Live data from Hacker News

How long til we're all on Ozempic?

asteriskmag.com

461–470 of 1001 posts

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

#461

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…

[flagged]

The experience in that comment is literally my experience w/ a GLP-1 Agonist! Poop fart dong gobbler. A marketing team wouldn't write that, though, so you can believe me!

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

#462

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’m skeptical of the idea that across the general population we’d be healthier if we dialed up our insulin production. Serious question but has there ever been a case of humans benefitting from increasing a hormone like this? Since it’s an injection, It wouldn’t be a steady increase, but more likely have bursts of it. I don’t know how healthy that would be in the long run. After what happened with OxyContin I think w…

> Serious question but has there ever been a case of humans benefitting from increasing a hormone like this?

By itself this might be an ok question, but in context it's rather useless....

Diet and obesity changes by both lowering and increasing different hormone outputs in your body. You're balancing the question of "how is this hormone" versus "How bad is obesity on the body". Well, the answer is in, obesity is extremely unhealthy on the body in both the short and long term.

Drug overdoses cause somewhere around 100k deaths per year in the US. Obesity complications related deaths are in the 250-300k deaths per year.

You can be skeptical as you want, but behind smoking, obesity is the worst epidemic in the US.

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

#463
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…

Sounds similar to most major world/cultural issues today. You can make the exact same argument about climate change for example.

But at the same time, part of me wants to ask... why is this a problem? Why shouldn't we just use science and technology to fix human problems and remove any unfortunate consequences from society?

What's wrong with a world where anyone can eat as much of anything as they want, do no exercise at all, ignore their dental health and smoke like a chimney, yet still have perfect health without any downsides?

Objectively, it would be a better society, with everyone materially better off and a system that doesn't need anywhere near as many resources to care of its citizens.

Why would it matter what route is chosen here?

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

#464
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Traveling from a fairly walkable, but still car dependent midwestern city to NYC and also Europe in the last few months, it's amazing how much our living environment contributes. My first day in NYC and Europe I put in about 14k steps and at least according to my phone, one of those days I burned 750 cal just walking around to various places. Just by living my life I was WAY more active.

Making the good choice the easy/only choice is the only way to solve this problem long-term (without drugs)

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such. People in the 50s (in the US) had, among other things, fistfuls of benzedrine. Edit: here is a link for the skeptical folks https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/speedy-history-americ...

Amphetamine(which is what benzedrine was) is pretty overrated as a weight loss drug in the general population. It causes a short window of reduced appetite and probably increased catabolism(due to increased heart rate) which peters out after a couple weeks on the same dose. That leads to a short period of rapid weight loss that pretty much grinds to a complete halt, after which regaining the lost weight is quite typical.

On the other hand, if like me, you have ADHD and weight issues, it could be more helpful. Because it could treat your ADHD enough to help you actually establish and follow a structured diet and exercise regime. Especially if your ADHD includes impulsivity. The last time I was on lisdex treatment, I lost about 5kg from the initial boost, a lot of it was probably water weight. Then I managed to cut about 30kg later with calorie counting and regular cardio.

So the physical effects themselves are largely a pisstake.

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

#466

One thing that it seems we are just starting to talk about with these drugs is the associated muscle and bone density loss. I'm concerned that this generation of GLP-1 early adopters will wind up more frail and suffer a lower quality of life in old age as a result.

> One thing that it seems we are just starting to talk about with these drugs is the associated muscle and bone density loss. Muscle loss is associated with _any_ kind of weight loss. And GLP-1 drugs _improve_ the bone density: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/100/8/2909/2836097 It's likely simply because thinner people naturally move more.

Can these negative effects be countered/offset by continuing weight training? I lift 2-4 days a week.

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

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But is it time to give up just because there hasn't been much progress yet? It seems now that we have #2 there's little incentive for #1, whereas there was plenty incentive for #1 before even if little action.

I think it's better not to sacrifice the wellbeing of our citizens at the feet of an ideology about exactly how we should be solving an obesity crisis.

Besides, having healthier people will lead to better infrastructure for healthier lifestyles, purely based on demand. It's a virtuous cycle.

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

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding GLP-1 agonists can actually modulate the reward pathway reducing people's appetite for toxic diets. We're not socially caught up yet to this information. I suspect there are folks who believe that regardless of similar outcome (reduction of toxic diet), that changing diet without medication is superior to those who change their behavior through pharmacological intervention. It's like the pre-199…

> chemical intervention is a moral weakness. As a default it is. And that's what it became. We stopped trying any other methods. Come in the door, have a set of symptoms that check all the boxes, walk out in 30 minutes with a prescription, doctor's office gets a bonus. Institutional psychiatric treatment is drugs first actual treatment later. This is a _social_ problem. It should be discussed and addressed as such. Y…

If it's a social problem then the non-pharmaceutical cure is obviously not white-knuckling a diet and exercise regimen individually. It needs a holistic, society-level solution. More time off work, less car-dependent suburbs, more bike lanes and subsidies for bikes, more agricultural subsidies for healthy food and less for corn. Realistically we aren't going to get those things.

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

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know someone who has lost about 60lbs. The reaction of most people is 'what pill did you take'. They find out it is basically no sugar and limited amounts of food with some mild exercise. Pretty much every one of them is 'thats hard' and do not do it. And frankly it is hard. Like 95% of a grocery store has way to much of what you need for your daily intake in some form or another. It is that 5% you have to dig thru…

GLP-1 agonists have already been marketed for 20 years. If there were effects, we'd have seen them by now.
Post reply on HN