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What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

psychologytoday.com

251–260 of 555 posts

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#251

Studies show almost all subjects regained the weight and reversed gains within 2 years. This means underlying issues (e.g., food addiction) aren't being addressed. Short of changing habits, the only maintenance solution is lifelong drug use and that doesn't sit well with me.

Unfortunately for a lot of people with weight issues it stems from becoming overweight during puberty which is uniquely bad. Your body's appetite signals are permanently impaired if you become overweight during puberty because during this window your fat cells don't just increase in size, but also in number and this increased quantity does not go away once created. Fat cell shrink as weight is loss, but they are not…

What you said isn't unique to puberty, it's the same with being overweight in adulthood (AIUI).

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#252

What about the reports of bone density loss? Any downsides to this?

Like all weight loss, you will lose lean muscle mass and bone density as part of it if you do not take corrective measures. And even with such measures, you will likely lose some either way for the medium term. It's very difficult to lose only fat during a long term calorie deficit.

The answer is getting into a regular schedule with resistance weight training. Obviously not all that many people will pull it off, but if you can pull it off you can stave off the worst of the side effects in many cases.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no personal animosity toward you, but I've heard all this many times, so I'll respond accordingly. >I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now You can lose weight by crash dieting, which does not prove much. The first thing that comes to mind for people is simply: "I'll just eat very little and lose weight." It even works, bu…

Obesity is widely regarded as a chronic disease that includes the interaction of genetic and other factors with behavioral factors. The unbelievably low success rate of diet and exercise programs for long-term weight reduction is widely documented and quite consistent with the earlier poster's experience.

>The unbelievably low success rate of diet and exercise programs for long-term weight reduction is widely documented and quite consistent with the earlier poster's experience.

where is your data from? what protocol did they follow?

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#254

My insurance stopped covering, now I'm looking at $450 for Zepbound / month. Just the weight coming back is making me more depressed...

I had the same issue with Zepbound (tirzepatide) 10mg/0.5ml when they wanted to push me to Wegovy (semaglutide), even though Zepbound was already working and helping. Zepbound isn't even on their formulary now.

I wrote the insurance company a detailed letter (helped by AI) containing evidence for the benefits of Zepbound over Wegovy and Zepbound over nothing, as well as documented the benefits I already experienced taking the medication. They approved coverage based on this pushback, and I just paid $25 for 3 months' supply.

Might be a potential avenue for some folks...

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no personal animosity toward you, but I've heard all this many times, so I'll respond accordingly. >I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now You can lose weight by crash dieting, which does not prove much. The first thing that comes to mind for people is simply: "I'll just eat very little and lose weight." It even works, bu…

This comes off as extremely condescending. I am pretty sure the person you are trying to give basic dieting advice already knows this. Why are you trying so hard to convince people to not take medication that helps them?

when someone says something doesn't work, is it condescending to ask them what exactly they did?

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does there have to be a downside? What was the downside of washing hands before surgery?

One argument would be that Ozempic doesn't give your body any additional resources. It just triggers your body to behave in a different way. But if the changes it causes are universally good, why didn't evolution already make your body work that way? I suppose the counterargument would be that modern life is different from the evolutionary environment, and so it's possible for a change to be beneficial now that wasn'…

> But if the changes it causes are universally good, why didn't evolution already make your body work that way?

We evolved in an environment where every bit of food took hours of effort and food preservation was impossible, so the only logical thing to do with extra food was feast and store up as much fat as possible for lean times. We're still many generations away from evolving to compensate for the discovery of fire, let alone everything that came after that.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the "underlying issue" is fundamentally just being too hungry for how they live operative phrase in that sentence "how they live". They need to live more active lives. And that's better than a weight loss drug because inactivity causes systemic disease beyond weight gain. GLP-1 drugs do to hunger what pain meds do to pain, but if you're overweight and your back is aching because you're sedentary the solution isn't…

> They need to live more active lives. When I become more active, I also become more hungry due to the extra energy consumption. The net effect is little weight loss and more often than not weight gain. While being physically active is beneficial to health in many ways, it does little for losing or maintaining weight, at least for me.

deficit = tdee - intake

Active life = higher TDEE which means you can eat more food while still maintaining same deficit.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#258
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right so it would seem increased physical exertion would be the answer. Yeah, humans should have more free time and do enough work or exercise each day to keep their body in shape.

One might think that weight loss is simply an energy balance issue. Sadly, it's far more complicated than that. You can burn 500-800 calories in an hour of cardio, and you can consume 500-800 calories of food in a few minutes.

If you are eating 2700kcal a day which is what an average male probably eats in West

Why would you eat 2700+800 = 3500kcal? when you can do with 2700kcal?

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diets also don't stick when you discontinue them. It would be an incredible advancement if we figured out a reliable and replicatable way to just eat less food, but until then I think a drug that makes you do that is pretty decent.

> Diets also don’t stick when you discontinue them. Yes, obviously. Which is why sustainable weight loss takes a commitment to making a change in lifestyle. What’s more sustainable, changing your lifestyle to maintain the weight you lost, or being beholden to taking a drug to maintain that same lifestyle change for a hope at maintenance?

> What’s more sustainable, changing your lifestyle to maintain the weight you lost, or being beholden to taking a drug to maintain that same lifestyle change for a hope at maintenance?

That's some pretty... charged language. But even so: the drug, clearly. People take drugs reliably as a matter of empirical fact. People likewise emphatically don't "change their lifestyles" as a general rule. If they did we wouldn't be talking about this new drug, would we?

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#260
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want the real answer, people suck at shopping for groceries and don't know how or want to cook. Long before LLMs, there was a different but similarly misguided hype around making food more convenient. Making money off ignorance is not "innovation", but we live in a world convinced by arrogant and pretentious fearmongering liars. As always, just do it yourself. It's not that hard after all.

Do you know what food noise is?

Does food noise exist in active tribal people (if so why they have less proportion of obese people?) or is it something which happens to sedentary people?
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