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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?

#941
post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the first person on HN who actively and without shame pays attention to the fact that Adderall is a very nice amphet cocktail. Surprising though you don't loose wait with it, sad also given the circumstances. But I envy you a little cause such ADHD boost is only illegal in EU. Sometimes I wonder if it was a some neat trick by US gov to diagnose and put 1/5 of the population on amphetamines (2024 data +60mil p…

I think you're incorrectly assuming that one prescription = one person. Far less than 20% of the population is taking Adderall, this CDC study says 4% in 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7213a1.htm

Yes you are right. One prescription gives one person access to pills and then they resurface for many others on the black market. You can be absolutely sure it’s very popular among STEM students, not the least because they can understand why would they need it. I can only imagine the pressure to stay in Ivy League university, would totally make it reasonable to use one if you do five exams in a row.

Since you can find it being sold at raves in EU I’m absolutely sure a) it works; b) not convinced only one in five prescribed takes it and all other toss it in the toilet; c) there’s a surge in use and demand.

When I also found my high profile friend working FAANG for years, who’s straight edge and goes regularly to church’s is taking it for productivity boost, and happy about it… well I realised what actually is happening.

Indeed the good thing about adhd is tis a very vague diagnosis. And yes it works well on many undiagnosed people, and particularly in countries where ADHD is not a recognised ontology.

So let’s be real and honest.

Besides media is hyping in September’24 about dangerous shortage of Adderall as if people are left with no access to vitals. It is hyped more than the fact that coffee prices are likely to double and triple in months to come.

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

#942
post #53

Yet another drug that patches up symptoms without addressing the root cause. People will be dependent on the drug for life. And we still don't know what the adverse effects are.

We don't know the root cause yet and therefore can't treat it, so the drug is great for what it is.

The root cause is depravity

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

#943

Earlier quoted context omitted.

` I hike, snowboard, go to the gym and eat sensibly. That's all the "weight control" I need.` So you are likely in an income bracket that enables you to have an active lifestyle outside of work and take the time outside of work to cook, in addition to probably other hobbies. this is not a criticism of you, but if I had to guess, you simply have a life that many other's do not. I work out and take care of myself becau…

That's so dystopian. So you are just saying that society doesn't have time to take care of themselves, so we need some drugs to fix our collective horrid lifestyles? It's an easy temporary fix but what cascading effects might that cause on the future? Who knows?

Well, I'm describing how I perceive the world to be right now and ozempic is a technological solution to a societal problem. If as a society we can make steps to fix it (more walkable cities, less work in general, cheaper society, encourage smaller portions) then sure, maybe we don't need ozempic. But people have to organize and get involved in government to make this happen, which is harder than making a pill (it seems).

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

#944
post #845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

` I hike, snowboard, go to the gym and eat sensibly. That's all the "weight control" I need.` So you are likely in an income bracket that enables you to have an active lifestyle outside of work and take the time outside of work to cook, in addition to probably other hobbies. this is not a criticism of you, but if I had to guess, you simply have a life that many other's do not. I work out and take care of myself becau…

And you think the solution is a prescription drug?

In the moment yes. Do you have an actually reasonable set of laws that could solve these societal level problems that encourage obesity in let's say, the next ten years? Also, they have to be passable.

Here is another disease caused and triggered by society. Asthma. Cars cause tons of pollution and people who live near highways are at much greater risk of experiencing asthma. However, society as a whole suffers from the pollution generated by cars. We all know this. The bay area has something called "spare the air day" which is a day where they ask people to not drive, when it's particularly smoggy. This has never worked. There are always people driving, because they gotta get places and the bay area can't built trains and the buses are awful. So people drive. What is the societal solution to localized pollution (like smog)? Better public transit, higher taxes on gas and on larger vehicles which produce more tire based pollution, and more tolls. But we don't do any of that. We know as a society how to reduce car based smog, which would reduce asthma and other diseases, but we don't do it, so we throw inhalers at people to get them to stop complaining. It's not super different from the weight problem in my eyes.

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

#945

As someone who struggled with their weight his whole life, this medication is a god send. My wife and I cook every evening. We never eat food made in a factory. We buy raw products and spend a good amount of time every day cooking them. Every morning I wake up and go on a 5 mile hike. And still weight kept on coming on. Worse yet, I am on ADHD medication, which are amphetamines and actually make you lose weight. Yet.…

> And still weight kept on coming on. Worse yet, I am on ADHD medication, which are amphetamines and actually make you lose weight. Yet... the number on the scale kept on creeping up. The therapeutic amphetamines dosages for ADHD is below the threshold required for produce meaningful weight loss. It's not surprising that it didn't help you lose weight.

> The therapeutic amphetamines dosages for ADHD is below the threshold required for produce meaningful weight loss.

That’s not been my experience at all. My dosage absolutely significantly suppresses my appetite and always has. This has directly led to sustained weight loss. It did so badly enough at one point that I was underweight significantly.

I have to force myself to eat on my meds, even though the thought often makes me ill.

I’m on 30mg dexamfetamine daily.

“Dexamfetamine can make you want to eat less, so you may lose weight while taking it.

Some people gain weight, but weight loss is more common.”

Doesn’t seem to be hit everyone but equally doesn’t seem rare.

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

#946
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a miracle drug that helps with all afflictions that come with our modern life/sedentary living.

