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

GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 137 posts

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#71

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

Duhck wrote: post #36
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #31

[flagged]

as an american who avoids sugar and processed foods (like seed oils) its virtually impossible to eat out or buy anything beyond whole foods. Everything is contaminated. Combine that with forever chemical use in packaging, pesticides in non-organic produce, our food supply chain is killing us. I buy eggs from reputable regenerative free range, non-vegetarian fed chickens. I order my poultry and beef from regenerative…

So what you say means that I’m going the US only for a short visit, I’m basically fucked, because none of your options are easily available when living in a hotel for a week or two.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#72

Post by piva00 »

frankzander wrote: post #47

But why? Just eat no crap and work out. This is long lasting if it's a full life change.

Definitely but simple thoughts like that aren't easy to implement in reality for many, many people.

If it was there wouldn't be so many suffering from obesity...

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rickbutton wrote: post #70
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is plenty of money with many orders of magnitude to spare Putting infinite value on anything is a great way to incentivise a system that delivers little to none of it.

There should certainly be measurements taken, costs considered, alternatives approached when building our healthcare system. No one has ever implied otherwise, ever. To imply that there is some level of healthy after which it doesn't make sense to seek improvement is the dehumanizing and anti-social part. What is the point of building an economy at all if not to improve the lives of the population? Opinions in this t…

> imply that there is some level of healthy after which it doesn't make sense to seek improvement is the dehumanizing and anti-social part

No it's not. Every doctor triages. And every medical system has internal cost limits, whether implicit or implict, universal or variable, past which it will not treat. Sometimes that's enforced by gatekeeping entire categories of treatments; in other cases we have patients individually reviewed, e.g. for organ transplants.

If managing obesity is less expensive than treating it, there is a legitimate question around how the cost of that treatment should be split between the public and the individual. (Whether that cost be an explicit split or gatekeeping the treatment to only the most morbidly obese.) Thankfully, that's not the case--treating obesity, even chronically with super-expensive drugs, is still cheaper than the status quo.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#74

Post by rickbutton »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #69
rickbutton wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think addicts should receive treatment? Do you think that people who make bad decisions deserve to live? Do you extract the exact amount of value from society relative to the amount you put in, or do you take more than you give? Are you sure? Please explain. Your perspective is frankly disgusting. I hope you don't have any vices. The point of a society is to pool resources together to improve the collective. D…

I don’t think being addicted to laziness and having a glutinous appetite is exactly comparable to say, being addicted to heroin. But yes, I do think addicts should receive treatment, just as I think obese patients should (and do) receive treatment for all the diseases they end up with. But addicts, like the obese, impose many of the costs of their own bad life decisions onto others. It’s what you’d call a negative ex…

> I don’t think being addicted to laziness and having a glutinous appetite is exactly comparable to say, being addicted to heroin.

Your opinion is that of a petulant child. Many years of research has shown that obesity is not this simple. Many chemical processes take place that influence one's ability to make better health choices, and many external factors put constraints on those choices as well. This is the exact same thing as hard drugs. Being obese is not a moral failing. When you say things like this, you show your true colors. You are not extending humanity to obese people, and it is very obvious.

I sincerely hope you reconsider your opinions. I hope you don't have any obese people in your life, or at least hope they don't read these messages. I think they would be disappointed to hear what you think of them.

And again, I hope you don't have any vices and are the perfect model of health, otherwise this would be a quite silly opinion to have.

EDIT:

I've been rated limited on comments so I'll post my last response here instead:

I have nothing further to say to this other than that you should consider talking to someone about your clearly deep-seated hatred for those who don't fit your model of participant in society; it doesn't seem healthy. Find an obese friend and show them your comments and watch their face as they read them. I wonder if you will find the humanity in their response that you are lacking here.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#75

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #69
rickbutton wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think addicts should receive treatment? Do you think that people who make bad decisions deserve to live? Do you extract the exact amount of value from society relative to the amount you put in, or do you take more than you give? Are you sure? Please explain. Your perspective is frankly disgusting. I hope you don't have any vices. The point of a society is to pool resources together to improve the collective. D…

I don’t think being addicted to laziness and having a glutinous appetite is exactly comparable to say, being addicted to heroin. But yes, I do think addicts should receive treatment, just as I think obese patients should (and do) receive treatment for all the diseases they end up with. But addicts, like the obese, impose many of the costs of their own bad life decisions onto others. It’s what you’d call a negative ex…

> don’t think being addicted to laziness and having a glutinous appetite is exactly comparable to say, being addicted to heroin

Based on what? The reward pathways are remarkably similar. And unlike heroin, you can't go cold turkey on eating.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#76

Post by hbosch »

dilawar wrote: post #6

How does it work? Does it reduce the calorie intake by decreasing the appetite? Your body burns more calories because the drug sets the thermostat higher?! Or something else? I don't know how to feel about the idea that we need treatment for being overweight in general.

