Live data from Hacker News

GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

today.ucsd.edu

181–190 of 211 posts

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome insight. It's not the disability I have, it's that I have never tried healing by fasting. Of course. Because my body was always busy trying to eat food instead of fixing and regrowing all the malformed tissue. Because that's how it works. When a person without legs starts to fast, the legs will suddenly develop.

It would be sensible for you to examine and interrogate why reading a general and fairly anodyne opinion about what might be a solution to a problem some people have led you to interpret it as a prescriptive and judgemental suggestion about the specific problem you specifically have.

I disagree, I think it’s fairly easy to read this passage in particular

> The simplest solution to a lot of problems is consuming less with the assumption that, most of us (maybe not you), have a lot of spare energy sitting around.

as energy-woo / thanks-I’m-cured material.

You can weasel your way around criticism by calling it “a general and fairly anodyne opinion about what might be a solution to a problem some people have,” but consider -

It does make sense that someone who’s struggled with a chronic condition would be tired and embittered by the endless snake oil evangelizing they’ve had to endure, on top of already struggling with their health.

(Not that fasting doesn’t work for some people, as you say! it’s more the grandiose claim that it’s “The simplest solution to a lot of problems” coupled with some vague anecdote about blood work and knowing better than doctors that waves a red flag)

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been some. I've heard about eyesight related issues. A quick google found this article [0] where results showed that people using GLP-1 drugs were 68.6 times more likely to develop certain types of vision problems. [0]: https://www.aao.org/newsroom/news-releases/detail/do-glp-1-d...

A lot of the issues are hydration-related, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the eye ones are, too. Some water intake is from food, so if you eat less, you need to drink more. If you also tend to drink with food, and you’re eating less, you may drink less instead of the more that you need to be. Add in a generally dulled “I crave something” sense and you’ve got a recipe for not just going all day without eating, but als…

I’m not a doctor but iirc water consumed along with a meal is absorbed slower and therefore results in longer-lasting hydration - than just a bare glass of water on an empty stomach. Of course, eating might add more material that encourages dehydrating, so I don’t know if you’d get a net benefit from a bag of teriyaki beef jerky say.

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#183
post #2

Maybe I'm just an aging cynic, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to GLP-1s. There have been so many claims of positive benefits that it almost seems too good to be true. With them being so expensive, the producers have every incentive to upsell using any study they can get their hands or money on. If it's all upside, then I'm happy to be wrong.

Basically, the gastro-intestinal side effects are the biggest issue, along with CVS (not the store) and possibly eye problems. That said, the negative side effects look to be incredibly rare and manageable (including via stopping treatment) -- and the positives are quite tremendous. It's not a magic drug, but it is the first of it's kind with such a skew to the positive on side effects.

> It's not a magic drug

It actually is a magic drug. The same way ultra-palatable food is also not natural.

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not upside per se, more like avoiding the downsides of diabetes and obesity. Healthy, non-obese individuals likely aren't seeing these "benefits"... But I'm not a doctor, I just pretend to be one on the Internet.

This isn't true, the heart and kidney benefits appear independent of weight loss. I would encourage you to let the physicians speak to these effects instead of making educated conjecture; it is tough to keep ahead of all of the claims about these medications with my patients. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn4128

[deleted]

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#185
post #15

no GLP-1 generics until 2030 lots of people will miss out on benefits, like oh preventing death our drug system is weird

Private people invested a lot of money to develop this and get it through testing. Allowing them to reap the benefits from their investment for a limited time is just fine. It's not people couldn't also: Diet, exercise, choose veggies, eat more fiber, etc

Those things also require more willpower than taking a medication. Willpower is generally determined by your particular psychology which is determined by genetics and environmental factors. People don't have a choice in the matter as much as your comment seems to imply. Getting GLP-1s to everyone who could benefit from them is extremely important for overall health.

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#186
post #2

Maybe I'm just an aging cynic, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to GLP-1s. There have been so many claims of positive benefits that it almost seems too good to be true. With them being so expensive, the producers have every incentive to upsell using any study they can get their hands or money on. If it's all upside, then I'm happy to be wrong.

There have been some. I've heard about eyesight related issues. A quick google found this article [0] where results showed that people using GLP-1 drugs were 68.6 times more likely to develop certain types of vision problems. [0]: https://www.aao.org/newsroom/news-releases/detail/do-glp-1-d...

It's a little suspicious... 68x risk with semaglutide, no significant risk with tirzepatide. Case-control studies that merely search these databases are only really useful for hypothesis generation.

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm a big fan of intermittent and water fasting. Have seen things in my blood work that doctors would require me on meds to reverse. Outside of that, I can't speak to the positive impacts on my mood, and general ability to focus. The simplest solution to a lot of problems is consuming less with the assumption that, most of us (maybe not you), have a lot of spare energy sitting around. A lie that we don't unle…

An interesting FYI is a comment made by Peter Attia on his podcast. He had a patient with metabolic markers that were not improving and they had exhausted all the typical avenues. Presumably they were things like weight loss. They put the patient on GLP-1 but injected into the thighs (or butt, I don't recall) for the metabolic benefits without the hunger blunting effects. It seems like GLP1, even in skinny patients (…

  > They put the patient on GLP-1 but injected into the thighs (or butt, I don't recall) for the metabolic benefits without the hunger blunting effects.
Thanks for the dumbest thing I've read all day

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#188
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well glp1 doesn't make you want to eat broccoli. Just less in general

Actually there is a very real effect on which foods you find appealing and which ones are kind of gross. It’s a thing the food companies have been studying, and their own studies show that people on GLP1s tend to skip the junk food aisle and head towards the produce section instead.

Tirzepatide somehow gave me a craving for apples. I used to occasionally eat them, now I eat them every day.

Re: GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients

#190
post #22

> However, the study authors emphasize that more research is needed to confirm these mechanisms and determine whether the survival benefit observed in this real-world analysis represents a direct anti-cancer effect or an indirect result of improved metabolic health Given it’s an observational study, I would bet on the latter. It’s really hard to know you’ve controlled for all confounding factors, and there’s a strong…

The article also says that the effects persist after adjusting for BMI:

> After adjusting for age, body mass index (BMI), disease severity and other health factors, GLP-1 users still showed significantly lower odds of death, suggesting a strong and independent protective effect.

The observed reduction in mortality is also quite large:

> Health sites, researchers found that those taking glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications were less than half as likely to die within five years compared to those who weren’t on the drugs (15.5% vs. 37.1%).

More research is needed, but if I were diagnosed with colon cancer I would definitely be asking my doctor about the risks vs. potential benefits of getting on GLP-1 meds based on this study alone.

Post reply on HN