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

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#801

Post by perching_aix » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 6:14 AM UTC

42772827 wrote: post #763

perching_aix wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now he gets to live out the rest of his life fighting cravings, telling himself he's not allowed to enjoy food. How utterly sad. I don't understand what drives people to write such intentionally asinine comments. Do you get off on hurting others or something? There were quite a few foods I let go of when I decided to drop weight. Can't say I miss them much, certainly not to the extent to say something like "wow, i…

>There were quite a few foods I let go of when I decided to drop weight. Can't say I miss them much, certainly not to the extent to say something like "wow, i can't enjoy food anymore" or "now i'm fighting cravings all the time!!". And I legitimately have no interest in reintegrating them into my diet. Your story has been told over and over and over. We get it. Congratulations. You win. You don't need GLP1s to sustai…

I'm pretty okay with semaglutide and I understand its prospective benefits, both on a personal and societal level. My point was that the father of this person clearly has that oh-so-superior and elusive brain chemistry you suppose I have based on the account shared, so it was both immensely asinine to write what you did, as well as straight up false. That you could have went through all these other points without being an asshole about it, from the get-go. That there's a person on the other side of the screen too, and maybe, just maybe, they weren't meaning unwell, and didn't deserve a fucking brainwash about how they're actually torturing their loved one - you know, just like how people don't deserve one about how they can totally lose weight unassisted and are just being "weak willed" or whatever. That you escalated, and that thinking you're justified in doing so doesn't actually make it any fucking better.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#802

Post by radu_floricica » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 7:13 AM UTC

esperent wrote: post #610

radu_floricica wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we really need to worry about rare and very rare side-effects. Or if we do, it'd be fair to also start worrying about all of them equally, but that would mean not taking any drugs ever.

> that would mean not taking any drugs ever. It would mean quantifying the risks of side effects versus the risks of not taking the drugs, which we should be doing anyway.

Availability heuristic.

If you read "changes in personality" listed as a very rare side effect on the drug's sheet (which yes, you should read once when you start taking the drug), you can evaluate it, maybe make a mental note etc.

But if you make (or share) a bbc article on a particularly rare side effect, completely out of context, you're privileging the hypothesis. Why this particular side effects should be brought up for consideration? Other than in sounds weird and gets clicks.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#803

Post by radu_floricica » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 7:19 AM UTC

rscho wrote: post #664

radu_floricica wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ibuprofen ? That's really not something I'd have expected to end up in someone's 'healthy stuff' list. Ibuprofen increases the risk of cardiac event and is a common precipiting factor in renal failure. Most antibiotics also do not do only good things. The list is too long to write here. Side effects profiles change with research and marketing developments, but thinking these drugs are only beneficial is a bit over th…

I said "reasonable side effects". I was _not_ trying to suggest that drugs have no side effects or need no consideration when taking them. Tylenol can give you a pretty horrifying death if you misuse it.

But this reinforces my main point - if we ended up comparing ozempic with ibuprofen, we definitely lucked out. Considering the benefits it offers it might be worth taken by some people even if it was on the level of chemotherapy.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#804

Post by eru » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 7:56 AM UTC

skeezyboy wrote: post #512

eru wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a straight-up stimulant. It's complicated.

cognitive stimulant definitely

There are some technical definition of what makes a stimulant a stimulant. It doesn't just have to have a vague stimulating effect.

It's definitely a stimulant in colloquial English, just not in pharmacology.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#805

Post by eru » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 7:57 AM UTC

Telemakhos wrote: post #501

eru wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; [...] Nicotine works just fine as an appetite suppressant without the carcinogenic tar you get from burning tobacco leaves. Similar for other stimulants or stimulant-like substances. But I agree that they get a bad reputation, despite actually working pretty well, and w…

Nicotine, even without the tar, reduces your nitric oxide levels leading to vasoconstriction, damages endothelial health, and can lead to atherosclerosis. You're much better off eating less and making more time to exercise instead of ingesting foreign substances to compensate for bad habits.

Compare and contrast https://gwern.net/nicotine

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#806

Post by rscho » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 7:58 AM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #803

rscho wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ibuprofen ? That's really not something I'd have expected to end up in someone's 'healthy stuff' list. Ibuprofen increases the risk of cardiac event and is a common precipiting factor in renal failure. Most antibiotics also do not do only good things. The list is too long to write here. Side effects profiles change with research and marketing developments, but thinking these drugs are only beneficial is a bit over th…

I said "reasonable side effects". I was _not_ trying to suggest that drugs have no side effects or need no consideration when taking them. Tylenol can give you a pretty horrifying death if you misuse it. But this reinforces my main point - if we ended up comparing ozempic with ibuprofen, we definitely lucked out. Considering the benefits it offers it might be worth taken by some people even if it was on the level of…

Ozempic is very recent. Given the volume of prescription, the probability of problematic side-effect in the short-to-medium term indeed seems low. But it sill is too early to say whether ozempic really isn't problematic. Let's hope so.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#807

