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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

#471

Post by Volundr »

paulpauper wrote: post #380
0xB31B1B wrote: post #21

I’m currently taking one of these drugs and it has been no less than a miracle in my life. I became obese when I was around 5, topping out around a 34 BMI. When I was 20 I lost a substantial amount of weight the old fashioned way (diet and exercise), and within 8 months I was BMI 23. Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. 7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29…

Congrats on this drug working I lost 45 lbs myself with diet and excise, bmi is 25. Hoping it works. If it does not I at least know I have a fallback plan.

Congratulations that's fantastic! Best of luck keeping it up!

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#472

Post by exhilaration »

fswd wrote: post #379

It appears you can do the same thing with 3g of cinnamon https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19158209/ Conclusions: Ingestion of 3 g cinnamon reduced postprandial serum insulin and increased GLP-1 concentrations without significantly affecting blood glucose, GIP, the ghrelin concentration, satiety, or GER in healthy subjects.

If anyone wants to try this, make sure you're NOT using what's usually passed off as cinnamon in America (Cassia), you want the real thing (Ceylon) -- and from a vendor you can trust. That amount of cassia cinnamon is likely to cause liver damage: https://www.consumerlab.com/answers/cinnamon-coumarin-liver-...

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#473

Post by MajimasEyepatch »

bioemerl wrote: post #411
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "natural weight" as used here is misleading. It does not mean that people are supposed to be a particular weight. It refers to the idea that something—whether it's diet, genetics, environmental factors, or something else—influences the body's weight regulation mechanisms to "prefer" a certain body weight, and changing that is very, very hard. Think of it like body temperature: normally, your body maintains a…

If this were true I would not expect that changes in our lifestyle would cause broad scale weight increases like they have. I'm very skeptical humans are built with an average set weight way up in the unhealthy range. Or maybe this is the case, but it is thrown off hard by our modern diets. Our natural set point is in the healthy range, but our meal is x calories per Y food now so it ends up artificially high. The ex…

I think you're misunderstanding. There is no "natural set point." The set point moves up and down based on hormones, genes, diet, environment, medication, etc. And the very act of gaining weight causes your body's set point to move up, because of how weight gain affects your hormones. Unfortunately the set point is pretty sticky, and once it moves up, it does not like to move back down, in part because for most of animal history, weight loss is a sign of starvation.

Today, there are a bunch of factors that have combined to move people's set points higher than they should be: calorie-dense diets, sedentary lifestyles, plastics, drugs like antidepressants and lithium compounds in the water supply, and who knows what else. No one is arguing that the "natural" set point is 300 pounds or whatever. The point is that there is no natural set point because it's a function of many different variables.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#474

Post by incongruity »

hackernewds wrote: post #268
0xB31B1B wrote: post #21

I’m currently taking one of these drugs and it has been no less than a miracle in my life. I became obese when I was around 5, topping out around a 34 BMI. When I was 20 I lost a substantial amount of weight the old fashioned way (diet and exercise), and within 8 months I was BMI 23. Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. 7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29…

there's a difference between being full and feeling full. is it still known that the human body is healthy with this level of dieting and lack of nutrition? clearly can't be the case for someone who is obese so I'm wondering if this is true then if it's limited to folks who are struggling with obesity that can endure this

> there's a difference between being full and feeling full.

Implying that something is off if you "feel" but are "not" full? How do you define full? Having a "healthy" amount of food in your stomach? However you define it, with asserting that, you have to acknowledge the closely related idea that there's something off if you are "full" (as you've defined it) but still not feeling full - or satiated. It's that broken state that so many of us are desperate to solve.

I'm on a GLP-1 agonist after years of diets, gym memberships, shame, etc. etc. and this medicine is nothing short of amazing for me. It feels like it has fixed things I didn't even realize were wrong and it has changed my relationship with food in very positive ways. It is now so much easier to eat - some food but not too much food - just like I've seen so many of my friends with healthy BMIs do forever and have always had to consciously fight to do, day in, day out.

