How long til we're all on Ozempic? • Hacker News Board

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#321

Post by crooked-v » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:17 PM UTC

bozhark wrote: post #292

arcticbull wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just eat less and exercise more" is trite. If it were that easy, we'd all be in fantastic shape. Studies show it just doesn't work. There was a massive (18,000,000 people) cohort analysis published in 2023 that showed the likelihood of someone losing 5% of their body weight in any given year was 1 in 11 and the likelihood of going from severely obese to normal weight is 1 in 1667. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/…

This is absurd. Caloric intake and outtake is just that.

The point you're missing is that telling people "just eat less" doesn't work, because it's extremely difficult for many people to "just eat less".

That's literally the whole reason that ozempic etc are popular, because they make it easier for most people to just eat less, in the same kind of way that caffeine makes it subjectively easier for someone who's tired to be productive.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#322

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:17 PM UTC

whall6 wrote: post #278

dfxm12 wrote: post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

[flagged]

That's not even close to true. I can easily pop into HN for 5 minutes while taking a mental break at work, that's not an option (and would be utterly ineffective) for the gym.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#323

Post by 0x1DEADCA0 » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #185

IncreasePosts wrote: post #3

My biggest fear is either there will be long term negative consequences to Ozempic et al, and a huge swath of the population will be dealing with issues 30 years form now - OR - there will be some long term positive consequence to using Ozempic et al, and I'm not getting any of the benefits because I'm not overweight.

I can understand this perspective. You're looking at it with healthy eyes. But for fat people, the calculus looks different. A decision to take semaglutides is a decision between the long-term negative effects of obesity *now*, or the possibility of long-term negative effects *later.* Anecdotally, trans people have a similar calculus. Going unmedicated/unsupported brings significant mental health risk now [1], wherea…

No, they're making a choice between the long-term negative effects of not losing weight naturally, vs the possibility of long-term negative effects of using artificial methods. This isn't polemic, as even things as basic as birth control and advil have negative long term effects.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#324

Post by robohydrate » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #309

robohydrate wrote: post #299

I've been on tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for 4 months now. I'm down 13% of my body weight. I realized that frequent cannabis consumption interferes with the weight loss, so I've kicked the habit from daily to occasionally on weekends. I've started walking 2-3 miles a day, 2-3 days a week regularly, in addition to eating less and being more motivated to calorie count. All this to say, this drug has been life changing for m…

Sounds like a kickstart you needed! Aside from the disruption in cravings, the immediate results seem to have motivated you to do more.

You can't imagine how empowering it is to be able to say "No." to food. I stopped eating dessert except once a week. I can be in the company of other people and surrounded by delicious food and not feel the compulsion to eat until I am nauseous.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#325

Post by throawayonthe » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #229

dfxm12 wrote: post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

If you have an open mind, I'd like to assign you some homework if you like. Take a look around r/zepbound and count the following: 1. Posts from folks who diet+exercise, or who have tried diet/exercise and nothing's worked so they then turned to Zepbound ("excited to hit the gym," "my diet is finally starting to work with Zepbound" and similar) 2. Posts from folks who haven't tried diet/exercise and turned to Zepboun…

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Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#326

Post by vessenes » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #304

vundercind wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been studied pretty well. Possible effective solutions to the US obesity epidemic are pretty much limited to: 1) Radically alter aspects of food culture, work culture, social policy, and business regulation. 2) Magic pill (/injection) There appears to be no imminent progress on the many parts of #1 that need serious work, so if we want a big turn-around in the next half-century, #2 has suddenly and surprisingly…

From the article " Estimates suggest GLP-1s can reduce body weight by at least 15% when taken regularly ". That's a 5'10" man starting at 250lbs (obese, BMI > 35) and finishing at 220lbs (obese, BMI >30). Or a 5'10" man starting at 220lbs (obese) and finishing at 187lbs (overweight, BMI > 26). It ain't nothing, but that's not a magic pill which will fix the obesity epidemic. And these people have skipped changing the…

I lost 100 lbs over 18 months. And, I found it much easier to change my lifestyle on a GLP-1 drug. Naturally thin people / people who don't have some environmental sensitivity are super judgy about GLP-1 drugs, and closet judgy about fat people. It's just not so simple as "lazy/poor diet/no exercise."

