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Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

trial.medpath.com

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Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just researching this myself before investing in LLY. For cardiovascular health, they see benefits even with people who are at a healthy BMI, which suggests therapeutic effects beyond just losing weight.

it could also suggest that BMI isn't a great metric, though, as has been in the news often lately. regardless, thanks too.

It isn't. Waist-to-height ratio is a much better predictor of cardiovascular issues - you want to stay below 0.5.

I never went above 25 BMI but I wouldn't call myself a healthy person as it's obviously like that only due to low muscle mass.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#102

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat. (From that perspective:)a miracle cure that allows someone to stop being fat is like an indulgence (in the Roman Catholic sense). It’s a cheat, a shortcut that allows the unworthy to reach a state they do not deserve. My opinion is to wait long enough to validate there are no lon…

I'm not a Catholic, but wasn't the idea of an indulgence that God intentionally allowed an alternative path to redemption, such that if you buy an indulgence, you are (at least by their definition) worthy and deserving?

I always thought of this as essentially the same idea as with Civ allowing you different paths to victory.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#103
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are mostly sympathetic when it's physical issues. Psychological issues are treated as diseases of the soul that you only need God or willpower or whatever to fix. And most fat people are fat because of the incentives in our society, but admitting that also goes against certain political ideologies...

What are the incentives for people to be fat, out of curiosity? Do you mean farm subsidies for corn, for example?

At a low level, yes, corn, but at a high level: more consumption = more money.

Everyone benefits from you being fat. Your doctors, your car manufacturer, food manufacturers, everyone. Except maybe health insurance. But they're not hurt too too much.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#104
post #18

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

There were even people who felt this way about anesthesia too. To survive in that era, they had to believe that suffering was somehow good for healing (or at least good spiritually) and talked about anesthesia as if it were cheating the natural god-given order.

I think this might be revisionism. A lot of people feared early anesthesia because it was far more dangerous than today.

I also notice people will make note that 'eccentrics' from the 1940s-1950s hated air conditioning but it helps to understand it was a dangerous technology that regularly injured and killed people back then, especially in its earlier days the adults of that period were children during. AC didn't get safe until fairly recently in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It would catch fire or leak poison that killed people in their sleep. Some people just saw it as an unnecessary risk. Same with early fridges. When they leaked, that leak could be fatal as poison or explosion.

It wasnt until later that these technologies got safer and even now today, we consider full anesthesia a last resort and will always try to get away with local or twilight anesthesia because full anesthesia does regularly injure, disable, and kill people. Evolution didnt design us to be trivially "shut off" like this. Injecting us with substances like that will always come with risk.

In other words, a lot of those people weren't mindless luddites, but people who assessed their personal risk and said "nope, not worth it." I think that's perfectly fine.

I'd argue the revisionism of today and the ego justifications of the time were just that, ego protection. Its far easier to say "Well, I'm tough, I don't need that," then "I'm scared of that." The former is rewarded in our individualist capitalist society. The latter is vulnerability and honestly which is often only punished in a society like ours. We see it today with people with limited access and affordability to healthcare in the USA putting off care or engaging in various home remedies, alt-medicine, supplements, or conspiracy-culture-esque pharma drugs gotten cheaply via the gray market.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat. (From that perspective:)a miracle cure that allows someone to stop being fat is like an indulgence (in the Roman Catholic sense). It’s a cheat, a shortcut that allows the unworthy to reach a state they do not deserve. My opinion is to wait long enough to validate there are no lon…

I'm not a Catholic, but wasn't the idea of an indulgence that God intentionally allowed an alternative path to redemption, such that if you buy an indulgence, you are (at least by their definition) worthy and deserving? I always thought of this as essentially the same idea as with Civ allowing you different paths to victory.

Yes indulgences mean something different in Catholicism, they remit the "temporal effects" of Sin ie its spiritual consequences but don't "forgive" it like "Sacrament of Reconciliation" would..

I think that parent is perhaps confusing it with the sin of Gluttony.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#106

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

every time in recorded human history when there's be a panacea or cure-all it's generally been snake-oil. There are a lot of side effects, of this type of medicine - many which were not really prevalent when it was prescribed on-label.

> every time in recorded human history when there's be a panacea or cure-all it's generally been snake-oil.

That's just not true at all. Like, not even close.

