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How long til we're all on Ozempic?

asteriskmag.com

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Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying, "All things being equal, I'd prefer Santa Claus bring presents on Christmas Eve than have to go shopping for my kids." It's like well duh of course you'd prefer the impossibly unrealistic miracle.

Other countries do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change4Life

hahaha.

"The UK has seen its obesity rates increase faster than the US. In the UK, obesity has risen sharply since 1990, when it affected only 14% of adults. The UK is also considered one of the most overweight countries in Western Europe."

In addition, since the introduction of Change4Life, the obesity rate has simply continued to climb in the uk (see https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03..., for example).

So yes, other countries (just like the US), have introduced programs to try to encourage healthier behaviors, and have seen similar outcomes from them.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#262

My biggest fear is either there will be long term negative consequences to Ozempic et al, and a huge swath of the population will be dealing with issues 30 years form now - OR - there will be some long term positive consequence to using Ozempic et al, and I'm not getting any of the benefits because I'm not overweight.

> a huge swath of the population will be dealing with issues 30 years form now

We've got 20 years of data on this class of drug. Certainly there could be some long term issues that we're not aware of yet, but it's not likely that there are significant issues that affect a large percentage of users after 30 years that didn't affect the small sample of users that have been using it for 20 years or the massive number of users that have been using it for 10.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#263
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just eat less and exercise more" is trite. If it were that easy, we'd all be in fantastic shape. Studies show it just doesn't work. There was a massive (18,000,000 people) cohort analysis published in 2023 that showed the likelihood of someone losing 5% of their body weight in any given year was 1 in 11 and the likelihood of going from severely obese to normal weight is 1 in 1667. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/…

>>>Studies show it just doesn't work. It's not that "eat less and exercise more" doesn't work, it's that nobody does it, because it's really, really hard. Calories in/Calories out is both completely true and completely useless for actual humans. edit: that's unfair, mostly useless

People chanting “If everyone just did X, Y wouldn’t be a problem!” without seriously addressing why everyone doesn’t just do X already, or making a serious proposal for how everyone is going to just do X from now on.

A phenomenon not limited to dieting.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#264
post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

This is like saying, "All things being equal, I'd prefer Santa Claus bring presents on Christmas Eve than have to go shopping for my kids." It's like well duh of course you'd prefer the impossibly unrealistic miracle.

Impossibly unrealistic to change zoning to disincentivize car-dependent urban design?

Impossibly unrealistic to get rid of enormous sugar production subsidies that make it insanely cheap?

Impossibly unrealistic to simply tax added sugar?

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#265
post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

It’s been studied pretty well. Possible effective solutions to the US obesity epidemic are pretty much limited to:

1) Radically alter aspects of food culture, work culture, social policy, and business regulation.

2) Magic pill (/injection)

There appears to be no imminent progress on the many parts of #1 that need serious work, so if we want a big turn-around in the next half-century, #2 has suddenly and surprisingly become a real possibility.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#266
post #185

My biggest fear is either there will be long term negative consequences to Ozempic et al, and a huge swath of the population will be dealing with issues 30 years form now - OR - there will be some long term positive consequence to using Ozempic et al, and I'm not getting any of the benefits because I'm not overweight.

I can understand this perspective. You're looking at it with healthy eyes. But for fat people, the calculus looks different. A decision to take semaglutides is a decision between the long-term negative effects of obesity *now*, or the possibility of long-term negative effects *later.* Anecdotally, trans people have a similar calculus. Going unmedicated/unsupported brings significant mental health risk now [1], wherea…

I was curious and a bit skeptical that sex change operations materially affected suicide rates for trans people but available papers tended to find significant effect sizes of about 50% reduction

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#267
post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

I'm glad for RFK Jr. for this reason. Nobody talked about this in the mainstream conversations in the past.

If you like RFK Jr "for this reason," you oughta looove Michelle Obama!

https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

Out from underneath the rock, people have been talking about this nonstop for decades.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a realistic path to this? Being from Europe I visited US last year and was horrified at the quality of your food. You see a lot of documentaries/youtube videos/etc... discussing the problem, but how do you even go about this?

There's plenty of high quality food, you just have to know where to look. For example, come to the Bay Area and check out Whole Foods and any number of high-end restaurants.

+1 to this - what Europeans consider "the basics" for most Americans is filed under "luxury" or "bougie."

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#269
post #229
post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

If you have an open mind, I'd like to assign you some homework if you like. Take a look around r/zepbound and count the following: 1. Posts from folks who diet+exercise, or who have tried diet/exercise and nothing's worked so they then turned to Zepbound ("excited to hit the gym," "my diet is finally starting to work with Zepbound" and similar) 2. Posts from folks who haven't tried diet/exercise and turned to Zepboun…

I'm not sure how this applies to my comment. I'm not saying anything about self control. I'm not against individuals taking GLP-1s. But, if we're at a point where we're all on drugs to treat lifestyle diseases, we should at least recognize that these lifestyles are largely chosen for us, and we should consider that doing something about that will reap us the benefits we're after.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#270

I think Ozempic is a treatment of a symptom but not the underlying condition, but unlike many of the posters here, I do not think the underlying condition is "obesity". The below is mostly speculation. Research especially into people with healthy body weight seems to indicate that there is something going on that is causing widespread obesity. That is, there's some sort of environmental "GLP-1 Turbocharger". Maybe it…

We all know the problem: processed food and lack of exercise.

We all know the solution: Organic vegetables, lean protein, and lots of exercise.

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