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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

#761

Post by markus_zhang »

bioemerl wrote: post #182

> In the past, scientists and the public often thought that those with obesity simply lacked the willpower to lose weight. But evidence is growing that most people’s bodies have a natural size that can be hard to change. In the context where we have gone from obesity rates of 13 percent to 40, to suggest that people have a natural weight and that's the cause of this seems absurd to me.

For me it's 80KG. Once it goes over 80KG I would gradually feel all kinds of bad things so I'll start to lose weight, but then it's so easy to get back. I don't really think willpower helps here. I mean unless I can do it for the whole life, it will bounce back quickly.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#762

Post by tempestn »

komali2 wrote: post #680
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a young and very healthy person I felt this way about the COVID vaccine.

Why? Plenty of young and healthy people died of COVID. Only some vaccines are mRNA types, and, in the USA anyway, all vaccines went through the same testing process as any other medication, they simply sped the process up by layering some of the steps - all that means is that rather than wait to see if one study passes before doing the next one (save money or whatever), they just overlapped them. Even for MRNA vaccin…

I'm with you except for the cold vaccines line. Did you mean flu vaccines?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#763

Post by markus_zhang »

ajkjk wrote: post #517
bioemerl wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were true I would not expect that changes in our lifestyle would cause broad scale weight increases like they have. I'm very skeptical humans are built with an average set weight way up in the unhealthy range. Or maybe this is the case, but it is thrown off hard by our modern diets. Our natural set point is in the healthy range, but our meal is x calories per Y food now so it ends up artificially high. The ex…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_point_theory may help > but it is thrown off hard by our modern diets. Yes. I think the dominant theory is that it has something to do with gut microbiomes, and in particular sugar and/or artificial sweeteners screw it up pretty badly.

I'm actually thinking about going serious about healing the gut microbiomes. The sugar part is the most difficult. It's very easy to eat food that helps and consume probiotics, but a life without sugar...Jesus I'd rather die.

Somehow I became a sugar person from a meat person after I immigrated to Canada. Not sure what the cause was though.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#764

Post by nevinera »

Gwarzo wrote: post #754
throwawayfatty wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that hard to stop yourself from going to the store again or ordering more Well, actually... I'm fat. Like BMI 40 fat. Most of my life I have been fat. I was laughed at in school for it, as far back as I can remember. It probably wasn't all that bad when I think back. Certainly not as bad as now. But I was the fat kid in class, and I felt like the fat kid. Anyway, I have lost a lot of it at a few points. Once by…

[flagged]

He is actually fairly normal, his experiences are similar to those described by thousands of other people in the same situation, and you're an ass.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#765

Post by csours »

alar44 wrote: post #707
csours wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analysis lacks proper understanding of the role that hunger and food drive plays. Imagine that you are at the beach, and you can choose how deep you want to wade or how far you want to swim. If you like the water and the sun and the waves, this is very pleasant to imagine. Now imagine that you are dropped into the ocean at night 200 meters from shore and you can't see land, you can't see lights. This is very unp…

[flagged]

And you know what they feel inside their bodies?

Something can be true, satisfying, and incomplete. Why do they eat too much? Because of moral failing? Or because a system designed to maintain energy balance in only one direction is incomplete in our modern environment.

Hunger is not a moral failing, it is a physiological system.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#766

Post by Tumblewood »

jostmey wrote: post #571
jfk13 wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs Seriously? No thanks. Think I'll give you all a few decades to see what the long-term effects are like, and let my body largely take care of itself except when specific medical issues indicate that an intervention is in order.

The only proven way to live longer and reduce your risk of essentially every disease is to reduce caloric intake. So unless you are underweight, the benefits could outweigh any side effects. I am not advocating that everyone take these drugs--but I understand why someone might suggest it

The main point against it for me is not that it is a new drug; it is that, if I reduce my caloric intake, I won't have enough calories to maintain my normal daily activity levels.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#767

Post by WalterBright »

Apocryphon wrote: post #708
WalterBright wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we also have higher levels of anxiety, stress Why should that be true? Your kids aren't going off to WW2 to die. You aren't going to starve if bugs ate your crops. You aren't going to get clubbed and robbed if you follow a forest path.