Post by a5c11 » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 8:14 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #704

a5c11 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't quite understand the meaning of "symptom" and "illness", do you? Obesity - symptom. Usually the illness is a bad diet, lack of movement, or very rarely some serious health condition. Instead of targeting obesity, fix your habits or see a doctor to see why your body accumulates excessive amounts of fat. Dopamine issues, lack of concentration, etc. - symptoms. The illness is ADHD. By taking medicines you are…

> Obesity - symptom. Usually the illness is a bad diet, lack of movement, or very rarely some serious health condition The fact that it's treatable with a drug should have put this nonsense to bed. I don't gain weight when I eat more food. That occurs regardless of whether I'm exercising heavily or literally not leaving bed and ordering food via delivery. My basal metabolism takes care of my weight management. The fl…

> The fact that it's treatable with a drug should have put this nonsense to bed.

You can "cure" brain tumour with painkillers too. That's the same thing - silencing symptoms, while the cause persists.

> precisely measure their diet and exercise, gain a pound or two

If they exercise, that's normal they gain weight. Muscles build up, the body keeps some more water - that's natural. Weight isn't the only measure, especially for those who are exercising. When I had a break from a gym for a few months, I lost 6 kilograms (which I now regained), but that wasn't fat.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#808

Post by guerrilla » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 8:44 AM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #712

guerrilla wrote: post #575

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

So you accept it as a behavioral problem, yes? I.e., an inability to refrain from overeating? Any speculation about why you cannot deny yourself?

No, it's not a "behavioral problem." Your phrasing is disgusting. The research is perfectly clear on why it's extrenely difficult to lose weight. There's no need for speculation.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#809

Post by cthalupa » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 9:07 AM UTC

rscho wrote: post #806

radu_floricica wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "reasonable side effects". I was _not_ trying to suggest that drugs have no side effects or need no consideration when taking them. Tylenol can give you a pretty horrifying death if you misuse it. But this reinforces my main point - if we ended up comparing ozempic with ibuprofen, we definitely lucked out. Considering the benefits it offers it might be worth taken by some people even if it was on the level of…

Ozempic is very recent. Given the volume of prescription, the probability of problematic side-effect in the short-to-medium term indeed seems low. But it sill is too early to say whether ozempic really isn't problematic. Let's hope so.

I really don't understand this skepticism around semaglutide and long-term effects.

One, GLP-1s are not a new class of drug. We have had them in various forms for about two decades now.

Two, the clinical trials have followed the standard sort of schedule as any other medication we release. I don't hear or see all the hand-wringing that these have received over every other medication we develop.

Three, they are analogs to hormones our bodies already produce. They're not some totally alien substance that we have zero understanding of. We modify them to have longer half-lives, bind more strongly/weakly to certain receptors, etc., but it's not like these are significant departures from things our body already handles day in and day out.

Yes, maybe there is something specific to semaglutide or tirzepatide or the newer generations of GLP-1 medications that we don't understand that has some sort of long term effect. But what is the foundation for that worry? Exenatide has not shown any of those concerns in two decades of use. Basically every single health marker that changes when on these drugs changes in (often profoundly!) positive ways. It makes significant positive impact on the cause of the single largest increased in all-cause mortality for the Western world. Newer generations are even more promising - retatutride has shown significant anti-cancer impacts on rodent studies, and mechanistically the pathways it is acting on there work very similarly in humans, so there is strong reason to believe that will carry over. Even the modern generations have a huge list of benefits that take place basically immediately upon beginning to take them, even without significant weight loss, including protection against CVD-related incidents such as heart attacks, strokes, and deaths related to them.

What we know today about all of the positive impact they have, mechanistically how they are doing it, and the data we have on this class of medication being used in general... the side-effects would have to be hugely detrimental and in a way that just doesn't make much sense based on our current understanding.

It's not impossible, of course, but worrying about it seems silly unless your general stance is that you won't take any medication until that specific formulation has been on the market for decades.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#810

Post by cthalupa » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #794

fc417fc802 wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our ancestors and every other animal around us? Yes. Right so my point is, with no smooth optimization path towards X in a given species the question "why doesn't species just X" has a readily available answer - because biased random walks are fickle and the pathway likely convoluted. Whereas when a smooth optimization path is available it becomes reasonable to ask "then why isn't species doing X already"? Assum…

> it's an entirely reasonable question that needs to be asked when considering the potential for serious side effects I agree about it being asked. A lot of times it isn’t being asked, but assumed. I thought it was snake oil when announced. I’m now beginning to question if it’s closer to a weird vitamin that we face a systemic deficit of.

> I’m now beginning to question if it’s closer to a weird vitamin that we face a systemic deficit of.

There's some studies suggesting that a big part of what influences someone to naturally be fat or skinny is tied to natural production of the GLP-1 hormone. Post-prandial readings of serum level GLP-1 show significant differences in lean people vs. obese people, with obese people have much less.

We don't have an understood mechanism yet to determine if it's causative - maybe it's yet another feedback loop we have with gaining weight - but it seems very plausible that the natural level of production is a determinant factor in just how susceptible you are to packing on the pounds in today's food-rich world.