Live data from Hacker News

‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

nature.com

91–100 of 1001 posts

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#91

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.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this isn't an article about biology, it's about health, and health isn't unidimensional

Helping obese people lose weight is unidimensionally a good thing

Obese doesn’t mean unhealthy. Correlation isn’t causation. There are many obese people who are extremely healthy. I for one have had no health issues of any sort, have great blood panels, and am in decent physical condition but sit stubbornly at a 31BMI. The only “issue” I face is psychological, and it’s rooted in precisely this statement you made.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helping obese people lose weight is unidimensionally a good thing

Let’s give them all meth. That should help with weight loss.

I think surgically removing parts of your organs is more extreme frankly.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#95

So does this somehow burn fat or does it just lower your appetite? There are many others drugs that lower appetite, and yet we still have an obesity crisis. Why would this one solve it?

> So does this somehow burn fat or does it just lower your appetite?

The article's subheadline is "A class of drugs that quash hunger".

> There are many others drugs that lower appetite

Not this well and/or not this safely.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#96
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? That's why the placebo group in the trial also gets the same lifestyle changes. > This apparently works by suppressing appetite, but doesn't cocaine do the same thing? Sure. If they were otherwise identical, that'd be a good point, but they're not. > Constant needle marks from weekly injections might result in more social complications than anything else... My daug…

> Sure. If they were otherwise identical, that'd be a good point, but they're not.

You can say the same of opium, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, and Naloxone. Many of which have had i ical trials done and all of which are abused and addictive.

I simply don't trust clinical trials by large pharmaceutical companies any longer.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#97

Just making sure everybody understands that these drugs are not a solution to the problem. Assuming they work, they just make dieting easy. Look at people who successfully lost weight with diet -- studies show that almost all of them will regain most of their weight within 5 years. And the basic reason is because almost all dieting regimes are shitty, unsustainable way to live and at the end people are left tired of…

>For background, I got obese once and lost weight. Then regained the weight over a decade. Being engineer and problem solver, I vowed to understand the shit out of the problem, loose the weight properly and never regain it back. Which seems to be working. Understanding how to loose weight allowed me to do fantastic things like loose weight at 3 times the rate I did it previously while not feeling hungry or cold.

>The previous time I was on calorie restricted diet loosing and I was completely miserable for almost entire year, cold, slow, irritated, unable to focus.

>This time I completed the same weight loss in 4 months while actually feeling better than ever (at least most of the time). Most important for me, it is not interfering with my work.

How did you do it?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much of it was actually the lifestyle changes? That's why the placebo group in the trial also gets the same lifestyle changes. > This apparently works by suppressing appetite, but doesn't cocaine do the same thing? Sure. If they were otherwise identical, that'd be a good point, but they're not. > Constant needle marks from weekly injections might result in more social complications than anything else... My daug…

> Sure. If they were otherwise identical, that'd be a good point, but they're not. You can say the same of opium, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, and Naloxone. Many of which have had i ical trials done and all of which are abused and addictive. I simply don't trust clinical trials by large pharmaceutical companies any longer.

> You can say the same of opium, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, and Naloxone. Many of which have had i ical trials done and all of which are abused and addictive.

Cocaine isn't a viable weight-loss drug because its downsides outweigh the benefits. The downsides of semaglutide and tirzepatide are nothing like that of cocaine, and thus the calculus works out better for them.

> You can say the same of opium, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, and Naloxone.

Setting aside the fact that including naloxone in that list is a bit bizarre - it counteracts the rest of the list, everyone should have some in their first aid kit - those medications have benefits that make them sometimes appropriate clinically. (Similarly, cocaine is used medically and in a very controlled fashion in rare cases, like persistent bad nosebleeds.)

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#99

I’m currently taking one of these drugs and it has been no less than a miracle in my life. I became obese when I was around 5, topping out around a 34 BMI. When I was 20 I lost a substantial amount of weight the old fashioned way (diet and exercise), and within 8 months I was BMI 23. Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. 7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29…

[flagged]

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#100
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?

Let them eat cake (I mean less calories)
Post reply on HN