Maybe that's the point. A lack of overt threats leads to greater trepidation over covert threats. Wouldn't you think that there was more anxiety and stress in the Cold War among the civilian population than in WWII? Certainly societal upheavals seem to indicate so.

> Wouldn't you think that there was more anxiety and stress in the Cold War among the civilian population than in WWII?

No. I lived through part of the cold war.

In WW2 everybody knew families with dead sons or sons that came back in pieces or sons that just disappeared. My neighbor in the 60s was a paratrooper, who came back missing a leg.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#768

Post by runnerup »

jostmey wrote: post #571
jfk13 wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs Seriously? No thanks. Think I'll give you all a few decades to see what the long-term effects are like, and let my body largely take care of itself except when specific medical issues indicate that an intervention is in order.

The only proven way to live longer and reduce your risk of essentially every disease is to reduce caloric intake. So unless you are underweight, the benefits could outweigh any side effects. I am not advocating that everyone take these drugs--but I understand why someone might suggest it

The parent post said:

> everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs

But as a skinny person, I can already easily reduce caloric intake as much as I want to. My body is "blessed" with weak food cravings and solid blood glucose levels while fasting.

So while I do recommend these drugs to people who need them, I don't think they'd help me at all more than merely deciding one day to monitor and control my weight to a very narrow target range. It's like the opposite of "its easy! Just eat less!" ... you guys are telling skinny people "Oh but eating at a maintenance/deficit will be too hard for you to do just by thinking you want to! You'll need a drug!"

I can easily lose 20-40 lbs just by getting lazy and not cooking myself food. It's literally no challenge at all. But neither is gaining 20-40 lbs when I want to. I know this is relatively unique, I don't blame obese people for "lack of will". I know they have different biochemistry because it doesn't take me any willpower to gain or lose weight on demand. It's literally as effortless as deciding to wear more dressy clothes this year. I'm 6-foot tall and I can set and indefinitely maintain almost any weight I want between 145 and 200 lbs within +/- 3 lbs, with very little effort.

Over 190 lbs gets a bit hard to maintain, under 155 also gets a bit hard to maintain. Supposedly "normal" BMI for my height goes all the way down to 136 lbs but I think that's probably total bullshit -- that's very, very, very skinny.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#769

Post by depressedpanda »

tptacek wrote: post #731
LouisSayers wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it. It's honestly just what you're used to. If you eat tonnes of sugar and fat then that's what you crave. If you cut sugar out of your diet, after a while the amount of sugar you used to eat will taste wayyy too sweet. Same with fat - eating chips for example will leave a gross fatty taste in your mouth. 99% of food bought out will have a whole lo…

This would be more persuasive if it wasn't more or less the opposite of what current nutrition research suggests about fat and satiety.

Fat and non-satiating carbs in combination (e.g. chips) is bad because you will consume loads of calories without feeling full. Most seed oils (i.e. fat) actually seem to be quite unhealthy. If people avoid that shit when being told to avoid fat in general, I think it's actually a net positive.

Apart from them seemingly equating fat and sugar as equally bad, the comment was spot on.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#770

Post by tptacek »

jononomo wrote: post #745
xvilka wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high protien, high fat, and zero carb Basically a keto diet, of course it works due to ketosis.

A carnivore diet is not necessarily a ketogenic diet, although it is a zero-carb diet. If you eat enough protein then your body will make glucose from it and keep you out of ketosis. But I agree that a diet of only red meat is absolutely ideal no matter which angle you look at it from.

If you eat enough protein then your body will make glucose from it and keep you out of ketosis

Cite for this, please?

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