Live data from Hacker News

Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

allure.com

121–130 of 131 posts

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#121
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty simple, unfortunately. A lot of folks have this visceral, instinctive horror of fat people, and instead of examining that, they convince themselves that what they actually despise is laziness and gluttony: inner vices expressed outwardly, like a medieval morality play. But if there's a way to lose weight without major lifestyle change, it threatens that tidy moral barometer. Someone might look vir…

> A lot of folks have this visceral, instinctive horror of fat people Because humans spent some hundred thousand years on earth with no fat human in sight, and only around 3-400 with the ultra obese. It's unnatural.

Case in point.

Cars, computers, and cellphones are unnatural. If you can get over those, you can get over recoiling in atavistic horror from people who don't meet your beauty standards.

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing besides GLP-1s and roux-en-Y has been shown to help people lose a clinically significant (>5%) amount of their body weight and keep it off long term (>5y). Exercise does roughly speaking nothing to help you lose fat (it's great for all sorts of other things), and diet has not been shown to work long-term either due to changes in metabolic rate and hunger leading to ~zero compliance. Most people reverse trajec…

Exercise most certainly helps you lose fat, and it helps you keep your blood sugar in check. Exercise is often not good at helping people lose weight, but it is good at helping them lower their body fat and increase lean body mass. You'd much rather someone be a muscular, overweight person than skinny-fat person. In particular, if you got someone lifting weights three times a week, it would have a noticeable impact o…

The studies are pretty clear: aerobic exercise leads to some tepid reduction in body fat in exchange for massive effort, and resistance training increases fat-free mass but doesn't reduce fat.

> [aligned] with literature from the previous decade and recent systematic reviews concluding that participation in an exercise training program does favor weight loss, although of only modest magnitude. [1]

> Resistance training was the only exercise modality that failed to significantly decrease visceral adipose tissue. [1]

You suggest that "you'd much rather someone be a muscular, overweight person than skinny-fat person" -- but that's not really the case. Sheer fat mass, especially visceral adipose tissue, is what is associated with negative health consequences.

[edit] Even the article you linked to via the Times says the following.

> However, the amount of weight loss from exercise training is often disappointingly less than expected. [2]

Which aligns with their own findings that after 12 weeks of 3000kcal/week energy deficit they only lost about 5 pounds, see Table 2. So to lose 50 pounds you'd have to spend 2 years with a 3000kcal/week deficit, and keep adjusting periodically. The chances of compliance here are literally zero, and compliance is a major issue. In some senses, it's the major issue.

Also this study committed a major sin: they didn't follow up. Any study that shows anything meaningful in re: weight loss reverses after 6 months.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8365736/

[2] https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpregu.000...

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#123

Don't these plastic surgeons have a conflict of interest if they perform liposuction? Liposuction is probably wildly more profitable than prescribing a GLP-1 inhibitor.

As the article says, they have patients come anyway to reduce the side effects of GLP-1. Plastic surgeons are like the bank in casino: they always win in the end.

"...but gravity always...wins"

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#124
I've been using tirzepatide since the end of february, since then I've lost 52lbs in about 25 weeks, if my fat skin was stretched and it's since relaxed at a rate of 2lbs per week then maybe right now it is like an old rubber band that's been unstretched, but in a few months time once the rate of loss reduces it will be ok. I'm almost 50 so tbh I expected it to be much worse, I've virtually no loose skin compared to the 6 inches I've lost around my waist.

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#126
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting remark, considering this is most famous drug on the face of the Earth, and only has one brand name worldwide (in a different dosage it's called Wegovy, and when it's released as a pill it will be called Rybelsus). Its generic name is Semaglutide.

This is the first time I'm hearing about it. It seems here it's only prescribed to type 2 diabetes partients and doctors are strictly prohibited from prescribing it for weight loss.

Yes that might be what you read online but in reality there are 5 people at my work out of a team of ~35 on the medication purely for weight loss. Only one of these people was majorly obese, and the other 4 were nominally overweight (though probably technically obese).

Roughly 15 million Americans are on Ozempic, and about half of them do not use it at all for Diabetes treatment.

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who are naturally thin?

I see older very skinny women who look old and frail due to being very skinny. You need some fat under that skin to plump it up to look youthful. Catherine Deneuve I believe was the one that said that after the age of 40 you have to chose between your face and your ass. I say all of this as a 40 something woman.

Not fat, you need muscle mass, that's why some older people hunch over.

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#128
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of folks have this visceral, instinctive horror of fat people Because humans spent some hundred thousand years on earth with no fat human in sight, and only around 3-400 with the ultra obese. It's unnatural.

Case in point. Cars, computers, and cellphones are unnatural. If you can get over those, you can get over recoiling in atavistic horror from people who don't meet your beauty standards.

> Cars, computers, and cellphones are unnatural

They are not a part of, or the whole human body

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing besides GLP-1s and roux-en-Y has been shown to help people lose a clinically significant (>5%) amount of their body weight and keep it off long term (>5y). Exercise does roughly speaking nothing to help you lose fat (it's great for all sorts of other things), and diet has not been shown to work long-term either due to changes in metabolic rate and hunger leading to ~zero compliance. Most people reverse trajec…

Exercise most certainly helps you lose fat, and it helps you keep your blood sugar in check. Exercise is often not good at helping people lose weight, but it is good at helping them lower their body fat and increase lean body mass. You'd much rather someone be a muscular, overweight person than skinny-fat person. In particular, if you got someone lifting weights three times a week, it would have a noticeable impact o…

300 minutes is 5 hours per week of vigorous exercise. That's... A lot, no matter what

Re: Ozempic is changing people's skin, say plastic surgeons

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise most certainly helps you lose fat, and it helps you keep your blood sugar in check. Exercise is often not good at helping people lose weight, but it is good at helping them lower their body fat and increase lean body mass. You'd much rather someone be a muscular, overweight person than skinny-fat person. In particular, if you got someone lifting weights three times a week, it would have a noticeable impact o…

300 minutes is 5 hours per week of vigorous exercise. That's... A lot, no matter what

That's ~43 minutes a day, or the approximate length of an episode of a TV show - it really isn't that much.
Post reply on HN