[matthewdgreen]

Do you think Wegovy/Ozempic/Mounjaro also work due to placebo effect? It seems that over the past decade or two we’ve discovered (some elements of) the sophisticated physiological mechanism by which we regulate appetite, and it involves the production of various hormones within our lower intestinal tract. When some fad diet produces sharp appetite reduction, my general question is: what’s more reasonable? To assume placebo or disruption of this mechanism?

At very least I think it’s useful to reinterpret these extreme fad diet weight loss results in light of this knowledge, rather than defaulting to the (now obsolete) understanding that appetite is primarily determined by psychological effects.