Live data from Hacker News

What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

psychologytoday.com

301–310 of 555 posts

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#301

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.

The issue is that our modern world has engineered our food to be highly energy-dense and incredibly appealing, so the root cause is an evolutionary mismatch with our environment, which has diverged incredibly from early humans.

Personally, I look at GLP-1 agonists as akin to wearing glasses. Some people are just born without the ability to regulate their appetite in accordance with our society, but there is a tool / prosthetic to change that, often that's a lifelong solution.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode What does it mean? If a drug reduces your desire to eat food, wouldn't it also decrease your desire to eat food beneficial for your body? I think the effect most people want is to stop craving junk food but still eat nutritious food required for muscle growth and health.

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.

If it "wasn't that hard", obesity rates would be much lower.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#303

I'd take them even if they didn't make me lose weight - and I'm the type of person that doesn't like takeing Tylenol unless absolutely necessary. The best way I can describe it: my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode. I plan, do, act and sleep well.

>my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode What does it mean? If a drug reduces your desire to eat food, wouldn't it also decrease your desire to eat food beneficial for your body? I think the effect most people want is to stop craving junk food but still eat nutritious food required for muscle growth and health.

You don't desire to brush your teeth (at least not in the way that you desire to consume calorie-dense foods). But you manage to still do it anyway. (maybe not you specifically, but people in general) You can make the same choice about nutrition. The lowered desire makes it easier/possible to do this

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#304

I'd take them even if they didn't make me lose weight - and I'm the type of person that doesn't like takeing Tylenol unless absolutely necessary. The best way I can describe it: my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode. I plan, do, act and sleep well.

>my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode What does it mean? If a drug reduces your desire to eat food, wouldn't it also decrease your desire to eat food beneficial for your body? I think the effect most people want is to stop craving junk food but still eat nutritious food required for muscle growth and health.

My personal experience is like getting eye glasses for your appetite. Easier to eat reasonably sized portions and they're nutritionally well-balanced.

Also the late night cravings are more specific: instead of vague "need to eat something", it's "I'd love a tomato" or "mmm yogurt" or "actually a load of carbs would hit the spot".

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not what the pharma companies want. They want you on the lifetime prescriptions that don't actually address the underlying problem.

Are they hiding true solutions treating the underlying issues?

Consider history, the incentives, and the current political climate.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#306
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry. Is it because you’re running a 1000 kcal deficit? I know several people who are feeling hungry because they're not dead, regardless of how much calorie surplus or deficit they have. We can do the same activities and eat the same meals and I'll be satied and they will be hungry. Or I can confuse the hell out of them when we do some big activity and I say "i'm not hu…

>I know several people who are feeling hungry because they're not dead, regardless of how much calorie surplus or deficit they have. Are you saying 1000kcal vs 200kcal deficit makes no difference? >Diet research would be a lot more interesting if there were ways to classify people by their 'metabolism type' and then see what can work for which type. Maybe there would be more reproducability that way, too. You can eas…

I am a person like that. There is no "calorie deficit" involved. I can, if I let myself, eat 2000 calories of moderately bulky, high-protein food in a sitting and be vaguely hungry again in six or eight hours once my stomach's emptied out. The only reason I'm not whale-sized is active calorie-counting of every meal, every day.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#307
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what food noise is?

Yes. I'm saying that it goes away when you fix your diet. Do you know what nutrients are? Deficiencies are the cause of the noise. This is an evolutionary feature, not a bug. Your body is expecting you to keep eating alternatives until you eventually stumble onto the foods that make you feel better and then keep eating those. In severe cases you might need more patience with the right foods, but if you already feel l…

> it goes away when you fix your diet.

Anecdotally: no, it doesn't. Maybe it did for you. I spent most of a year once on a predesigned meal plan, and the only thing it changed about the low-key but constant food noise was better knowing when I had a safe margin to indulge a little bit.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug is more likely to work long-term. Diet & exercise, as a treatment plan, are distressingly ineffective. Well-studied problem. It makes more sense when you realize that something like sheer dieting/exercising willpower isn't why some populations are skinnier than others. Pick another country with a healthier-weight population, start placing some of them in the US, and they'll gain weight. Put them back, and it…

So clearly it’s something to do with the difference in their lives in the USA, but your first response is to treat the symptom with drugs rather than look at their life holistically? Just off the top of my head the food (portions, quality, etc) in the USA combined with how much people no longer can walk vs being required to drive are a huge contributor to weight gain of immigrants to the USA.

Sure, much easier to make a decision for yourself that helps you cope with the USA lifestyle than it is to change the USA on a short time scale.

There are of course other decisions that might help cope, like moving to one of the few walkable cities we have or structuring your life to reduce the lifestyle, but those all have a lot of other effects like completely upending your current life.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people have lifelong drug use of, say, caffeine, or aspirin as a blood thinner, or various antihistamines. Why is this somehow worse? Particularly keeping in mind that it's very easy to make, so once the patents expire, it's going to be dirt cheap as generics everywhere.

I'm just sharing my personal preference and not trying to tell people how to live their lives. I don't like personally like the idea that I'll only be healthy if I take this drug for the rest of my life when I could (again - speaking for me), be more disciplined about the food I put into my body.

People have a variety of intensities of cravings and capacities for self-regulation (with a magnitude that is largely out of their control). Discipline only works for people where the capacity for self-regulation outweighs the intensity of cravings. These cravings are huge though because our food system is engineered to be both extremely calorie rich and appealing. It's hard to blame people when they're surrounded by fast food restaurants on every corner that has been engineering to target what's called the "bliss point" when experiencing their food.

Looking at this a different way, maybe the discipline / self-regulation needs to be applied at the societal (not individual) level, to improve the environment in which we all live?

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#310
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what food noise is?

Yes. I'm saying that it goes away when you fix your diet. Do you know what nutrients are? Deficiencies are the cause of the noise. This is an evolutionary feature, not a bug. Your body is expecting you to keep eating alternatives until you eventually stumble onto the foods that make you feel better and then keep eating those. In severe cases you might need more patience with the right foods, but if you already feel l…

It answers the question, but you are simply wrong, as anyone who has tried to lose significant weight knows from personal experience, and as countless studies have confirmed again and again.
Post reply on HN