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Ozempic drug supresses desire to smoke, drink and more?

theatlantic.com

211–220 of 504 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the most surprising thing to me is how you’re describing normal behavior that I can relate to all my life, but the community of strugglers is so big that this is a whole testimonial people feel comfortable and exalted to share like thats not something I’m deriding its just news to me makes me wonder what this drug actually does, flush gut bacteria? just the right ones?

For a long time we have known the existence of a network of hormones controlling our apetite on the gut brain axis, with names like ghrelin, leptin, glp-1, orexin, somatostatin, list goes on [1]. Issue was the network was tres complicé and hard to perturb without getting the opposite effect than what we wanted. Finally with glp-1, sglt2 and pcsk9 inhibition we are starting to be able to correct in the right way. To a…

can we do this for working out and exercise?

I’m lean but dont do that and can recognize the benefits. It would be cool if we could pharmacologically make that appealing too.

What if we could just continually swap in states.

Executive work mode, ah it feels so good to think and focus.

Empath mode, ah it feels so good to build relationships.

Brolic mode, ah it feels so good to think about working out, and actually work out!

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

#212
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, SubQ injections are pretty much completely unnoticeable in terms of pain / feeling at all. It’s more the mental barrier of doing it to yourself but once you’ve done it for the first time you soon realise it’s fine.

The actual doing it seems wild/absurd, but I don't think that would hold me back. This is ignorant/uniformed, but, taking research chemical by ingestion feels like I have some natural barriers still. Where-as I feel like there's a much more raw exposure to risk with injection. Also there's dumb risks like infection, if I don't attend well enough to injections. In spite of these protests, I think you are probably much…

Counterpoint: Don’t inject yourself with stuff you found on the internet because people on the internet told you it’s ok.

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

#213

Exercise is free and the side effects are you get stronger, more energetic, and better looking. Ozempic costs money and its side effects include cancer, kidney failure, and ruining your eyes. https://www.ozempic.com/faqs.html edit: many point out calorie intake is the real problem, it's true: buy a kitchen scale, weigh your food, count your calories, and you will lose weight. Exercise is optional compared to that. St…

They're not mutually exclusive. You can exercise regularly and still have a substance abuse problem. In fact, substance abuse is a major problem amongst high-performing athletes [1]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140700/

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the most surprising thing to me is how you’re describing normal behavior that I can relate to all my life, but the community of strugglers is so big that this is a whole testimonial people feel comfortable and exalted to share like thats not something I’m deriding its just news to me makes me wonder what this drug actually does, flush gut bacteria? just the right ones?

For a long time we have known the existence of a network of hormones controlling our apetite on the gut brain axis, with names like ghrelin, leptin, glp-1, orexin, somatostatin, list goes on [1]. Issue was the network was tres complicé and hard to perturb without getting the opposite effect than what we wanted. Finally with glp-1, sglt2 and pcsk9 inhibition we are starting to be able to correct in the right way. To a…

> yeah turns out it was never about will power.

What a completely silly take away. It's like nature vs nurture it's not 100% one thing only.

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

#215

Exercise is free and the side effects are you get stronger, more energetic, and better looking. Ozempic costs money and its side effects include cancer, kidney failure, and ruining your eyes. https://www.ozempic.com/faqs.html edit: many point out calorie intake is the real problem, it's true: buy a kitchen scale, weigh your food, count your calories, and you will lose weight. Exercise is optional compared to that. St…

Exercise does nothing for weight loss if you're eating too much. Exercise has health benefits, but weight loss is not one of them for the vast majority of people. People wildly overestimate how many calories they're burning.

s/calories/carbs

Calories can still be a useful metric as a proxy but low calorie (“diet”) foods tend to compensate with more carbs. At least the ones I see regularly at my grocery store.

As a side note: It’s actually difficult to find pre-packaged low carb food at regular grocery stores sadly. It requires effort to make yourself, just like going to the gym. Like most good things in life.

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

#216
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 that 2/3 of the weight loss is muscle, do you find that to be the case?

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

#217
post #204
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this cause insurers to have to raise their premiums for everyone substantially?

No. The additional costs to the healthcare system due to people being overweight probably exceed 12000/person/year, but if not exceed it, they certainly come close. Moreover, it's not unheard of to mandate cheaper drug prices, and now that we understand how these drugs work, there will be more of them in the pipeline.

> The additional costs to the healthcare system due to people being overweight probably exceed 12000/person/year

This is a big claim to assert without evidence. If it was the case then insurers would already be adding the drugs to their formularies.

There is undoubtedly a cost associated with obesity but you are suggesting that simply being overweight doubles the average cost of care[1], a figure that already includes overweight and obese people (which are of course a huge population in the US).

A quick Google search turned up a report[2] that suggests that

> This estimated public cost equates to an average marginal cost of $175 per year per adult for a one unit change in BMI for each adult in the U.S. population.

So, even for the extreme case of a very obese person that has a very successful treatment and goes from 40 BMI to 25 BMI, you are only saving a hypothetical $2,625 per year (perhaps an underestimate due to inflation and the age of the paper).

Therefore it would appear that unless insurers strike a deal with the drug companies (lower the price, make it up in volume), such a law would dramatically increase insurance premiums. A better compromise would be a law which requires insurance companies to offer co-insurance on these drugs up to the expected savings.

[1] https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/01/why-are-americans-paying-m....

[2] https://vinecon.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cwe12...

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

#218
post #23

I’m glad people are enjoying Ozempic. My experience from seeing a family member on it, is I would not touch it if I were a 500-pound alcoholic smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. That’s an exaggeration since it probably outweighs the health issues there, but only slightly. The person I know taking Ozempic has only lost weight (35 lbs) due to the fact that eating now makes her sick. She has been sapped of all energ…

As a counter-counter-point I've read most (~90%) of the papers that come out of trials registered at http://clinicaltrials.gov/ for all GLP-1 agonists, including ones that haven't been approved. The vast, vast, vast majority of secondary outcomes, for things like - blood pressure - lipids (HDL, LDL) - insulin sensitivity - blood glucose - strokes - cardiovascular events + deaths - myocardial infarctions - hemoglobin…

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

#219
post #23

I’m glad people are enjoying Ozempic. My experience from seeing a family member on it, is I would not touch it if I were a 500-pound alcoholic smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. That’s an exaggeration since it probably outweighs the health issues there, but only slightly. The person I know taking Ozempic has only lost weight (35 lbs) due to the fact that eating now makes her sick. She has been sapped of all energ…

I know this isn't your family member, but if they were a 500-pound alcoholic smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, I suspect they probably felt like crap before the ozempic.

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

#220
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 that 2/3 of the weight loss is muscle, do you find that to be the case?

this is likely incorrect because people are confusing lean body weight loss for muscle loss. lean body weight loss does not mean only muscle loss. lean weight includes non muscle like skin, organs, etc.
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