But even more than that, it's changed my desire for alcohol and reduced my consumption patterns there as well. Moving is easier -- and that effect happened faster than weightless, suggesting a reduction in systemic inflammation as well.

The side effects were a little rough for the first two weeks, but after ~3 months on it, I'd happily be on this for life given the positive impacts I've seen, barring any unexpected/unseen side effects.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#475

Post by moffkalast »

pixl97 wrote: post #465
moffkalast wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've gone quite far beyond never starving, we're eating far more than the required amount. Just a simple consequence of it being cheap and easy to make good tasting food by dumping sugar into literally everything. And the results are predictable.

>We've gone quite far beyond never starving I would counter you're incorrect, we're only 2 to 3 generations (maybe 4 now that I'm getting old) past never starving. On an evolutionary timescale this is nothing when talking about an impulse hundreds of millions of years old. Our bodies never developed any means to prevent eating more than we needed other than "Oh $deity my belly hurts" and "Hmm, I better save some of t…

That's also completely true. I meant far beyond more in average lifetime caloric amount than evolutionary time spent doing it. We're definitely not adapted to any of this.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#476

Post by RHSeeger »

str1k3 wrote: post #410
kevinpet wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely eat junk food, and I'm fat. Your attitude is the same as a religious person telling depressed people they need jesus rather than prozac.

You're fat because of what you're eating, and how little your moving, sorry dude but that's 100% true. Some of that might be out of your control, but it's reality...

While those are indeed major factors, there are others that come into play. For example, a change in your thyroid behavior can cause a loss/gain in weight without changing anything else.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#477

Post by uhtred »

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…

It seems like you are saying that it would be fine for someone to eat nothing but potato chips and candy bars, as long as they:

a) don't eat so much they get obese, or b) take an anti-obesity drug so they don't get obese

Which is ridiculous. They would still get sick and die early due to lack of nutrition.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#478

Post by aussiesnack »

smooth_remmy wrote: post #275

Petro Dobromylskyj is one of the foremost experts of fat metabolism. He has a blog called Hyperlipid where he's been blogging about fat metabolism and interpreting research for close to 10 years. He thinks the GLP-1 inhibitor drugs will be a disaster in the long term because they 1) cause weight loss but also 2) cause the body to create lots of new adipocyte (fat cells). Increasing the number of adipocytes is very un…

> one of the foremost experts of fat metabolism.

What makes you say that? In my experience, there are no 'experts' in empirical fields who are no themselves deeply and practically engaged with actual research. Being well-read does not make you an expert. Writing blog posts and appearing on YT doesn't make you an expert. Critics are not experts. To be an expert in anything you have to get your hands dirty.

Nothing I can see from this guys publications or bio make it seems like he's an expert in human fat metabolism at all, let alone a 'foremost' one. I base this on a fairly cursory survey, so I'm happy to be corrected. But convincing corrections would absolutely require details regarding what he has contributed to the field.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#479

Post by tyleo »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #21

I’m currently taking one of these drugs and it has been no less than a miracle in my life. I became obese when I was around 5, topping out around a 34 BMI. When I was 20 I lost a substantial amount of weight the old fashioned way (diet and exercise), and within 8 months I was BMI 23. Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. 7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29…

> Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating.

How was it socially isolating? I’m curious because I exercise and diet and this is not my experience. I understand it being challenging though.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#480

Post by CadmiumYellow »

moffkalast wrote: post #454
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.

That really is the core of the issue, and furthermore once you've used to a sugar diet you crave it more and regular food starts tasting worse in comparison somehow. I bet it's something to do with the gut-brain connection and a large glut of sugar eating bacteria signalling it's time to feed them. Just a theory, but there is some kind of correlated process there. And the reverse is also true, if you go a while witho…

The first time I tried ketchup after strictly avoiding added sugars for several weeks was a WILD experience. It tasted sweeter than maple syrup. I used to douse my food in ketchup and now I can't even eat it on fries because it's so sickeningly sweet. I noticed the same with most bottled salad dressings and sauces (barbecue sauce and honey mustard being even more egregious than ketchup).
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