What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis • Hacker News Board

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#431

Post by port11 » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

epihelix wrote: post #263

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #16

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.

If your biology is working against you, why not fix your biology? I'm not someone who needs to take GLP-1 receptor agonists, but if I had any issues with weight then I'd have no issue taking them life-long. The long-term health benefits are already strong enough to make it a no-brainer. If you are overweight and a GLP-1 drug helps you lose that weight, you will very likely live a longer, healthier and happier life by…

If the food abundantly available is full of unhealthy ingredients and nutrient combinations meant to make you addicted, why not fix that?

We blame biology and people’s willpower a lot, instead of considering how plenty of other or previous societies don’t/didn’t have this issue.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#432

Post by cjbgkagh » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:28 PM UTC

jelsisi wrote: post #421

cjbgkagh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, if that’s all it was then ME/CFS would be a cake walk and it isn’t. I have such a crazy restrictive diet and have had for a long time that one of my issues was being kicked out of doctor's offices for looking too healthy. The diet is necessary but not sufficient.

I'm in the same boat! I look very healthy, I'm young and most of my bloodwork is great but I have many autoimmune symptoms. I started on semaglutide 1 week ago and your comment brings me hope.

I started on an extremely small dose and worked up very slowly because I predicted and did in-fact have hyperactivity to it. I got gastroparisis and the associated huge amount of vomiting, couldn’t eat for the first few weeks. But slowly over the course of 3-6 months I was having few and fewer bad days. I take a bunch of other meds as well but this one is one of the most effective. I also do LDN, Amitryptiline, Modafinil, TUDCA, DIM, low dose of TRT and Ipamorelin/ModGRF. I eat the absolute minimum in sugar, one meal per day, and that is usually a large kale salad. The Modafinil / Amitryptiline is probably the most effective treatment I’ve tried, followed by the semaglutide, then the TRT/hGH peptides.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#433

Post by watwut » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

7bit wrote: post #356

chiply314 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some don't get at all what calories are. In some video a woman was eating 8-10 Oranges a day just as a snack on the side. No knowledge about sugar or calroies, just the thought "but its a fruit its health". No fruits are not healthy

Your first sent once and your last sentence don't align. Yes. Fruits are healthy. One orange is healthy. 10 oranges are unhealthy. Same concept applies to water. Drinking too much can be unhealthy as well, but that doesn't change the fact that water is good.

> 10 oranges are unhealthy

You made that up tho.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#434

Post by declan_roberts » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:41 PM UTC

relaxing wrote: post #369

declan_roberts wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gray market peptides are excellent. You can do you own independent lab testing, buy with a group who's testing, or buy from a reputable vendor who pre-tests before sales. Even after all that it comes down to like $50 a month at the highest dose.

Where do you even start finding sources for all this?

Websites like Finnrick provide testing for gray market research peptides (including tirzepatide and retatrutide). There are no direct links to shops, etc., but you can at least see the current state of things, both good and bad.

Cremieux is a popular biohacker on Twitter who has a paid Substack describing the process.

That's enough to get anyone started.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#435

Post by owebmaster » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #387

faangguyindia wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll keep on asking exact things you've done as long as you keep claiming something doesn't work, when I know it does and have worked for many. About advise part, I am not looking to offer him any advise I am simply defending the method and ideas, so that other people can find success with it similar to what I've done for me and for many others.

Your advice is exactly the same advice that people have been giving for decades. Look around. Giving that advice doesn't work for most people. How much weight did you lose, and how long have you kept it off?

the discussion in this thread is about the long-term effects of using drugs to fix conditions that were fixed by lifestyle changes before the drugs.

Giving up the very difficult route of changing lifestyle for the easier alternative of taking drugs for weight loss comes with both biological and social consequences.

The people talking about that shouldn't be bullied to feel ashamed of not taking or recommending taking drugs.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#436

Post by Scalestein » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #432

jelsisi wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat! I look very healthy, I'm young and most of my bloodwork is great but I have many autoimmune symptoms. I started on semaglutide 1 week ago and your comment brings me hope.

I started on an extremely small dose and worked up very slowly because I predicted and did in-fact have hyperactivity to it. I got gastroparisis and the associated huge amount of vomiting, couldn’t eat for the first few weeks. But slowly over the course of 3-6 months I was having few and fewer bad days. I take a bunch of other meds as well but this one is one of the most effective. I also do LDN, Amitryptiline, Modaf…

Super interesting - my friend has ME/CFS and/or Fibromyalgia and started GLP-1 but seemed to get only the negative side effects and not much benefit. Using Zepbound specifically.

Is the Modafinil used for alertness or a different off label purpose? I'm always interested in potential helpful interventions.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#437

Post by PaulHoule » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:02 PM UTC

hackingonempty wrote: post #94

saberience wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is of course true that caloric input is a thermodynamic limit and restricting it sufficiently relative to caloric expenditure will cause you to lose weight. (Lisa, in this household we obey the laws of thermodynamics...) However, not all calories are the same, metabolism is dynamic, and the brain is complex and exerts a powerful influence over behavior. Increasing exercise will make you hungrier and most people ar…

I can burn 750 calories in an hour of cardio (used to burn more when I was younger) which most people would find hard, that's equivalent to a large fast food hamburger which most people would find easy.

