Live data from Hacker News

‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

nature.com

451–460 of 1001 posts

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how breaking old habits and establishing new habits over a year or so would stop a serious rebound?

It is, in my personal experience, all to easy to fall back into the old habits.

No doubt. The old habits are easier. It’s way easier to order in food and lay in bed than to cook and workout. Of course, it’s overly reductionist to assume weight loss is as easy as “stop laying around, eat healthy, and exercise.”

It kind of is that simple, but there are so many factors that help prevent us from good habits. I think my biggest issue is that food is one of the few things in my life that’s ever evoked a positive response for me. I’ve gone years without being fat, but it comes back because of some issue I encounter, and I lack the tools to deal with it in a better way. So I get depressed and eat, and eventually hate myself for falling apart again, and so we go, forever and always.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#452

Petro Dobromylskyj is one of the foremost experts of fat metabolism. He has a blog called Hyperlipid where he's been blogging about fat metabolism and interpreting research for close to 10 years. He thinks the GLP-1 inhibitor drugs will be a disaster in the long term because they 1) cause weight loss but also 2) cause the body to create lots of new adipocyte (fat cells). Increasing the number of adipocytes is very un…

With every weight loss intervention when you stop you gain back the weight. GLP-1 agonists don't seem to be any different than another other intervention.

> With every weight loss intervention when you stop you gain back the weight. GLP-1 agonists don't seem to be any different than another other intervention.

Except for one thing: it's fairly easy to not stop a drug. You just... keep taking it. Long-term use of these drugs for maintenance purposes looks entirely feasible. Not quite as easy to maintain as a gastric bypass, but close enough to be a big deal.

The same isn't true for exercise and diet; it's very easy to fall off those wagons.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#453
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?

I had an opinion that this all sounded silly but then watched the 60 Minutes segment on the drugs and what the doc talked about is, in my layman's recollection, the body remembers its weight and wants to get back to that which is why a lot of people end up losing and then gaining most of it back. Genetics play a role in this, I forget how but something to do with what these drugs help change. I wonder if rather than…

>try to lose with caloric restriction

Other than this is mostly useless in itself.... Calorie restriction really only works well under medical supervision (multiple studies show people suck at calorie counting and avoiding calorie intake). Once the supervision is over, most people gain the weight back.

I have a feeling it may happen with this shot too, and if so I foresee it will have primary treatment to lose weight then a secondary to maintain status.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#454

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.

That really is the core of the issue, and furthermore once you've used to a sugar diet you crave it more and regular food starts tasting worse in comparison somehow. I bet it's something to do with the gut-brain connection and a large glut of sugar eating bacteria signalling it's time to feed them. Just a theory, but there is some kind of correlated process there.

And the reverse is also true, if you go a while without eating anything high in sugar, what used to taste normal can taste almost unbearably sweet. Exceedingly hard to do with it added to just about all things in absurd amounts though.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#455

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.

I think that toxin exposure - unavoidable in the modern world - is likely the biggest culprit here. There are plenty of ideas about which toxins are causing the problem, but there are so many that it would be nigh on impossible to regulate them all out of the environment.

Please define 'toxin' and the mechanism by which they produce harm.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#457
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it makes more logical sense to you that everyone is just weak-willed?

It makes more sense to point to the fact that we have a far more calorie dense meal palette and a far less active lifestyle.

Both of which are choices one has to make.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think "people value tasty food" is an oversimplification. It feels good but we regret it when we get fat, our health deteriorates, and with our health goes our participation in and contribution to everything and everyone we love. For many people, junk food starts to feel more like an addiction than a choice in line with highest values. Sadly, this means it can be a problem when food tastes too good. The term of art…

Also there is plenty of tasty food that isn't hyperpalatable. Those foods are more difficult to overeat because they're very filling. The problem with hyperpalatable junk food is that it's both especially pleasurable to eat and especially good at overriding our natural satiety cues. There's a world of difference between eating 1,000 calories of cheetos and 1,000 calories of brie cheese: one of them will make you incredibly full and the other will make you feel like you could just keep on crunching forever.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely eat junk food, and I'm fat. Your attitude is the same as a religious person telling depressed people they need jesus rather than prozac.

I didn't say that all fat people ate junk food, and I didn't say that obese people shouldn't take medication if that could help. Obesity rate in the US didn't got from 10% to 40% in a few decades simply because suddenly everybody started to develop thyroid issues or other condition.

No, what you said is that food marketing and the amount of sugars and fats in purchased foods are the cause of obesity.

Before the 80s, food also was packed with fat and sugar, and advertised constantly. I subjectively feel that people saw far more food advertising in the 80s and before than they do now. And the government diet suggestions were to increase your consumption of carbs and reduce fats.

edit: and people definitely drank far more Coke, and McDonald's meals were far less healthy.

Post reply on HN