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Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

trial.medpath.com

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Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#571

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> 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

> when we use technology to reoptimise our bodies to calorie abundance replace "calorie abundance" with "sedentary lifestyle" and youre there. its people eating more than they burn off because they dont exert themselves because thats what being an adult means.

You can't outrun a bad diet. You can easily out-eat any exercise though. Check just how few calories stationary cycling for an hour burns. I can eat that many calories in 5 minutes.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#572
post #399

I know why people hate Ozempic. It is because it devaluates struggle and voids moral superiority of those who did keep themselves from becoming obese by self-restriction before: now these people feel like fools because all of a sudden, everyone is becoming slim, and the advantage of being slim disappears. They naturally question how is it fair. Well, life's not fair.

That's if people think obesity is just the individual's fault. In nutrition there's a distinction between psychology factors, the environment (called the obesogenic environment), genetics, social factors, etc. If you live in the US it must be really hard to avoid being overloaded by food, so I think the real angry group of people will be companies, not being able to force people to eat more, I welcome that!

Non-overweight people of course think this way, who will deny oneself a virtue?

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way Japan "solves" obesity is quite cruel on those it does not work for. Overweight natives are not treated kindly. I think creating a medicine to make this easier is a moral good, and a sign of kindness and intelligence. Hopefully the aliens also agree.

What is more cruel: a) emotional damage b) heart disease

I will not argue, there are benefits to the way Japan does it, if the alternative is doing nothing. Obesity is indeed bad.

But we're talking about a pill that can hopefully prevent both, so we don't need to make that choice.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#574
post #538

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Nah man. I'm overweight and despite trying everything I possibly can for most of my adult life, I still can't win. I do everything you're supposed to do but it's just not possible to maintain long-term. It's a constant struggle. You don't have discipline. It's just easier for you. That's all. I still won't use this drug but don't try to tell me I failed because of a lack of effort, understanding, exercise, "disciplin…

> don't try to tell me I failed because of a lack of effort, understanding, exercise, "discipline", etc. Not to be _too_ rude here, but clearly you missed the mark on at least one of those things. If you're burning more energy than you're consuming, it's impossible to not lose weight. Maybe you underestimated how many calories you were consuming, overestimated how many calories you were burning, didn't do it often en…

I count my calories accurately. The problem is keeping consumption that low in the long term. It's not sustainable. Your body does everything to fight you and it only gets harder the further you go.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah man. I'm overweight and despite trying everything I possibly can for most of my adult life, I still can't win. I do everything you're supposed to do but it's just not possible to maintain long-term. It's a constant struggle. You don't have discipline. It's just easier for you. That's all. I still won't use this drug but don't try to tell me I failed because of a lack of effort, understanding, exercise, "disciplin…

What is the source of difficulty in your case? Are you comparing your situation to that of someone with a predisposition for alcoholism?

No, it's far more difficult than quitting addictive drugs. I've done that and succeded several times over.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#576
post #454

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There is another way to look at it. People who don't experience difficulties moderating their diet and could flounder their "self discipline" are now on a level field with people who did have difficulties with their diet. So they feel threatened by it. Another example of a world in which people are not challenged to grow as people; instead of being happy that more people can get healthy they dismiss the medical advan…

go out and get some exercise, run around, why is this never an option?

Of course it is, and I used to basically 100% agree with you but i've changed my mind over the years. It's so wildly asymmetric that I don't think this is a useful framing anymore.

what i mean is, on one side you have huge teams of absolutely brilliant well-resourced food scientists A/B testing their products to maximize addictiveness and other related metrics. On the other side you have a stressed out parent tired from a full day of work just trying to quickly get some food for their family.

This isn't fair! It should make you angry when you see regular people who are probably a lot more like you than you think being preyed on by others

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#577
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah man. I'm overweight and despite trying everything I possibly can for most of my adult life, I still can't win. I do everything you're supposed to do but it's just not possible to maintain long-term. It's a constant struggle. You don't have discipline. It's just easier for you. That's all. I still won't use this drug but don't try to tell me I failed because of a lack of effort, understanding, exercise, "disciplin…

You just haven't got there yet. You haven't failed. It really just comes down to eating less and healthier. Some people have metabolic differences either side, but they don't amount to a great deal. Weight loss drugs suppressing your appetite literally shows this to be true. You just need to do it yourself without the drug. Eventually you'd want to come off the drug, right? When that happens, you would need to do jus…

> Every time I've heard somebody say they've tried everything, they usually haven't.

You're significantly underestimating how difficult doing the right things consitently is.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#578
post #550
post #545

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> If people can't be arsed doing that and we give easy shortcuts for everything in life, what's the point in being alive? Embrace the shortcuts. Life's too short not to. What's that Plato quote about writing? If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but…

There's a time and place for shortcuts. Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain. Sometimes the long way is better long term. A healthy attitude towards eating and fitness can, and usually does, elevate your life experience many times over. Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love, changing your views on f…

> Health and fitness shortcuts hold more to lose than they do to gain.

The entire history of medicine and sports science disagrees with you about that. It's all about knowing what the direct path to the goal is and not meandering around the metaphorical scenic route to those goals.

> Taking a shortcut in these erases any personal development and learning experience you could get from finding a sport you love

Or enable sports that were otherwise unobtainable.

> changing your views on food.

More likely that these drugs would do that. UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried to promote healthy eating in schools by showing school kids how chicken nuggets were made. The kids were disgusted… and yet still wanted to eat them, much to Jamie Oliver's surprise.

> Do you want the people building your home and infrastructure making shortcuts?

Given "shortcuts" in this case means "technology", here's what building a home without "shortcuts" looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA

> Do you want doctors in training to shortcut their studies?

And in this case, "shortcuts" means "reads Gray's Anatomy rather than figuring out anatomy solely from first principles by dissection of corpses".

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a chronically obese, non-diabetic individual, here in Greece it is impossible to convince a doctor to prescribe anything close to that :(

Visit Turkey for a couple weeks. Rules are the same, but behavior is the opposite. Weekly dose of 1mg is sold over the counter for around 150$.

And it's thanks to that kind of dishonorable practice that $NVO has lost 64% of its value over the last year. This is how the world rewards the makers of the most successful and helpful drug in history.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#580
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 This strays too far into appeal to nature teritory. Evolution made us fit to reproduce not to age. As for "no free lunch" - we do have a lot of that in medicine historically speaking: iodine salt, clean water, vitamins (C, D), iron supplements, hormone theraphy, vaccines. The field of medicine is no stranger to free lunch.

By "no free lunch" I meant that any change which evolution could easily have led to, but didn't, has likely not been evolutionarily advantageous for long enough or with great enough selective pressure to happen. Emphasis on "easily", "likely", and "long enough"/"great enough".

I don't think evolution could easily have solved most dietary deficits, manufactured clean water, prevented every endocrine condition, or designed vaccines for us. I'm not even sure what that last one would mean! These things are a nearly-free lunch because we live in industrial economies that can ship oranges around the world and build dams, but they're not an evolutionary free lunch. (And the loss of vitamin C production is argued to be an adaptation to starvation, too, just like we're arguing that lower GLP-1 is an adaptation to starvation: https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/221/5556105)

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