Live data from Hacker News

Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

trial.medpath.com

841–850 of 868 posts

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#841
post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is that we designed a system in which a majority of people cannot thrive and in which a lot of people end up developing problems like obesity or being labeled as ADHD. We designed — if you can call this "design" — a system where most people are not the literal property of their feudal lords and most of them do not need to worry about literally starving to death. Our genomes don't know we're not at constan…

> We designed — if you can call this "design" — a system where most people are not the literal property of their feudal lords hm really ? https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technofeudalism > and most of them do not need to worry about literally starving to death. Yes, now the main causes of death are literal sloth and gluttony. > living longer and healthier lives Healthier ? 50% of people are basically disabled by the…

> hm really ? https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technofeudalism

Yes really: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

And: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

Saying of employment and big companies "oh no totes the same as feudalism" from such superficial similarities is historically laughable. It's like saying that the Romans and the USA and Mussolini are all "the same thing" because of the iconography of the fasces.

> Yes, now the main causes of death are literal sloth and gluttony.

Incorrect: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-risk-...

It might be as high as 23.4%… in the country of Cook Islands.

USA was 9.1% in 2021, but that was probably reduced due to the pandemic as it was a whole 10.8% in 2019.

> 50% of people are basically disabled by the age of 40 because of obesity

No, they're not. BMI ~30 doesn't have that strong an impact, and only three countries have that-or-higher (and even then marginally) as a mean BMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_bo...

> You're conflating life expectancy at birth vs life expectancy, don't forget health-span expectancy either. The US life expectancy is going down, health span is going down in most of the west too:

  Burden of disease
  Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) per 100,000 individuals from all causes. DALYs measure the total burden of disease – both from years of life lost due to premature death and years lived with a disability. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dalys-rate-from-all-cause...

Burden of disease goes down until the pandemic, only then goes up.

Even with pandemic making things worse, the USA was back at 1992 levels of health.

Specifically life expectancy: even in the USA, what you're seeing is the impact of the covid pandemic.

> Anyways, if your argument is that we should be glad that 70% of people are overweight/obese because people died earlier 300 years ago idk how many people you will convince...

Much more recent than that. Try the 1960s, where 29.7 million died: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-famines-by-de...

I don't know what true hunger feels like. I never have, I hope I never will.

Currently ongoing famines due to war, according to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Sudan_(2024–present)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_northern_Ethiopia_(2...

And in any case, your previous argument was "Taking ozempic won't fix your stressful job that materialized into an compulsive eating", to which my snappy retort is: well, nothing else did that either, did it?

My real argument is: if you don't like the obesity epidemic, why are you opposed to people taking the magic weight loss treatment that actually works, and apparently has a whole bunch of surprising positive side effects such as the headline of this news story?

It's the solution, and you're complaining about the problem that it fixes as if it also causes it. Thinking of the asbestos example earlier, what you're arguing here is like saying "all fire-retardants must be bad because people are on fire a lot".

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#842
post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is a moral failing, how can a pill resolve it? Does the pill put morals back in the user? While I agree that alcohol abuse is bad (and might make people do bad things, and hurts people around them etc), I'm not sure if the moral argument adds anything to the discussion

> If it is a moral failing, how can a pill resolve it? It doesn't. If thievery is a moral failing, how can chopping off thief's hands resolve it? It does resolve further thievery, but doesn't resolve the moral failing of it.

I'm not sure I understand your point, maybe we're talking at cross purposes? In the case of chopping off a thief's hand I see the _desire_ to steal as the moral failing. Preventing the physical theft in that case doesn't resolve the moral failing. In the alcohol case, (some) people who take naltrexone completely lose the desire to drink, so the internal _desire_ (or 'moral failing') has resolved, rather than just the symptom of drinking.

But we may be using different definitions of moral failing

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that almost all doctors give useless advice. On multiple occasions I've been advised that there was nothing wrong but they can run a scan "if I insist" and then bam, the exact problem I expected shows up clear as day. They're morons for the most part.

It’s like any other field, most suck and it requires effort to find the smart ones.

Yep, 100%. It just feels worse with doctors imo because it feels like the culture treats them like some monolith of skill and wisdom.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting -- would love to hear anything more you have to share! The research numbers would suggest that Reta was top, results wise. Any other significant differences you felt/noticed? Also, do you find Tirz to be an imiprovement over Sema?

Yes, so far my preference has been Tirz. Though cost for Sema is significantly less. It could also be the case that the dose on the Reta I used was too low. I've had a few people mention that they also felt it was fairly weak mg-for-mg, maybe 10mg would have been better. There is a newer formulation, combining Sema with Cagrilintide that is probably the most effective option atm: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056…

Sorry a bit late here, but the numbers for CagriSema are actually not as good as Retatrutide's were. Unless I'm missing something:

Reta 8mg -22% body weight at 48 weeks

CagriSema -20.4% body weight at 68 weeks

CagriSema has been on my radar for a while, and it's certainly going to be exciting.

