>The drugs work by suppressing appetite, by increasing metabolism, and by other mechanisms that are not yet fully understood. Why would FDA approve something which it we don't fully understand?
There are many drugs where this is true. Antidepressants, especially. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacology_of_antidepressants
Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
91–100 of 100 posts
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#92More relevant questions: - Why don't we stop subsidizing corn so much? - Why don't we teach effective nutrition and cooking in school? - Why don't we teach effective exercise, sports, and fitness in schools? - If we can ban alcohol and tobacco sales to children, why not things like added sugar, hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, etc? - If we can ban alcohol and tobacco advertising to children, why not products with added…
Obviously preventative measures should be our first resort. Obviously all farm subsidize (or at least those that are not in alignment with a healthy population) should be ended. But I take issue with banning sugary, hydrogenated things. The problem with the modern diet isn't that a kid drinks a Coca Cola with his McDonald's fries once a month when he goes out for a treat with his mom after swim practice. The problem…
You can go well beyond a slow cooker in time and money with a one time purchase of a solid pressure cooker. I have a 21-qt All American that I can produce tasty brown and black bean based meals at less than the cost of the Mac-n-Cheese. I'd cook about 15 quarts of beans in one evening, freeze 12 and eat the other 3 over the next few days.
If you were to ban ready-to-eat foods high in sugar and hydrogenated fats, you'd force people to learn about these alternatives. The benefit of banning is that it eliminates the path of least resistance where people remain ignorant of alternatives.
If people still want sweet foods and other things that are bad for them, they can still have them, but they have to do some work by cooking those sweet things themselves.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#93Because the markets have been flooded with either snake oil products or unproven chemicals like ephedra. Nothing is a replacement for diet and exercise. Diet drugs should be used in tandem with proper diet and exercise.
>Nothing is a replacement for diet and exercise. I don't know why people say this. The benefits of exercise are simply initiating biochemical processes that cause your body to grow and become more efficient (drugs that target the SIRT1 gene are an example). There's absolutely no reason why we can't develop drugs that initiate that same process. Same goes for preventing fat accumulation. Claiming that there's no subst…
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#94This is an interesting issue. If you're morbidly obese, a 5-10% reduction in weight could add up to significant LBs/KGs lost. So it would seem to me like this would be a great way to jumpstart and re-enforce the other aspects of weight loss. Many people give up because they don't see results fast enough. So much of weight loss is mis-understood, but a lot of it boils down to convenience, will power (choosing to resis…
I have the opposite problem - can't gain weight. Doesn't matter if I eat more or less, what kind of food, how many times a day and if I am training or not - it just stays the same no matter what. Recently it's been even worse - a simple 2 hour exercise would leave me with -1 kg and I had to wait like 4 days to gain back that 1 kg lost in one exercise. I think the hormones almost singlehandedly decides what you look l…
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously preventative measures should be our first resort. Obviously all farm subsidize (or at least those that are not in alignment with a healthy population) should be ended. But I take issue with banning sugary, hydrogenated things. The problem with the modern diet isn't that a kid drinks a Coca Cola with his McDonald's fries once a month when he goes out for a treat with his mom after swim practice. The problem…
Slow cookers and mason jars are an extremely economical way in both time and money for poor people to eat well. Armed with a 6-9 quart cast iron slow cooker and maybe 2-3 evenings a week with minimal attention after mis-en-place, you can eat very well, very cheaply. Plus, the food you prepare reheats very well and stores well in mason jars in the fridge or freezer. You can go well beyond a slow cooker in time and mon…
Even if you are right, and the only way for people to learn about slow cookers is by banning McDonalds / Chinese take out, I still wouldn't do it.