Almost everything we've invented in medicine has been free. As in, little to no downsides and just makes things better. And not just in medicine - look around you, compare it to 100 years ago. A lot of stuff is safer, for free.

Think about infant mortality. We went from 1/4 100 years ago to 1/1000s. For free. Surely birth must be more painful now, right? No... we got rid of the pain too. Well surely mothers die more, right? No... They die orders of magnitude less too. Well surely the Vitamin K shot must have SOME downside? Pretty much no, it just pevents bleeding out.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#107

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

Just about every single adult woman in my wife's extended family is on Ozempic. None of them are obese at all. Or diabetic. They are all using it to "lose a few pounds" (we're talking like less than 20 pounds; Yes, as you might expect, there are some unrealistic beauty/success standards in my wife's family). So I think there are a lot of people who are annoyed by that, because of the message it sends to completely he…

I fall into the same category as your wife's extended family. I used it to get to the weight I feel most comfortable and I've gone back on it periodically (like after 5 weeks of work travel) to get back within 5 lbs of that weight (where I can manage the additional weight loss on my own).

When being fat becomes more of a deliberate choice (due to the drug accessibility) I do wonder how society and society's expectations Will change. Will women be even more pressured to "bounce back" during postpartum? Will the "baby fat" we only get to have during adolescence be eliminated and drop out of the shared experience of growing up?

There's also a lot of concern within the eating disorder community about the potential for abuse, because these drugs are so easy to get a hold of by lying on telehealth (could be argued that I've abused them by getting them when they're not truly necessary).

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even ready to concede that it is a good weight-loss drug -- but then I haven't really investigated much, so I'm just repeating what I heard from researcher Ben Bikman and maybe other researchers. I heard that most people choose to discontinue it after 4 or 5 years or less, regain most or all of the weight, then refuse to go back on it.

Tirzepatide (and likely other GLPs) have limitations that are rarely brought up in the general media - Patients have about 72 weeks to reach maximum loss, they don't lose any more weight after 72 weeks even on the highest dose. - Patients appear to immediately gain the weight back as soon as they stop taking it. It's right in the phase 3 trial outcomes paper: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10667099/ I suspe…

I've been on Zepbound for ~25 weeks now and one of the first things my doctor told me was that this was a lifetime drug. He pointed out that I had a choice, of lifetime drugs. I needed to do something to get my cholesterol under control. That meant start statins now and likely add blood pressure meds and diabetes meds in the next 2-5 years. Alternatively I could start Zepbound, which would likely address all 3 and result in better quality of life in the next year. So far it seems like it is doing exactly that.

I'm sure some people are going into this without that knowledge, but people are being told this is a lifetime commitment. What you don't see a lot of is why people stop taking it. There's some cases of people losing and then stopping, but the majority are because insurance is forcing people off of it. Just look at the recent CVS Caremark forced switch from Zepbound (2nd Gen) to Wegovy (1st Gen) in July.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generic Semaglutide is already produced on a massive scale throughout the world. However, it is unlawful to import and sell and will remain so until 2032 in the USA. In other markets, where it is under patent, it is significantly cheaper than the $500/month or more in the US currently. For example in the UK it is roughly $150/month USD privately (i.e. not through the NHS). In China it will be out of patent within two…

There's a whole little online subculture of people in the US importing the precursors and making it themselves at home for dirt-cheap. I gather it's extremely easy and basically fool-proof, as far as producing the desired drug and not producing some other, undesired drug. Much easier than, say, home-brewing beer. The risk is all in contamination, which presents a vector for infection. [EDIT] I don't mean to downplay…

Not just the current generation of drugs, but they also import and use the next generation that is still in clinical trials and won't be on the market for at least a year. I had it reccomended to me online in a very casual as if it were a supplement. The risk with the is not just contamination but also if you get side effects there's no recourse to sue because you bought it from a chemical factory in China. The new generation of glp peptides is similar to the old one, but still can have unintended side effects as they do work on three receptors rather than the two that the current generation does

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#110
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people confuse simple with easy. It IS simple to reduce your weight. There are like, two things you need to do. It is, however, VERY hard to actually do those things.

Even then, limiting calorie intake isn't all that difficult; there's a reason why intermittent fasting took off and so many people were getting results from it.

Limiting calorie intake is easy. Consuming near unlimited calories is even easier and a lot more fun.
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