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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

#871

Post by tomp »

rubicon33 wrote: post #653
scarmig wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it. When I started taking semaglutide, I finally understood it. I'd eat a salad... and be full and more than satisfied! I'd look at a muffin right after lunch, and go "eh, better things to do with my time" instead of immediately having an overriding desire to eat eat eat. Before, I could eat half a pizza and still be hungry (way out of what my body…

> Too many people are convinced that everyone has the same subjective experiences of hunger and craving, but it's simply not the case. Some people implicitly hold this idea because it's a convenient ideology that allows people to morally congratulate themselves for having a functioning satiety circuit. Where does this line of thinking stop? Is everything pre-determined by genetics? Is everyone who is smarter than me,…

There is 0% chance that human genetics changed this much in the last 100 years (3-4 generations). Look at photos from 100 years ago, people were mostly thin.

So no, we’re not genetically predetermined to be hungry.

There’s something in our environment that’s messing with our circuits. Either some toxins (e.g. endocrine disrupters) or hyper palatable food (artificially engineered for max enjoyment and min satiety), or maybe something else.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#872

Post by tgv »

gumby wrote: post #188
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #6

Jesus christ, why is nature quoting a psychologist in an article about biology? > However, some researchers worry that these drugs play into some societies’ obsession with being thin. Body size isn’t always a good predictor of health. “I’m really hesitant to be excited about something that I think is potentially harmful from a weight stigma perspective”

My comment on another thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34251033 ) addresses this. Psychological issues are real health issues.

Yes, but this researcher's field is body image and weight stigma, not mental health issues. In the paper that appears first if you google-scholar her name, she writes in the first sentence of the abstract "Weight bias [or the stigma towards and negative stereotypes about individuals who have large bodies] is a form of stigma with detrimental effects on the health and wellness of individuals with large bodies." So making people thinner will actually improve their health and wellness.

If she's worried about other negative outcomes, such as people not being able to afford the drug, she should say so. It might be an editorial fuck-up on Nature's side, of course: they just want to print some soothing words to demonstrate their neutrality.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#873

Post by raspberry1337 »

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.

There's no conclusive single position of "current nutrition research".

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#874

Post by raspberry1337 »

soheil wrote: post #823
danielvaughn wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just saying the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. We’re both trying to lose weight, for the millionth time in the 20 years we’ve been together. Exasperated, I just said “I don’t get it. I was an artist who had no technical background, and was able to teach myself computer science and now I’m a highly successful engineer. I did that. And yet I can’t lose 10 pounds to save my life.” It’s so hard to eat healt…

It will be painful. That's probably the most important lesson you need to learn before starting. 1. log your weight everyday on a graph 2. eat very small portions, no carbs 3. when hungry force yourself to drink a large glass of water 4. drink hot tea at scheduled intervals 5. eat lots of popcorn, get the raw grains from Safeway and put them in microwave for 4 mins in a large bowl with a cover

Popcorn has loads of carbs, and low satiety. Eat boiled potatoes.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#875

Post by svalorzen »

kergonath wrote: post #825
fortran77 wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> But it's always true that if you manage to eat fewer calories than your body needs each day you will lose weight. No, not necessarily. Several studies have shown that different people can get different amounts of energy out of the same food, depending amongst others on their gut micro biome, though stress also seems to play a role. It’s never going to be that simple. > the laws of thermodynamics won't fail Conventi…

> No, not necessarily. Several studies have shown that different people can get different amounts of energy out of the same food, depending amongst others on their gut micro biome, though stress also seems to play a role. It’s never going to be that simple.

Sure, so they just need to compute their at-rest calorie consumption differently, and from there the rest is the same.

> Conventional thermodynamics don’t work when you consider a full human, which is a very out-of-equilibrium and not-isolated system. Conservation of energy does not tell you anything about the efficiency of the energy extraction process.

This is like saying that even if you don't refuel your car it will never stop, because different cars have different mpg ratings. A human is indeed a closed system when you consider the works it outputs and the calories it ingests, unless I somehow missed a newfound capacity for photosynthesis. The fact that it might be a bit harder to compute calorie requirements than what might be naively done does not allow you to just dismiss everything else.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#876

Post by wrp »

adriang133 wrote: post #866
windpower wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also on one of these drugs (Tirzepatide) and have been for a few months. The first time I remember knowing I was fat was when a babysitter made fun of me for it at age 6. I've been fat ever since and I'm in my late 30s now. I've lost significant amounts of weight (60+ pounds) three times in my adult life, through simple calorie restriction (intermittent fasting, including before I'd ever heard the term). Every ti…

I was fat/overweight all my life until I was about 24. I had enough of it and I went from ~94kg to about 85kg quite quickly (through calorie deficit), then over 1-2 years I went to a low of about 72kg. I am about 75-76 now, and have been oscillating in the 72-77 range for the past 5 years or so. It still requires me to be mindful of how much I eat, which has become part of my daily life. I'm not very strict about it,…

I've heard from many sources that maintaining a weight level is harder than losing weight, and that has been my own experience.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#877

Post by astrange »

heavyset_go wrote: post #669
danielvaughn wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just saying the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. We’re both trying to lose weight, for the millionth time in the 20 years we’ve been together. Exasperated, I just said “I don’t get it. I was an artist who had no technical background, and was able to teach myself computer science and now I’m a highly successful engineer. I did that. And yet I can’t lose 10 pounds to save my life.” It’s so hard to eat healt…

> It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it. Learn to cook well so that eating out would result in lower quality meals compared to what you could make yourself. Once you're controlling what goes into your meals, instead of outsourcing it, that makes it easier to control portion sizes, how much fat/oils go into things (I've found that restaurant dishes have an absurd amount of fat in them…

“Has a high amount of fat” isn’t the same thing as “unhealthy”. “Has a high amount of calories” isn’t either.

Wanting to lose weight isn’t necessarily about health, and eating a lot of fat is an effective way to lose weight.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#878

Post by astrange »

paul7986 wrote: post #864
danielvaughn wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just saying the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. We’re both trying to lose weight, for the millionth time in the 20 years we’ve been together. Exasperated, I just said “I don’t get it. I was an artist who had no technical background, and was able to teach myself computer science and now I’m a highly successful engineer. I did that. And yet I can’t lose 10 pounds to save my life.” It’s so hard to eat healt…

I was diagnosed with something a few years ago which if I didn't change my diet (no beef, pork, fried foods, no foods with preservatives, low to no salted foods, increase water intake to 3/4 a gallon a day & started eating fresh fruit)that in ten to 20 years id be stuck in bed too tired to do anything/ enjoy life. For me that forced me to eat healthy daily and it has almost healed my affliction upon religiously follo…

What do “preservatives” have to do with it?

Most nutrition advice is so bad you basically shouldn’t believe anything anyone tells you, including, especially if it’s from an expert.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#879

Post by tomp »

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.

Citation?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#880

Post by astrange »

jononomo wrote: post #744
danielvaughn wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just saying the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. We’re both trying to lose weight, for the millionth time in the 20 years we’ve been together. Exasperated, I just said “I don’t get it. I was an artist who had no technical background, and was able to teach myself computer science and now I’m a highly successful engineer. I did that. And yet I can’t lose 10 pounds to save my life.” It’s so hard to eat healt…

Just eat only liver, eggs, and ribeye steaks -- you can absolutely stuff yourself and you will lose weight. The problem is that as a society we are sending the wrong message about what healthy food is -- nothing from a plant is really good for humans to eat. A diet of only red meat, however, will not only get you in phenomenal shape, but it will also clear up a dozen other major and minor health issues. It is the per…

Hope you don’t have hemachromatosis.
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