Although the slow cooker is a pretty good idea.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#96More relevant questions: - Why don't we stop subsidizing corn so much? - Why don't we teach effective nutrition and cooking in school? - Why don't we teach effective exercise, sports, and fitness in schools? - If we can ban alcohol and tobacco sales to children, why not things like added sugar, hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, etc? - If we can ban alcohol and tobacco advertising to children, why not products with added…
"Why don't we stop subsidizing corn so much?" Lobbyists. "Why don't we teach effective nutrition and cooking in school?" We do. It's called home economics. "Why don't we teach effective exercise, sports, and fitness in schools?" We do. It's called gym. "If we can ban alcohol and tobacco sales to children, why not things like added sugar, hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, etc?" Go tell a 6 year old they can't have cake o…
I don't know of many schools in my state that still have the budget to provide a home economics class/pay a teacher to teach it. The most my school went into nutrition was in the 1 semester of health class that everyone took.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slow cookers and mason jars are an extremely economical way in both time and money for poor people to eat well. Armed with a 6-9 quart cast iron slow cooker and maybe 2-3 evenings a week with minimal attention after mis-en-place, you can eat very well, very cheaply. Plus, the food you prepare reheats very well and stores well in mason jars in the fridge or freezer. You can go well beyond a slow cooker in time and mon…
I guess I'd rather have freedom than less obesity around me. Even if you are right, and the only way for people to learn about slow cookers is by banning McDonalds / Chinese take out, I still wouldn't do it. Although the slow cooker is a pretty good idea.
Once that is done, I would take items that are known health hazards and classifying them as toxic for consumption such as HFCs and hydrogenated oils. They are basically slow acting poisons. You would still be able to buy them and use them in your own home as an individual citizen, but food companies cannot buy them and use them to make food. Instead they need to use the healthier alternatives by default. This way all the junk food we enjoy today would still exist, but we would mitigate how unhealthy they are for us, since food companies would have to use the least unhealthy recipe possible.
I see this as reasonable since it preserves individual freedom, but prevents corporations, which have a fiduciary duty to psychopathy, from producing maximally unhealthy foods in search of a profit.
If those least unhealthy options were still economically attractive to the poor after the elimination of food subsidies and classification of cheaper, less healthy substances as unfit as an ingredient in manufactured foods, I would then look into how to incent people to choosing the healthier alternatives.
I think the best option here would be to make it easy for a family to acquire a cheap slow cooker and recipes and subsidize a ready-made pack of food that contains spices and other bulk ingredients used in the slow cooker recipes. The latter option is already done in Brazil under the name "cesta basica". Here's an image of the foods included in the "cesta basica"
http://www.utahpreppers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/cesta...
You can feed an entire very well for very cheap on it. It's also available to everyone regardless of income.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the opposite problem - can't gain weight. Doesn't matter if I eat more or less, what kind of food, how many times a day and if I am training or not - it just stays the same no matter what. Recently it's been even worse - a simple 2 hour exercise would leave me with -1 kg and I had to wait like 4 days to gain back that 1 kg lost in one exercise. I think the hormones almost singlehandedly decides what you look l…
Honestly most people I know who say they have this problem aren't eating as much as they believe. We call these people "hard gainers". If you have that much trouble gaining weight then try eating 6000 calories a day and tell me you don't put on any weight.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the opposite problem - can't gain weight. Doesn't matter if I eat more or less, what kind of food, how many times a day and if I am training or not - it just stays the same no matter what. Recently it's been even worse - a simple 2 hour exercise would leave me with -1 kg and I had to wait like 4 days to gain back that 1 kg lost in one exercise. I think the hormones almost singlehandedly decides what you look l…
I'm curious what you're eating and when. Even my skinniest friends I've seen them gain weight when they started changing their diets. Lot of it is they may eat ice cream and other fatty foods, but not very much. Look into why we get fat by gary taube. Talks about the science of weight a lot. Insulin response being a key factor.
Re: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear this kind of argument all the time and I don't buy it at all. How do poor people have less time to cook than well off people? We all work the same hours. Pasta costs next to nothing, as does rice, as do beans. Veg and dairy are a bit more but still cheap by any standards. Cigarettes and alcohol, on the other hand, are expensive. As is running a car, or going to McDonalds. So maybe try subsidising your meals by…
Man, you need to adjust your privileged-lifestyle viewpoint. Ever try to buy groceries without a car? How much time would you add to your day if you had to take the bus from work to the supermarket, and then the bus back to your house. A 15 minute 2 stop car trip becomes an hour+ with all the waiting, shuffling to and from the bus stop, etc. Also, ever notice how those big supermarkets with the cheap prices aren't re…
Finally, a lot of poor people have 2 jobs or try to get as much overtime as they can to supplement their income, so 'We all work the same hours.' is a bit of a fallacy.
Yeah, whatever. Plenty of my friends seem to manage just fine. I managed just fine back in the day.