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How long til we're all on Ozempic?

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

#281

Post by gcr »

paulmist wrote: post #249
dfxm12 wrote: 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…

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?

We have good food, but you won't find it on "The Easy Path."

The Easy Path is that gentle encouragement to hit up Chipotle for lunch, because it's "right there."

The Easy Path says dinner's hard and you've had a long day, so get something simple, like take-out or microwave.

The Easy Path is entropy. The Easy Path is self-care over struggle. The Easy Path is simple carbs shown on prominent display in store shelves. The Easy Path is advertising.

Hitting the gym isn't on The Easy Path, but forgetting to cancel your gym membership is.

These days, big food companies love "The Easy Path" because it's so easy to commoditize, it's the "Path that Americans are Expected to Take." For financial stewards, being on The Easy Path turns lack of willpower into your ally.

On the other hand, getting good food in the US requires passing the marshmallow test: you have to meal prep, or you have to shop around the sides, or you have to get something on the salad menu. You have to say no to advertising. You have to expend willpower, the most limited of resources to the average American. You have to Go Hungry or Suffer, or have An Upset Stomach. You frequently have to spend more money or time.

Semaglutides are not currently on The Easy Path. Maybe they will be someday. I personally doubt that, because putting GLP-1 on The Easy Path would require big food companies to rethink their entire portfolio.

But you're not wrong in that they could be Easy Path-ajdacent. The dialectic would shift: food companies would shift around to be Organic and Nutritious and Less Calories and find other ways to stay on The Easy Path. Sugar and fat's addictiveness is highly Easy Path-enabling, and that's a pretty big vacuum to fill.

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

#283

Post by zdragnar »

throwaway63467 wrote: post #112
zdragnar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statins have gone through several prescribing guideline revisions in the last 10-20 years. Many people were incorrectly prescribed them and some have suffered for it. Likewise, there can be serious complications when taking GLP-1 agonists and the like. Since they need to be taken in perpetuity (many gain all weight lost upon stopping use) they should be reserved for only people who have exhausted all other opportunit…

I’m just back from the US and watching some TV there in the hotel it seems very much like they’re pushing it into the mainstream, they literally have a commercial where “fat” people congregate in the street to march together picking up Ozempic… So I totally assume it will be widespread in a few years unless they discover some serious side effects.

Meh, you see commercials for all kinds of medicines in the US. There's more being produced than your average general practitioner can keep up with, so the manufacturers appeal directly to consumers.

Given how ineffective it is once you stop, I'm personally expecting it to become a relatively short lived fad. Insurance companies won't cover it if it truly doesn't improve health outcomes long term (throwing money down the toilet) and people will learn to not pay out of pocket for it.

There's a reason insurance companies are loath to cover it for obesity now without prior authorization, which usually requires you seeing a specialist who has ruled out the usual suspects (nutrition and exercise changes).

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

#284

Post by llamaimperative »

whall6 wrote: post #278
dfxm12 wrote: 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…

[flagged]

You're not being a dick, just utterly unhelpful and non-contributory.

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

#285

Post by wizzwizz4 »

sbelskie wrote: post #235
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is there any evidence it’s effective? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_Kingdo...

The claim was about promotion, not effective promotion. (As a sibling comment points out, effective promotion is not unrealistic either. It won't happen on its own, but nothing does.)

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

#286

Post by sph »

Uehreka wrote: post #271
farceSpherule wrote: post #237

A lot of people fail to realize that eating healthy and exercising is not enough for a lot of people who fight with their weight their entire lives. Ozempic and Wegovy are game changes and have real, tangible health benefits. One person told me, "No matter how much I eat or exercise, I have been 'hungry' my entire life. That ended when I started taking these drugs."

I gained about 50 pounds the past decade and the past year I’ve been trying to lose it. I weighed myself at the beginning: 205 lbs I started running 30 minutes per day (heartrate training targeting about 140-150), every day, for 10 months. I kept my diet the same as before (though with a protein bar after the run). Weighed myself every week or two, always within a couple pounds of 205. In March I ramped up my runs to…

What do you eat? I bet $10 either it's calorie-counted standard high carb diet or something that is low in protein and fats.

The physiology of dieting, and avoiding hunger, is pretty well understood at this point. Just don't ask your GP or they'll just tell you to stop eating red meat and eat more cereals as the "solution".

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

#287

Post by nextos »

llamaimperative wrote: post #256
gcr wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GP isn't talking about self-control, they're talking about the fact we've created a system that requires obscene amounts of self-control if you wish to maintain physical health. People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.

Exactly, good systems do not rely on willpower. They rather make obvious habits effortless.

Deviating from the mean is hard. Bad food and sedentarism are the norm.

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

#288

Post by Teever »

SapporoChris wrote: post #245
paulcole wrote: post #209

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.

Of course it is impossible to live a healthy lifestyle and have healthy weight, if you ignore the 3/5ths of Americans that are not obese and the 7/8th of the global population.

Are the 3/5ths of Americans who are not obese actually living a healthy lifestyle? Or are they just living a different unhealthy lifestyle?

Is a skinny homeless methhead with a great BMI healthy? Or the blue collar dude who has terrible blood pressure from chain smoking and pounding energy drinks on his way to the job site?

How many Americans who are not obese are on their way to becoming obese?

There are lots of paths to unhealthiness and overeating / eating poorly is only one of them

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

#290

Post by bee_rider »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #3

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.

Medical FOMO? I wouldn’t worry too much about it, I mean, there are hypothetical upsides to countless decisions we haven’t made, right? We always miss some chances in life.
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