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‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

nature.com

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Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#171

Post by jboy55 »

Beaver117 wrote: post #87

So does this somehow burn fat or does it just lower your appetite? There are many others drugs that lower appetite, and yet we still have an obesity crisis. Why would this one solve it?

There is only one class of drugs that lowers appetite outside of these GLP hormone drugs, those are stimulants like amphetamines. As someone on one of the GLP drugs for 3-4 months, and whose body tolerates it well, this is simply turning off the hunger switch. I will miss meals because I'm not hungry, since starting I have never felt "hangry" and I am satiated with small meals and do not feel hungry later. If I overeat, I will feel nauseous and sick.

I do not feel wired, foggy or feel like my personality or sleep cycle has been affected in the slightest.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#173

Post by joe_the_user »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #86
sfusato wrote: post #79

> I believe that everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs for the longevity effects. Are you for real? Serious question.

I mean, if you have perfect bloodwork and a marvel movie body probably not necessary but otherwise yes. Heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, colon cancer rates are rising amongst everyone, even thin people. These drugs positively impact indicators of these things in everyone. Longevity makers have been betting on metformin for a long time and these drugs are like a supercharged metformin

These drugs positively impact indicators of these things in everyone.

I think people's eagerness to jump from changes in markers to actual longevity is quite unfortunate. Medical "breakthroughs" often founder on such confusion and amateurs approaching things this way. See Goodhart's Law [1] (much as I generally regret the hn/geek tendency to lean these law, here it's reasonable).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#174

Post by titanomachy »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #118
gretch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because height is normally distributed and it’s easy to predict someone’s height within a range. I’d bet a lot of money the person in the story is not 6 foot 5 inches

I’m 6 4 though, so not far off

In that case 8 pounds per point of BMI, so it’s still a reasonable approximation.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#176

Post by thejackgoode »

How many of obesity cases are caused by eating disorders and addiction psyche in general? Treating the symptom in this case barely helps. You might lose weight, but it'll pop up in some other place in your life. See it as psychological side effect, a swap of coping mechanism. Often enough, IMO you need to go deeper than a pill.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#177

Post by ceejayoz »

scifibestfi wrote: post #155
sfusato wrote: post #79

> I believe that everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs for the longevity effects. Are you for real? Serious question.

We're seeing the most successful Big Pharma marketing campaign since OxyContin. The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy > From 1996 to 2001, Purdue conducted more than 40 national pain-management and speaker-training conferences at resorts in Florida, Arizona, and California. More than 5000 physicians, pharmacists, and nurses attended these all-expenses-paid symposia, where…

That article starts with:

> Controlled drugs, with their potential for abuse and diversion, can pose public health risks that are different from—and more problematic than—those of uncontrolled drugs when they are overpromoted and highly prescribed.

These drugs are not of that nature.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#178

Post by Gatsky »

dcolkitt wrote: post #152
rajin444 wrote: post #56

This drug is a net good for society, but we have to fix the root problem. Much of the food we eat is filled with addictive ingredients (sugar, excess fats/oils, etc) that provide little nutritional value but are highly addictive. We’re subsidizing companies that create unhealthy addictive food and subsidizing companies to create drugs to counter the unhealthy addictive food. This is an enormous waste of resources.

Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. We know this because we have hunter-gatherer populations who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) or fats (e.g. Intuit), and they have none of the diseases of abundance found in modern popul…

There are randomised controlled trials of diets (without caloric restriction). They show that some diets are better than others for real clinical endpoints, eg mediterranean vs low fat diet for secondary prevention of cardiac events [1]. The effect size in that example is not small, it is large, despite most participants already being on a statin. This data shows that diets are biologically active and significantly impact health. Therefore, the philosophy you espouse cannot be correct, or at least needs to be heavily modified.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#179

Post by asdff »

iammjm wrote: post #20

At a risk of being ignorant: Isn’t obesity a function of calories intake and calories burn rate? If so, why do we even need a drug for that? What should a possible drug target here? Assuming no changes in behaviour and thus a continued steady daily caloric surplus, would it even work?

We evolved as hunter gatherers and have been hunter gatherers for most of our history. Continuously moving while collecting resources, even into old age. Today, most people don't continuously move. They go from bed, to work, to the couch at home, then to bed, with as little physical movement as they can possibly do in between.

Maybe if more people at least simulated how much a hunter gatherer moved a day, we'd see a much healthier population versus continuing this sedentary behavior that we have not evolved to do while remaining healthy. Agriculture which enabled a sedentary lifestyle for many people did not happen long enough ago for our species to be well adapted to this behavior; it was only 10,000 years ago, while our ancestors had been hunting and gathering for at least 2 million years, likely foraging even longer still.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#180

Post by xwdv »

hodgesrm wrote: post #138
xwdv wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> And even if he was, doctors push pills for commission, so don’t trust them too much either. Can you cite sources? Otherwise please don't post such claims. It's unworthy of Hacker News.

It’s well known that doctors receive money from pharmacy companies in exchange for promoting their products.
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