I went from nutritionist appointments that were like "are you lying about your food intake? because if not, you have some serious problem with something in your environment" to "yep, it was easy to cut out a couple things that bothered me," and weight came off astonishingly rapidly.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#327

Post by ninalanyon » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

supportengineer wrote: post #275

logicchains wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you say that because just now the US is starting to re-consider water fluoridation: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/04/fluoridation... . It's also relative uncommon in other developed countries; according to Wikipedia, "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water. Those people are in the U…

The benefits of fluoridation were amazing. I didn't have a single cavity until I was 25 and had moved away from that area to a non-fluoridated area.

Don't you clean your teeth with a fluoridated toothpaste? That should be plenty good enough, no need to put it in the drinking water.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#328

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #229

dfxm12 wrote: post #170

Instead of a system that makes these drug available for purchase, I'd rather live in a system that promotes healthy food and active behavior. Unfortunately, I have to drive everywhere, work too many hours to have free time for recreation and have no idea which government subsidy is going to help big ag likely at the expense of my health. All things being equal, I'd prefer to spend less money on prescriptions and have…

If you have an open mind, I'd like to assign you some homework if you like. Take a look around r/zepbound and count the following: 1. Posts from folks who diet+exercise, or who have tried diet/exercise and nothing's worked so they then turned to Zepbound ("excited to hit the gym," "my diet is finally starting to work with Zepbound" and similar) 2. Posts from folks who haven't tried diet/exercise and turned to Zepboun…

The people in #1 won’t express it that way.

I was that guy. For a variety of reasons that aren’t relevant i developed insulin resistance over a relatively short time that made it increasingly difficult to lose weight. I’m in my mid 40s, which also makes it difficult.

I got on one of the GLP drugs 18 months ago. I am down 80 pounds, and am running 20 miles a week. I’ll be doing a half marathon in March. Ive dropped the dose twice and still going strong.

Taking the pill made exercise possible. Online everyone likes to apply a moral hazard thing to every discussion. GLP medication twiddled my dopamine system and allowed me to achieve my goals. Period. If you think that makes me weak, I cannot think of anything that I care less about.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#329

Post by llamaimperative » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

valval wrote: post #318

gcr wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have good food, but you won't find it on "The Easy Path." The Easy Path is that gentle encouragement to hit up Chipotle for lunch, because it's "right there." The Easy Path says dinner's hard and you've had a long day, so get something simple, like take-out or microwave. The Easy Path is entropy. The Easy Path is self-care over struggle. The Easy Path is simple carbs shown on prominent display in store shelves. Th…

Get ground beef in the supermarket, it’s cheap and takes 7 minutes to cook. If that’s all you eat you can’t be fat and out of shape. You also won’t be hungry. At some point blaming society isn’t going to cut it.

At some point "have willpower" isn't going to cut it. That point was decades ago.

Blaming society sounds fatalistic, but yes we absolutely can change society. There are mechanisms to do it, and the first step to utilizing any of them is people getting pissed off about the state of things and talking to other people about how pissed off they are about it.

Re: How long til we're all on Ozempic?

#330

Post by mlyle » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

llamaimperative wrote: post #256

gcr wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have an open mind, I'd like to assign you some homework if you like. Take a look around r/zepbound and count the following: 1. Posts from folks who diet+exercise, or who have tried diet/exercise and nothing's worked so they then turned to Zepbound ("excited to hit the gym," "my diet is finally starting to work with Zepbound" and similar) 2. Posts from folks who haven't tried diet/exercise and turned to Zepboun…

GP isn't talking about self-control, they're talking about the fact we've created a system that requires obscene amounts of self-control if you wish to maintain physical health. People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.

> People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.

No. They lived in an overall healthier environment. But they were also subject to much greater social pressure to stay slim and could endure fairly intense social judgment and stigmatization for weights that we consider normal (particularly women).