it turns out that low fat diets didn't make…

>it turns out that low fat diets didn't make people less fat

This is not a "turns out". Anyone who believed that just having a "low fat" diet will make them leaner, didn't really know how losing fat works. Fat is a macronutrient (and quite useful one) just making it lower tells you absolutely nothing on its own.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#56

Post by rajin444 »

This drug is a net good for society, but we have to fix the root problem. Much of the food we eat is filled with addictive ingredients (sugar, excess fats/oils, etc) that provide little nutritional value but are highly addictive.

We’re subsidizing companies that create unhealthy addictive food and subsidizing companies to create drugs to counter the unhealthy addictive food. This is an enormous waste of resources.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#57

Post by __blockcipher__ »

Someone1234 wrote: post #18
Izkata wrote: post #8

> They described the details of an investigation of a promising anti-obesity medication in teenagers, a group that is notoriously resistant to such treatment. The results astonished researchers: a weekly injection for almost 16 months, along with some lifestyle changes, reduced body weight by at least 20% in more than one-third of the participants1. Previous studies2,3 had shown that the drug, semaglutide, was just a…

> How much of it was actually the lifestyle changes? It would be more interesting if there were no lifestyle changes... The article answers this further down: > Those receiving weekly injections of semaglutide lost, on average, 14.9% of their body weight after 16 months of treatment; those who received a placebo lost 2.4% on average. Per the article still a lot of work to do in this area, but on the face of it this c…

The line you quoted:

> Those receiving weekly injections of semaglutide lost, on average, 14.9% of their body weight after 16 months of treatment; those who received a placebo lost 2.4% on average.

Doesn't really have anything to do with the question about lifestyle changes. That question basically centers around whether the 14.9% weight loss occurred independent of or as a result of lifestyle changes downstream from the semaglutide.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#58

Post by dmix »

VikingCoder wrote: post #43

I'm on semaglutide. Was on Saxenda, because I couldn't get access to Wegovy at the lowest dosage. But now I'm on Wegovy, for half a week so far. I was retching horribly one night at 2 am, but didn't throw up. I've felt clammy and dizzy a few times. (Possibly hypoglycemic?) I honestly feel like it's changing how I feel about food. I don't want to eat empty carbs, anywhere near as much. Because I feel like they make me…

> I don't want to eat empty carbs, anywhere near as much. Because I feel like they make me feel sick.

I did a keto diet obsessively for a while and I still have a psychological revulsion to drinking coke or eating cake even a year later. Those sorts of things are long term wins.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#59

Post by ceejayoz »

iammjm wrote: post #45
randomdata wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn’t obesity a function of calories intake and calories burn rate? In the same way that the economy is a function of people trading things, sure. Why do we even need economic policy?

Indeed, we need an economic policy, not an economic drug. I’m totally for behavioural policies for obesity, such as don’t buy sweets, go for a walk each day, or make sure to eat vegetables each time you are hungry, etc.

> I’m totally for behavioural policies for obesity, such as don’t buy sweets, go for a walk each day, or make sure to eat vegetables each time you are hungry, etc.

So are physicians, and most patients. It's just a lot harder than it sounds to sustain. There's the old adage that "the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results"; attempting to cure obesity by telling patients "exercise more, eat less" is precisely that.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#60

Post by vadansky »

ethanbond wrote: post #19
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helping obese people lose weight is unidimensionally a good thing

That'd imply it's okay to put obese folks in cages without food until they've lost weight and I'd suggest that that's fucking insane. We've discovered another dimension!

That'd imply it's okay to put smokers in cages without cigarettes until they've stopped smoking and I'd suggest that that's fucking insane. We've discovered another dimension!
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