Here's a slightly better link for the curious:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40544433/

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05567796

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#846
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

is there a “being fat can be healthy” movement? I must be unaware. I am aware of the “fat people deserve respect, dignity, and can be beautiful too” movement…which i agree with. But if anyone is saying being fat is healthy, they’re pretending.

I also believe that everyone deserves respect and dignity, I don't even think it's amorale to choose to live life in a way that deprioritises health and fitness over other joys.

I think maybe it's excessive to call it a movement, perhaps just a mindset that's propagated online. As the other commentor pointed out it's something I think companies can message poorly in their attempts to be inclusive.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#847
post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 analog…

I think some viewpoints just sound wise, and get repeated a lot. Being skeptical about medication is one of them.

A legitimate worry, one Taleb might be bringing up, is that we should hold Ozempic to a higher standard because it's being taken by many people, and any problems it has down the line will have a much larger impact. But that 1. is happening anyways and 2. is not influencing an individual decision to take it or not, it's a society thing.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really puzzles me how people would just pop a pill instead of make some lifestyle changes. Maybe it's just my personality type, but it disturbs me how most people just want something quick and easy instead of doing the actual work and becoming overall better via a real learning journey by struggling through changing bad habits. But whatever, they do whatever works for them! I don't like pharma.

Because when people say "just make some lifestyle changes," "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Being fat really, really sucks, so most fat people have tried to make lifestyle changes, but they've gotten a lot of bad advice over the past half-century. They've cut back on fat, especially healthy animal fats, because that's what the government/medical/nutritional complex said to do, replacing them with "healt…

I think I was a bit vague and blunt with my comment, and I agree with what you say here 100%

For me lifestyle changes weren't easy and as simple as "lifestyle changes". Lifestyle changes involved huge amounts of willpower, and still do to some extent. Nothing that's really valuable is possible with an easy way out. From personal experience, consistently doing something hard and building that habit is so much more sustainable long term than temporarily popping a pill and expecting the problem to stay away when they stop. I've known people who used Ozempic for some time, then stopped when they reached their goal weight, then just end up putting on that weight again. I don't blame Ozempic for it, it did its job well.

I was overweight, unhealthy and no amount of exercise and eating so-called "healthy low fat" dietician-recommended foods helped me get healthier and leaner. I had to let go of the beliefs I held about how nutrition should be. I don't blame anyone, I just find it personally puzzling that people don't seem to want to challenge the status quo because the status quo isn't working.

Fasting, low carbs and cutting out sugar completely has done so much good for me, not just on a weight loss level. It took years of self-education, figuring out what works for me and my body to get where I am now. Physical health probably isn't one of their top personal values. This goes deeper than just a simple "lifestyle change".

So yes, if this works for some people and helps them live better, good for them, and I really hope they thrive on this.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because full anesthesia does regularly injure, disable, and kill people Disability or death are both incredibly rare side effects in modern usage and do not at all fit any pattern you could attach to the word “regular.”

Its under documented. People having side effects and injuries from these drugs post-surgery are just told to "deal with it." Modern medicine is quite an improvement from the past but it still involves a great deal of risk, especially when we put people fully under.

> Its under documented.

Ahh. "Trust me bro" science! No, no I don't think I will. I think I will trust the actual data.

> People having side effects and injuries from these drugs post-surgery are just told to "deal with it."

Well, generally once something has already occurred, yes, that is the reality. Just like with my damaged spinal cord. I now have to "deal with it" because you can't go backwards. Also "just deal with it" does not imply a lack of documentation that it occurred.

> but it still involves a great deal of risk

Yes, just not the level of risk claimed. In fact, not anywhere close in the modern age.

> especially when we put people fully under.

I've zero doubt. That said, I've had more generals than 99.9% of people ever will and i'm still alive and injury free so yay for modern medical science.

Re: Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

#850
post #503

This, like much of the pharmaceutical approach to well-being, is treating symptoms and not the problem. Metabolic dysfunction? Fix the metabolism. Poor understanding of nutrition? Fix the understanding. Lack of emotional or self-control? Fix the discipline. Obesity is largely NOT an acute symptom and does not need an acute solution. If you don't fix the underlying problem you will have weight issues your whole life (…

Wow, I didn't realize the solution to all my problems is just to fix them. The answer was staring me right in the face the entire time. While I'm at it, I should also not take ADHD medication and instead just fix my mutated dopamine circuitry.

Not all problems, but yes too much fat is one of those problems that's easier to fix.
Post reply on HN