Live data from Hacker News

‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

nature.com

231–240 of 1001 posts

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#231
I'm not obese, but am not what I'd consider at my ideal weight. I wonder how/if doctors would even prescribe this to someone like me. I think I've read some Hollywood types are using this to lose weight, but those are edge cases. I imagine for normal people this would not be easy to get prescribed.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#232
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we have incredible waste on both sides, but there is an even greater culprit: people are lacking true meaning and purpose in their lives and are indulging in these foods to distract themselves from their inner emptiness.

This is a pretty big leap, what is even "true meaning and purpose"? The culprit is that this food is literally everywhere and billions of dollars are poured into research everywhere to design systems that entice humans to take the convenient way out. If I was to go along with your hypothesis, I would alter it to say that poor nutrition is what contributes to a person's lack of "true meaning and purpose".

> what is even "[lacking] true meaning and purpose"?

Perhaps the alienation of workers from the fruits of their labor? It's underrated how depressing it is to not get to eat the sausage you broke your back making.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#233
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have trouble dealing with hunger because we frame it all wrong in the western convention. I'm hungry, I should eat a little something, is what most people think. An ascetic from the east who fasts is not immune to the pain of hunger, they just understand that hunger is a sensation that is neither good nor bad, and what they choose to do with that sensation is up to them, and they are not bound to it and do not…

It really is not a frame of mine. We know this because GWAR genome studies find that the SNPs most correlated with obesity are expressed in the hypothalamus, which has nothing to do with higher thought.

Its not like you black out and the chips are in your mouth though, to act on hunger requires conscious effort. That is what the ascetics are practicing, resisting these primal urges because they can be resisted by the higher thinking brain.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#234

> “I’m really hesitant to be excited about something that I think is potentially harmful from a weight stigma perspective,” says Sarah Nutter, a psychologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, who specializes in weight stigma and body image. Putting the word "stigma" on things is a sure sign of a grifter. Instead of helping solve it, they're trying to make it a social science problem. Being overweight is unheal…

The new idea (mostly in the West) that being obese is/can be a healthy lifestyle is absolutely maddening. People being obese (and I don't mean a few pounds overweight) raises everyone's healthcare cost, because it is incredibly unhealthy and obese people tend to have more complications which requires more treatment, workers and subsidizing.

It's not just an individual problem, it's a societal problem. There's a new "Gatorade Fit" commercial with, easily, a 300lb woman in it...the brand is literally "Fit," being 300lbs is not fit in any way shape or form. Why is this happening? Even when/if I'm 10-20lbs overweight, I don't want someone patting me on the back saying I'm actually "fit" or anything close to it. It's such a weird lie that makes it feel like I'm living in a bizzarro world.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#236
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?

When you are so fat your metabolic maintenance rate hovers around 4000 kcal per day you lose all sense of what to eat and after years of over eating old habits die hard.

On paper dieting is the easiest thing. You literally need to watch one hole and it is right under your nose, but in practice it isnt that easy.

Appetite is great way to control obesity - if you dont want to eat you wont

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#237

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.

Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. We know this because we have hunter-gatherer populations who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) or fats (e.g. Intuit), and they have none of the diseases of abundance found in modern popul…

Uhhh you're a little disillusioned to think that a very very small subset of humans paying hundred of dollars for a meal is a baseline for why "humans value tasty and flavorful food". Just because some people drive 160mph on a highway does not mean its a good idea. The fact that you're arguing a box of oreos is equally nutritious to a calorie equal amount of say protein and/or vegetables is actually baffling.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#238

How many of obesity cases are caused by eating disorders and addiction psyche in general? Treating the symptom in this case barely helps. You might lose weight, but it'll pop up in some other place in your life. See it as psychological side effect, a swap of coping mechanism. Often enough, IMO you need to go deeper than a pill.

Thats such bullshit. Sure, yes, there is 100% mental aspect to every obese person, but some of that shit is old and already dealt with, but since you are already fucked you cant get out from the cycle. Of course we should deal with the mental side but it will be a million times easier to deal with after you aren’t a fat fuck.

Case in point, "fat fuck" and "old shit that's dealt with" shouldn't normally belong to the same argument

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#239

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…

My wife lost a hundred pounds via bariatric surgery; resting heart rate dropped by 20, cholesterol dropped into normal range, knee and hip pain disappeared, and it even helped the chronic migraine substantially. We've got plenty of clear evidence that being significantly overweight has health impacts.

Yup. On a much lesser note, when I lost 10lbs I noticed acid reflux symptoms disappear and blood pressure was lowered. For someone that is borderline on need of medication, the doc basically said lose some weight and these issues could go away (for some time). Its incentive enough for me to keep losing so I can push off the major diseases until much later in life or never.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#240

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?

Doctors are reluctant to prescribe stimulants to their patients for various reasons. Also you don't keep the weight off with those.

You don't necessarily need a stimulant, you can also e.g. short the mitochondria using DNP. Doing so does have some fairly predictable downsides.
Post reply on HN