When I was working out at Crunch (long after I got kicked out of that other gym) I would go across the street and get two tacos at Taco Bell which is good from the perspective of athletic performance because it puts back the glycogen you use and you'll use the protein to make muscle. But from an energy perspective it's close to neutral.

Muscle is good for you anyway in many ways, not least metabolic and in terms of mental health. I had an elite athlete workload back in the time I was trying to start a business based on foundation models about a decade early and it helped me keep it together though now I have

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23920-athlete...

and my cardiologist told me to exercise less! I am still obese in terms of either BMI or fat percentage but I just saw a specialist for "medical weight loss" (e.g. Zepbound) I was told I had a huge lean body mass and that would help me lose weight. Wearing normal clothes I don't really look fat but in the wrong gym clothes next to the fit 20% of college students I have one hell of a gut.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#438

Post by PaulHoule » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #270

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with exercise is that our bodies are quite efficient with their energy usage. A few minutes of ‘calories in’ takes many hours of ‘calories out’ to burn. You can’t really exercise enough to offset the food you can eat in a day, even if you somehow were able to dedicate all your time to exercising you would still have to limit your food intake. Add to that the fact that exercise is mind numbingly boring and…

> You can’t really exercise enough to offset the food you can eat in a day This is not true. There are plenty of activities that a healthy, enthusiastic person can do for quite a few hours per day that burn calories rapidly, and it takes serious effort to eat enough to offset the calorie usage. Think distance running, skiing, cycling, rowing, etc. Sometimes people go to extreme technological measures to optimize thei…

I had the fastest weight loss at my life at a time when I was having something like a manic episode, had a psychogenic fever, was doing two hours a day of cardio plus crazy numbers of weightlifting sets three times a week and on a basically liquid diet because I was having trouble with my jaw.

Most people though will just eat more when they exercise, though dieticians say that more muscle is good for your metabolism and almost everybody would benefit from getting in some cardio and weights (i'm one of the rare exceptions who's been told to moderate my exercise, but I am the kind of person who can't understand how other people can make it through the day without going to the gym.)

People at the extreme end can struggle to eat enough food to maintain body condition, like I had a friend in college who trained for ultramarathons and you couldn't pinch anything on him even though he was eating all the time. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps was a representative for the blockbuster heartburn medication Prilosec because he was burning 10,000 calories a day on his side!

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#439

Post by credit_guy » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

spicyusername wrote: post #425

wpm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? People take depression meds, blood pressure meds, all kinds of meds for their whole life. I'll be on omeprazole for reflux my whole life. It doesn't solve the underlying problem of my gut being prone to overpumping acid into my stomach. So omeprazole is problematic? The underlying issue is being treated, it's treated by taking the drug. It works. It's doing its job. I'd be curious as to how you came to this…

Because it's pretty likely some of these have negative long term effects. And some of those long-term effects are probably pretty serious. Many people taking these kind of drugs are gambling with their well being. No doubt that in many cases that gamble is worth it. But issues that can be solved with non-pharmaceutical solutions, such as with weight loss and lifestyle changes, are really better solved that way if pos…

> Because it's pretty likely some of these have negative long term effects. And some of those long-term effects are probably pretty serious.

> Many people taking these kind of drugs are gambling with their well being. No doubt that in many cases that gamble is worth it.

You use the word "gamble" and it is correct, but the connotation is a negative one.

We take a risk in everything we do. We seldom know the long term effects of anything. Right now I drink tea, and I drink tea quite often. Is this healthy? Does it have long term negative effects?

With GLP-1 medications, deciding to not take one, if you are overweight, is also a gamble. A pretty huge one. Obesity very often leads to type-2 diabetes, and the first step is prediabetes. Should someone with high BMI and high A1C avoid GLP-1 because we don't yet know the long term effects? We do know the long term effects of being overweight.

Re: What Ozempic does to the gut-brain axis

#440

Post by estearum » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

spicyusername wrote: post #425

wpm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? People take depression meds, blood pressure meds, all kinds of meds for their whole life. I'll be on omeprazole for reflux my whole life. It doesn't solve the underlying problem of my gut being prone to overpumping acid into my stomach. So omeprazole is problematic? The underlying issue is being treated, it's treated by taking the drug. It works. It's doing its job. I'd be curious as to how you came to this…

Because it's pretty likely some of these have negative long term effects. And some of those long-term effects are probably pretty serious. Many people taking these kind of drugs are gambling with their well being. No doubt that in many cases that gamble is worth it. But issues that can be solved with non-pharmaceutical solutions, such as with weight loss and lifestyle changes, are really better solved that way if pos…

> Because it's pretty likely some of these have negative long term effects. And some of those long-term effects are probably pretty serious.

No, it's really not "pretty likely." These drugs are extremely well studied, have been for a long time across now hundreds of thousands of clinical trial participants over decades.

The downsides of obesity however are immense. Far, far worse than people intuit.

Agreed non-pharmaceutical interventions are preferable when they work. But it turns out – empirically – that it's very hard to implement these successfully.