The problem with this (and all diet plans/drugs) is the lifestyle that led to problem in the first place. If you do not change your lifestyle, for real and not just superficially, then you will relapse with a vengeance. That is to say, be careful with using a drug as a crutch. Sure, it can artificially make you much more interested in not consuming so many calories and/or perhaps being more active than before - but y…

Well that's the whole point of the novelty of this drug.

This drug somehow effects our emotional resilience and/or the strength of our response to emotional decisions and/or the way our brain weighs different options regarding to long-term planing.

Basically instead of your suggestion of not treating drugs as a crutch, and trying hard to restructure your life; this drug basically does exactly that. It gives you the decision making of a person that already did fight the addiction and restructured his life. The only thing then is for the person to actually restructure his life by living his newly well-decisioned life for a while.

That's why it is sometimes bad advice to tell people not to use medicine as a 'crutch'. Just like actual crutches, they actually are meant to be able to temporarily support a person. If somebody needs a 'crutch' they should fully use it, especially if it can help them ultimately solve the need for the crutch.

I get what you're trying to say with the crutch thing, but personally this kind of attitude prevented me from considering medication much earlier. Even though we all feel deep in our hearts that standing by yourself is better than relying on some crutch, nobody cares, and nobody is going to give you any bonuspoints if you make it to your death without any help. If any type of medication or treatment can help you, for the love of all that is good, use it.

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

#947

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…

I’d like to make a couple of things clear here:

1) “obesity” has no clear clinical definition, nor is it really a disease. [1] 2) there has been no evidence yet that weight is at all a primary determinant of health [2] 3) Weight loss drugs must be taken forever or it’s nearly certain you will gain the weight back [3]

There’s a lot of great research these days that shows fatness is not what people think it is, and weight stigma is far more harmful than being fat itself [4].

Also, nobody knows what happens yet if you take these drugs for 30 years, and what we do know is that being fat hasn’t been proven to kill anyone.

I'd just say follow the money.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/obesity-doesn-t-alwa... [2] https://withinhealth.com/learn/articles/why-body-weight-isnt... [3] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240521-what-happens-whe... [4] https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291...

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

#948

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…

> realized that frequent cannabis consumption interferes with the weight loss, so I've kicked the habit from daily to occasionally on weekends

Did you try to reduce your cannabis consumption before using tirzepatide?

Because although you say(feel) like the realization made you reduce your intake, I can hardly imagine that you were totally oblivious to the fact that smoking cannabis is unhealthy in the first place.

Do you feel like you think less about e.g. cannabis, or do you feel like it's easier to say no to that impulse?

Does it seem to mainly influence health choices or are you also less likely to be angry or does it interact work place interactions?

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

#949

One trend I noticed, whenever this topic is discussed in public forums, it attracts a lot of negativity from "just exercise and eat less" crowd (generalizing here). I wonder why it caused so much negative reaction? On the surface it shouldn't matter much, since it does not appear to harm ones who found a way to maintain healthy body without drugs. Yet it reliably causes a quite noticable number of folks to be quite a…

> I wonder why it caused so much negative reaction? On the surface it shouldn't matter much, since it does not appear to harm ones who found a way to maintain healthy body without drugs. Yet it reliably causes a quite noticable number of folks to be quite aggressive towards either people using these drugs or companies making these.

It's a combination of people thinking it violates the 'no free lunch' axiom of the universe and also deriving significant personal status and satisfaction from exerting discipline in eating and exercising religiously.

The 'no free lunch' axiom is a curious thing and seems derivative of western Puritanism and similar philosophies. It violates many people's intuitions that very good things might be obtained with relative ease, and also devalues said things. Some of these are the same people who cannot comprehend (or even accept) a post-singularity world without work. The peculiar morality that produces that belief overlaps rather substantially with the one that rejects the possibility of an easy solution to the problem of obesity.

Further, some of these people have the (perhaps unconscious) belief that they are morally superior to others who are less dedicated to health and fitness, and in particular to the obese.

If obesity can be resolved so fluidly and categorically, then at least two painful things happen for them: (1) their excessive effort towards weight control seems foolish and inefficient (i.e. devalued, as noted above) and (2) they lose a great deal of personal status. The latter is a consequence of the reasonably established notion that a significant proportion of many peoples' happiness is contingent on their relative frames of reference (i.e. not their position in an absolute sense). Again, this is often unconscious. These are not "bad" people, but rather merely victims of human instinct.

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

#950

As someone who struggled with their weight his whole life, this medication is a god send. My wife and I cook every evening. We never eat food made in a factory. We buy raw products and spend a good amount of time every day cooking them. Every morning I wake up and go on a 5 mile hike. And still weight kept on coming on. Worse yet, I am on ADHD medication, which are amphetamines and actually make you lose weight. Yet.…

> It's volume. I eat too much.

Bingo. I've had this conversation with my girlfriend. She's not overweight by any means (160 cm ~55 kg) but I am quite underweight (182 cm, 65 kg, I'm convinced it has to do with upbringing. My family never ate a lot and the portions I was served as a kid weren't big. Nobody in my family is anything more than skinny. Her family however, they eat a lot (and healthy too, mind you). This is all influenced by other factors, her parents and grandparents grew up with not a lot to their names and with food scarcity, so when they reached a position in life where they could comfortably afford to eat they gained the habit of having big meals. My family was mostly more privileged in that regard so maybe they never felt the need to focus on food as much.

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