Tirzepatide (aka Zepbound/Mounjaro) is called a dual-action GLP-1/GIP agonist. The GLP-1 action overall makes you feel less hungry, basically. The GIP action slows gastric emptying (how quickly food moves from your stomach to your small intenstine) so you feel full longer. It also has a modest effect on lipolysis, which means it does help somewhat in breaking down adipose tissue (fat) to use for energy more efficiently.

Semaglutide is a GLP-1 agonist only. Retratutide is a newer drug that is triple-action.

Generally on these drugs the action does not induce more "calorie burning", they are used mostly to modulate caloric intake.

>I don't know how to feel about the idea that we need treatment for being overweight in general.

Obesity is by orders of magnitude the worst public health issue facing humanity. Obesity makes every disease worse. Obese people are more likely to develop cancer, cardiovascular issues, respiratory issues, dementia, diabetes, and other afflictions. Obesity often leads to depression, lack of motivation, lower libidos, overall worse moods in general.

Of course there are "levels" to it, it's not to say everyone has to be a bodybuilder to be happy and healthy. Of course not. This is not about being slightly overweight, or "wanting to lose 15 lbs for summer"... But in almost every way, being fat makes life worse for the majority of people.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#77

Post by JumpCrisscross »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #31

[flagged]

> Americans could probably start with putting less sugar into bloody everything and reducing portion sizes

It's not just America.

"Obesity in India has reached epidemic proportions in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population" [1]. (It's about 7% in America [2].) Meanwhile in China, "the incidence of overweight and obesity among school-age children...was 15.5% in 2010, rising to 24.2% in 2019 and soaring to 29.4% in 2022" [2]. Same story in Vietnam: "The prevalence of overweight among children aged under 5 years increased from 5.6% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2019. For overweight and obesity among children aged 5 to 19 years, prevalence rose from 8.5% and 2.5% in 2010 to 19% and 8.1% in 2020, respectively" [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_India

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10357130/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947684/

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Duhck wrote: post #36
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #31

[flagged]

as an american who avoids sugar and processed foods (like seed oils) its virtually impossible to eat out or buy anything beyond whole foods. Everything is contaminated. Combine that with forever chemical use in packaging, pesticides in non-organic produce, our food supply chain is killing us. I buy eggs from reputable regenerative free range, non-vegetarian fed chickens. I order my poultry and beef from regenerative…

> processed foods (like seed oils)

Huh, apparently this originates with Joe Rogan [1].

In any case, I'm happy you found something that works for you. But you can find the quality you're looking for in restaurants in any Tier 1 city and most wealthy suburbs. (We absolutely have an issue with poorer communities having a choice between canned and fast food, in essence.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_oil_misinformation

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#79

Post by FiReaNG3L »

FiReaNG3L wrote: post #5

Overconsumption leading to widespread obesity while a large fraction of the world is hungry - the capitalist solution? Let's invent a pill so we can eat EVEN MORE.

To all the 'actually it makes people eat less' - it just normalizes eating way too much, then magically solve it in 3-6 months and start again.

Re: GLP-1 pills are coming, and they could revolutionize weight-loss treatment

#80

Post by rickbutton »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #73
rickbutton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should certainly be measurements taken, costs considered, alternatives approached when building our healthcare system. No one has ever implied otherwise, ever. To imply that there is some level of healthy after which it doesn't make sense to seek improvement is the dehumanizing and anti-social part. What is the point of building an economy at all if not to improve the lives of the population? Opinions in this t…

> imply that there is some level of healthy after which it doesn't make sense to seek improvement is the dehumanizing and anti-social part No it's not. Every doctor triages. And every medical system has internal cost limits, whether implicit or implict, universal or variable, past which it will not treat. Sometimes that's enforced by gatekeeping entire categories of treatments; in other cases we have patients individ…

Correct, doctors do triage according to need and available resources. When you imply that there is some category of care that doesn't deserve treatment (or is too "costly" to provide), you are triaging and choosing economic growth over healthcare. I think that it is a rational decision to make, although it is certainly not the one that has the most respect for human life.
Post reply on HN