Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 504 posts

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#151

Post by jmpman »

I’ve been on Mounjaro since August. Down almost 60lbs, and it’s been a life changer. Have I had some gastrointestinal issues, sure, but expected. I feel great and my brain seems to be functioning as well as when I was in my 20’s. Now, when I go to the bar with friends, I end up having maybe 2 beers and although enjoyable, I don’t feel that light switch turning on which encourages me to drink more. Can I force myself to keep drinking, say if my good friends are in town and we’re going out all night? Sure, but there’s some reward center that’s no longer lighting up. I just get drunker, but it’s not more pleasurable. I was never a big drinker at home by myself. Maybe a glass of wine or two with dinner if my in-laws are coming over. Now I’ve literally had zero drinks at home by myself. Seems to have started changing about 3 month in.

Work also seems more interesting, but my untreated ADHD seems to be getting worse.

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#152

Post by jjeaff »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #131

How long is the research info ozempic and other hormonal weight loss drugs? Remember the last miracle drug that went to the market for weight loss had to be retracted for killing people or damaging their hearts to the tune of over 10 billion dollars in damages paid out.

While I am not saying that this drug is definitely safe, I think the fact that Fen-phen turned out to be more dangerous doesn't really implicate these new drugs because while the desired outcome is the same, the class and type of drugs seem to be entirely different. My understanding is that fen-phen is a stimulant and increased blood pressure and heart rate. It also includes some other drugs that affect serotonin levels.

These new drugs are peptide analogs that affect your body's digestion and how it deals with sugar and fat production and insulin.

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#153

Post by raincom »

jmpman wrote: post #151

I’ve been on Mounjaro since August. Down almost 60lbs, and it’s been a life changer. Have I had some gastrointestinal issues, sure, but expected. I feel great and my brain seems to be functioning as well as when I was in my 20’s. Now, when I go to the bar with friends, I end up having maybe 2 beers and although enjoyable, I don’t feel that light switch turning on which encourages me to drink more. Can I force myself…

I heard Mounjaro is even more effective than Semaglutide.

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#154

Post by wcfields »

akiselev wrote: post #121
015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>From what I have heard, all of these issues come back as soon as someone comes off the drug. So either a person is committing to a lifetime of being dependent on this drug, or a person is committing to some period of time of ideal living, followed by a possible time of depression after reverting to the status quo. This is true of every weight loss intervention: Weight Watchers, low-carb, keto, Whole 30, etc. Once pe…

> The only intervention that does reliably work is bariatric surgery. My understanding is surgery only works reliably because failure to comply with life style changes post-op is easily fatal and ethical doctors only perform the operation after patients have demonstrated that ability. In all but the most extreme patients, about a fifth to a third of the target weight loss has to happen pre-op for doctors to even cons…

New addictions post bariatric surgery is fairly common. Gambling for instance [1] replaces food.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332884264_Gambling_...

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#155

Post by LazyMans »

Yes. On a compounded semaglutide. I can finally control my hunger and a nice unexpected effect has been losing a desire to drink large quantities of alcohol. I don’t drink during the week anyway, but it seems to be the volume that turns me off to drinking. Thus a few cocktails are all I can tolerate. For context, Im 30, male, would be defined as a binge drinker on weekends. Oh, and I’ve given up nicotine entirely. I can’t tell if the drug is helping or it was just a point in my life that I finally decided I accept it makes me feel ill most of the time.

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#156

Post by monkeycantype »

the genetics of obesity are amazing. we all have a unique combination of genes, and epigenic features that influece the endocrine and neuronal pathways that drive the desire to eat, these different genotypes affect our behaviour. Ozempic is putting a thumb on the scales of this pathway, but this pathway is balanced differently in all of us. Think of the most hungry you have ever been, in some people this never stops, in others it's dialed up or down.

there are some great papers on fat labradors that hint at how these different genotypes are linked to our desire to eat and how that shifts our behaiour. Guide dogs are highly selected for trainability, and positive reinforcement with food reward plays an important role in their training. I think it was Yeo, found 22% of pet Labradors and 80% of Labrador guide dogs sampled carried a 14 BP deletion in the POMC gene, which forms part of this pathway.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-016-4187-x https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873617/

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#157

Post by ec109685 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #77
rektide wrote: post #9

I'm surprised Ozempic gets all the press. Supposedly Mounjaro is all that and more. The wonderful Paul Ford has the best writeup I've seen that discusses these more meta levels, the post-human implications of a drug we can genuinely widescalely reprogram ourselves with. Paul's so great. https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-m... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34660232

My favorite Linux distro; it's basically a user-friendly Arch with goodies like a GUI kernel switcher thrown in.

How is it for weight loss?

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#158

Post by gnulinux »

op00to wrote: post #96
glonq wrote: post #61

What happens when you reach your target weight with drugs like this? After having learned potentionally nothing about nutrition, exercise, and self-control, are you stuck on these meds for life out of fear of binge-eating back to your original weight? FWIW I'm on a hundred-pound roller coaster ride from 300lbs to 200lbs; currently ~215. I've learned a lot about discipline and sustainable habits along the way.

What happens when someone who was previously deeply depressed but feels better goes off an antidepressant? They learn to handle life, or they return to the drug if further treatment is needed. It’s not a moral failing.

As an anecdote: at my worst (when I was clearly suicidal, insomniac and emotionally unstable) I was on antidepressants (Prozac) and it helped me a lot. It made me very emotionally stable. I got off Prozac after a couple years to try it out and I felt much better. Over that year, I started feeling similarly terrible due to COVID world. Went back to Prozac. Once again made me very stable. Stopped using Prozac in mid 2022, again to see if I feel good without it. Since then have been feeling much, much better. Of course, mental health is a constant battle, you fight one day at a time, but I consider my depression as close to "cured" as possible because over the last year I felt pretty normal without any drugs.

Things to note are, along the way I stopped drinking alcohol which helped me tons. Before 2020 I was a huge drinker (not alcoholic, but every day heavy drinker). Initially, I started smoking weed. This helped a ton because I stopped drinking completely, but I wasn't getting very high every day and I thought THC helped quite a bit too. Eventually, in late 2022 I stopped using THC too. I'm completely drug free now. I believe that both Prozac and THC helped me significantly to get out of depression. In addition to drugs, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), therapy in general and getting a cat has been extremely helpful as well.

This is just an anecdote, every brain is different. Never self medicate, see a doctor and a therapist!

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#159

Post by AtlasBarfed »

LazyMans wrote: post #155

Yes. On a compounded semaglutide. I can finally control my hunger and a nice unexpected effect has been losing a desire to drink large quantities of alcohol. I don’t drink during the week anyway, but it seems to be the volume that turns me off to drinking. Thus a few cocktails are all I can tolerate. For context, Im 30, male, would be defined as a binge drinker on weekends. Oh, and I’ve given up nicotine entirely. I…

I'd hazard a guess that nicotine is one of the two or three most addictive substances known to humanity. Opiates/heroin is probably worse, world of warcraft is probably third :-)

The drug probably helped.

Re: Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

#160

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Retric wrote: post #145
znpy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ on a bike, that’s beyond dystopian, that’s completely f—-ked up. Does the fda allow that?

There’s huge tradeoffs people rarely talk about in Medicine. Significant risk of soiling yourself vs a statistically significant reduction in risk of early death isn’t a big deal for the FDA. In many cases the hell that is chemo is considered acceptable for even moderate increases in expected lifespan. That’s why people started talking healthy life expectancy vs just life expectancy.

Well duh, if you discuss the side effects with patients, they won't take the drug and the drug people won't send you hookers.
Post reply on HN