Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#431

Post by WithinReason » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:29 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #358

some_random wrote: post #15

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.

"No free lunch" is a reasonable question to ask when evaluating medication, if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people. I think this is behind some of the skepticism. If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1? How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them? I would guess t…

> If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

To store calories so you don't starve. This is a failure mode of evolution and there is in fact "free lunch" when we use technology to reoptimise our bodies to calorie abundance

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#432

Post by randomNumber7 » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:34 AM UTC

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #173

throwawaylaptop wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I helped my dad lose 50 lbs by finally, after 10 years, getting him to give up bread, sugar, potatoes. It took buying him 2 months of a bluetooth glucose monitor. Once he saw what certain foods do, he believed me finally. At 65 years old, healthier than I remember since he was 40 and I was a teen. It doesn't require some weird injection.

There's anecdotes, and there's science. Individually, there's (previously) been nothing better to suggest than "try harder (and, maybe, smarter)". Statistically it was almost useless, but it's the best we had. It's not bad advice exactly, it's just extremely unlikely to work for long-term, sustained weight loss. It also very much appears to be the case that weight gain and loss are heavily influenced by environmental…

I think it's mainly the food that makes skinnier countries skinnier.

People in the US eat absolute shit. Even the bread is full with sugar.

Good for capitalism if you can feed that to the people and then give them an injection to be healthy again I guess.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#433

Post by simmerup » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:34 AM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #390

leoh wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True enough, but many studies show that calorie restriction reduces effects of aging

Not really applicable in humans. Effect is smaller than in mice, and requires some pretty drastic restrictions that aren't exactly pleasant. The thing with ozempic is that is seems to do several things, most (all?) of them good for us in different ways. We probably just lucked out. It's not the only case - plenty of drugs do incredibly good things with only reasonable side effects. Antibiotics. Ibuprofen. Aspirin. Vi…

Statins change some peoples personalities

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20200108-the-medication...

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#434

Post by Ponet1945 » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:35 AM UTC

kulahan wrote: post #133

cjbgkagh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semaglutide is a signaling peptide, these are basically in a different class of medication that has traditionally been largely ignored. Partly due to difficulty defending patents for a class of medication that the body produces naturally, I.e. the instructions are in the DNA. Even if a drug company patents one GLP-1A they can’t patent all of them and any of them will work much the same way. Because it’s a naturally o…

We didn't even know what "junk DNA" did until like 25 years ago. We've discovered a couple new body parts in the last 50 years. We don't have any real understanding of how basic, foundational parts of medicine work - things like anesthesia and antidepressants and even pain differences between men and women . Tests are regularly performed on highly homogenous groups, or even tested on groups completely different from…

Jesus I can't tell if this comment is a joke or peak techbro arrogance.

I think your mind would break if you tried to learn what goes into modern drug design, like quantum chemistry.

Statistical analysis was basically invented to solve problems in psychology and biology, like measuring intelligence and understanding genetic inheritance.

Pretty much all the advancement in the computer industry is on the hardware side. Software engineering is the most immature field of them all.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#435

Post by WithinReason » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:36 AM UTC

glp1guide wrote: post #349

bethekind wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Eli Lily is the only producer, how is the gray market being supplied? This makes no sense... That being said, I'm waiting for oral GLP1 agonists. Injections are a hassle and gray market ones even more so

> If Eli Lily is the only producer, how is the gray market being supplied? This makes no sense... It turns out enterprising chemists and pharmacists are capable of reverse engineering. I don't think it's that hard to figure out how someone might do it -- imagine having to reverse engineer food you've received, given many samples. Imagine some of those samples might have "fallen off the back of a truck". > That being…

Wikipedia has the exact formula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retatrutide

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#436

Post by notpushkin » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:37 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #372

rbranson wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

none of the things you cited are “miracle weight loss drugs.” they are things people did to lose weight. these are the first class of drugs that actually cause people to lose weight.

I would have to check my sources but I'm pretty sure some of them have been prescribed for weight loss at various times. DNP and stimulants I'm more confident of, nicotine and tape worms I'm a bit iffy about.

Technically, nicotine can be classified as a stimulant: https://web.archive.org/web/20250712041104/https://psychonau...

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#437

Post by Nesco » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #358

some_random wrote: post #15

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.

"No free lunch" is a reasonable question to ask when evaluating medication, if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people. I think this is behind some of the skepticism. If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1? How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them? I would guess t…

I am pretty sure uncouplers will make a come back. Just something a little more targeted and safer than good ol’ DNP

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#438

Post by nickserv » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:44 AM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #410

mnky9800n wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also live on average more than twice as long as the average chimpanzee.

And average human isn’t spending as much time exercising as chimp does.

And when we did our average lifespan was much shorter.

Time to burn that Gym membership :-p

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#439

Post by ifwinterco » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #421

ifwinterco wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it looks like it's basically just saying: 1) Being fat is really bad for you 2) Moderate calorie restriction may have some health benefits Both of which we already knew, the second one being a bit more controversial but a hypothesis that has been around for decades

I think it's controversial mostly because it is mixed in with morality, self-image, personal freedom etc. I think everyone has the right to be fat, if they have chosen to prioritise other aspects of life, but I think people should be informed and consider the "being fat can be healthy" movement to be quite disingenuous. Do what you want, but be realistic about it, and tricking people into ignoring the negative effect…

Yeah it's clearly wrong, being fat is not healthy. There are multiple mechanistic explanations for why it might not be healthy (inflammation, hormones etc.), coupled with epidemiological evidence that obese people have massively higher rates of all sorts of health problems.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#440

Post by arkh » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

some_random wrote: post #15

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.

> 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.

There have been some scandals about "miracle drugs" which bad effects have been found only years after being on the market. And side effects can be crazy: I use D2 agonists which works wonder to handle a prolactinoma (like shrinking a tumor with a simple pill every 2 weeks wonder), side effects of this kind of medication can be different addictions (sex, gambling, purchasing etc.) which is always fun when you're one in a thousands to get it.