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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?

#301
post #56

I’m just as curious as to why some people are so willing to take numerous medications, while others go to any lengths to avoid them. Some people are happy to be on an SSRI, sleeping pill, statin, low dose aspirin, and a few others, and aren’t bothered by this. Other people seem instinctively revolted by prescription drugs, seeing toxins pushed by evil corporations. Is it a trust issue? I personally detest and avoid a…

I'm curious why you include antibiotics in your trusted medications list. Over the past several years we've found that antibiotics have a huge impact on beneficial microbes in your body which then has downstream impacts on your health [0]. Oddly enough for the topic in this article exposure to antibiotics as a child may be linked to obesity[1]. They are also extremely over prescribed for things like viral illnesses […

> I'm curious why you include antibiotics in your trusted medications list.

Because bacterial infections can be horribly lethal?

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

#302
post #281

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?

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. Th…

> I personally doubt that, because putting GLP-1 on The Easy Path would require big food companies to rethink their entire portfolio.

I think the drug industry is more powerful than the food industry, these days.

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

#303

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…

How much of the data was done independent and how much was done by the same company or companies that benefit from it? We've seen this before. How many decades did people take aspirin thinking it was good for you to take everyday. How many decades did people drink wine thinking it was good for you in small dosage? How many people smoked using it as an appetite suppressant not knowing the long term effects?

The list goes on forever. I'm betting this ends the same way.

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

#304
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…

From the article "Estimates suggest GLP-1s can reduce body weight by at least 15% when taken regularly". That's a 5'10" man starting at 250lbs (obese, BMI > 35) and finishing at 220lbs (obese, BMI >30).

Or a 5'10" man starting at 220lbs (obese) and finishing at 187lbs (overweight, BMI > 26).

It ain't nothing, but that's not a magic pill which will fix the obesity epidemic. And these people have skipped changing their lifestyle, exercise, diet, and attitudes around food.

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

#305

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/…

it's interesting you state "Studies show it just doesn't work." While we are commenting on an article about a drug which makes you feel less hungry, there by "eating less". The drug doesn't make you use more calories, it simply "makes" you EAT LESS. Eating less(calories) than your body uses consistently for duration is literally the only way you can lose weight. (outside of literally losing limbs, or surgery to remov…

"Telling people to eat less" doesn't work the same way telling people to relax doesn't work. It assumes that relaxing is under voluntary control.

To bring it back food, the issue is not the eating, the core issue is the hunger causing the eating and that's what the medication is addressing.

The people you think are eating ea

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

#306

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/…

People need to understand what activity / exercise really is. The desperation of the medical establishment to get people to do ANY exercise meant the general advice is watered down. It's the doom of the statistical distribution. Good outcomes are defined in relative terms on the bell curve, not on absolute performance which exercise is actually suited for. In days of manual labor jobs and lots of walking, people like…

> In days of manual labor jobs and lots of walking, people likely burned 1500-4000 calories more per day than sedentary modern lifestyles.

Hasn't this idea been studied using modern-but-primitive groups of people who still live much as they have for thousands of years? Their bodies are quite efficient and they do not burn substantially more calories than "civilized" humans in regular society do.

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

#307
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

> I personally doubt that, because putting GLP-1 on The Easy Path would require big food companies to rethink their entire portfolio. I think the drug industry is more powerful than the food industry, these days.

This duel of incentives will be a fascinating battle to watch in the coming years.

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

#308

Statins are regularly given to people with high cholesterol. I would bet that most older people take or qualify to take a statin. If it happens with statins, therefore, it's not out of the realm to think that most people will eventually be prescribed GLP-1 to reduce weight which will improve overall health. It makes sense.

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…

Pretty much no one should be taking statins. The side effects are well studied, while the benefits are dubious at best.

For example: high cholesterol levels is actually positively correlated with longevity, believe it or not. If you consume a diet low in sugars, thus routinely burning fat when fasted, you will have "high" cholesterol in blood. How do you think fats are moved to cells in need? Through the blood, of course.

I'd go so far as to say that statins are pretty much a scam, that fixes a useless and quite complex metric such as cholesterol levels. Given that cholesterol levels are a diagnostic easily accessible to GPs, they prescribe statins to see this figure go lower, even if it doesn't make the person any healthier. Incidentally it's similar to taking GLP-1 agonists instead of learning to have a healthier relationship with food.

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

#309

I've been on tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for 4 months now. I'm down 13% of my body weight. I realized that frequent cannabis consumption interferes with the weight loss, so I've kicked the habit from daily to occasionally on weekends. I've started walking 2-3 miles a day, 2-3 days a week regularly, in addition to eating less and being more motivated to calorie count. All this to say, this drug has been life changing for m…

Sounds like a kickstart you needed!

Aside from the disruption in cravings, the immediate results seem to have motivated you to do more.

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

#310
post #276
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…

The more important point the comment you're replying to makes is not "what if people could diet and exercise" - i.e. accept the modern American lifestyle as given, plus force yourself to go to the gym and eat chicken and broccoli - but rather that the modern American lifestyle in fundamentally structured to lead to people being overweight. Instead of being forced to drive everywhere for the most basic possible human…

My 1950+s grandparents drove everywhere and were fit. When we try to shoehorn so many agendas into one thing nothing gets resolved. It's also part of why so many people distrust everyone's agenda and truthfulness nowadays. Also 1940s America was mostly rural, not huge crowds of people walking together.
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