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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

#891

Post by antihero »

treeman79 wrote: post #433
0xB31B1B wrote: post #21

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…

I was put on topomax for extreme migraines. Turned out a side effect was zero appetite. Unfortunately another side effect was to lose of about 60 iq points. Loved the weight loss. Missed having a brain.

Was it literally like just being less smart? Or was it sedation/fog?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#892

Post by wink »

LouisSayers wrote: post #703
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. 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…

I don't buy that line of reasoning. I'm personally going between "I don't crave sweets at all" for weeks to "give me everything we have at home and when I go for groceries I will buy more". Maybe there are people who keep certain preferences or bodily functions for years, I am not one of them. My need for sleep is also drastically going up and down in bouts of months (when I need 8h, I need 8h and 9h is better, and when I am fine with 6h I am fine with 6h or if need be 5h, this changes every few months and then stays for a few months, not limited to a certain time of the year).

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#893

Post by ErikCorry »

throwawayfatty wrote: post #722
auganov wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, I'm never full. I can eat until I physically can't eat anymore (not something I do regularly, of course), and as soon as my stomach has emptied a bit, I feel fairly hungry again. "Eat until you feel full" is literally a human experience I had never really had. I feel exactly the way you do, and yes, I was fat, lost it in one go and never gained it back. I try to keep my BMI around 18, never went over…

> 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…

> A doctor might help, but I'm not going. The medical state of the art of dealing with obesity seems to be "just don't". A consult seems pointless and humiliating.

The point of this article seems to be that that is changing. Doctors actually have something to offer you now.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#894

Post by wink »

ashwagary wrote: post #652
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've heard people say that the solution is to eat (healthy food) when you're hungry, and stop when you're full. The thing is, I'm never full. I can eat until I physically can't eat anymore (not something I do regularly, of course), and as soon as my stomach has emptied a bit, I feel fairly hungry again. "Eat until you feel full" is literally a human experience I had never really had. I hear people following a carniv…

I've heard people say "I'm only being sated by the extras/side dishes, give me 1kg of meat and I will eat 1kg of meat as the main course" and to a degree I understand, at least for "normal" dishes with meat and carbs. Maybe it actually works if you crank the fat contents up.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#895

Post by _dain_ »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #670
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…

[flagged]

>What people who aren't fat do is intellectually recognize that "I could eat forever" feeling, and don't fall for it. That's where the willpower comes into play.

This isn't how it is for me. Of course I've had the "I could eat forever, so let's not" thoughts before, but only in certain contexts like if I'm at a buffet dinner. Ordinarily I just get full and then stop. No mental pep-talk needed.

I've noticed in these discussions, people think how it is for them is how it is for everyone else. They use the same words to mean different things. Look carefully through all the comments here and you'll see that "full" seems to have very different meanings to different people. "Willpower" is another one.

Nobody can give an objective meaning to these terms, or it doesn't even enter their minds that they might need to, because "obviously" everyone else experiences the world in the same way. It's like the blind men of Indostan.

See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-e...

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#896

Post by huffmsa »

raspberry1337 wrote: post #874
soheil wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A potato is far more energy dense than popcorn. 2 cups of popcorn looks like a good amount of food, but it's only ~150cal. A good way to trick your brain into thinking it's doing a lot of eating.

Source: worked for me. And is a basically daily staple

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#897

Post by cstross »

I'm 58, have type II diabetes, and BMI over 30, which is the criterion for NHS Scotland to offer semaglutide (currently in the formulation Rybelsus, which is a once-a-day tablet rather than an injection).

I've been on Semaglutide for 6 months now. Weight is down from 97kg to 83kg, blood HbA1C is down into pre-diabetes levels. (Also, my knees don't hurt!)

The down side of semaglutide:

1. Continuous low-grade nausea, as in, "am I going to throw up?" levels of stomach upset. Feeling nauseous for six months is No Fun Whatsoever.

2. Appetite suppression: it's like a chemical gastric band. My stomach capacity is way down. It makes family meal planning pretty much impossible: it makes the rare celebratory restaurant meal difficult (I'm limited to either two starter-sized portions or a main portion, and expect to leave some on the plate or feel bloated for 12-18 hours afterwards).

3. Muscle loss, not just fat loss. There's a pandemic surge and the health service here is in crisis so I'm not going to the swimming pool (my main form of exercise -- low joint impact). Consequently I'm not getting enough exercise. I have noticed that on semaglutide you lose weight from all tissues -- not just white adipose, so I'm losing muscle density as well. (New Year's Resolution: once the current COVID peak passes, go back to the pool during off-peak hours.)

Upshot: I'm going to persist for a while longer then when the weight loss slows off I'll talk to my GP about a medication review and maybe reducing the dosage to a maintenance level (in hope of keeping the benefits and reducing the side-effects). I would not recommend this medication to someone who is only a bit overweight -- it's a first-generation GLP-1 agonist, and like H2 antagonists in the 1970s and 1980s there will be a deluge of me-too drugs over the next few years that are cheaper/better/have fewer side-effects. If you can wait, wait.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#898

Post by ilyt »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #831
ilyt wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Implying that something is off if you "feel" but are "not" full? How do you define full? Having a "healthy" amount of food in your stomach? However you define it, with asserting that, you have to acknowledge the closely related idea that there's something off if you are "full" (as you've defined it) but still not feeling full - or satiated. It's that broken state that so many of us are desperate to solve. I call it…

Having felt both “brain hunger/body hunger” And “obesity hunger/glp1 hunger” they are very different. The glp1 drugs remove a compulsion to eat that many thin people just don’t have. It’s like being a smoker, and then nearly instantly no longer craving cigarettes and finding the smell of ciagrettes unappealing. It’s not a remotely subtle change at all.

Yeah the "I know I don't need to eat but I want to" is the most annoying part of trying to get thinner

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#899

Post by mateo1 »

rajin444 wrote: post #56

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.

Carbohydrates, fat and protein are the 3 main classes of molecules humans need to survive. Sugar is simply a fast absorbed carbohydrate, glucose is basically the very thing that keeps us alive 99% of the time. We are literally build around glucose. Marking it as "addictive" and without nutritional value is idiotic. A choice of a particular diet high in sugar can have negative affects, but guess what, you can chose a different diet and stop being obese instead of asking for one of the most important nutrients that exist to be banned.
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