[makeitdouble]

Isn't the worry that Ozempic is only "effective and save" as far as all the other weight loss drugs being utter predatory bullshit ?

Last time I looked into it the "loss" is only happening while taking the medication and you get back to normal once you stop, regardless of how long you’ve been taking it. So if stabilizing at a thinner state is your goal, the drug would be mostly useless or you should be ready to take the rest of your life.

Going only a tad too far, it feels like recomming meth for its energizing and diet effects, that's not something we want at wide scale.

[ImPostingOnHN]

The medication suppresses appetite, so one wouldn't expect it to continue working when it isn't being taken. It's a treatment, after all, not a cure.

What it can do is help one "bootstrap" into healthy habits. Someone who is sufficiently overweight might suffer injuries from exercising, which makes it difficult to lose that weight. Someone who's drank a soda every morning for decades might break the habit if they stop for long enough.

[pseudalopex]

Why quotation marks around loss?

Why does it feel like recommending meth? Are they similar in addiction and harmful effects?

[makeitdouble]

Because the loss is very limited, and most people regain after stopping medication. As discussed in the other thread, within about a year or so there's already a two thirds rebound, and patients don't see as much health improvement as through exercice for instance.

[johncearls]

And my cholesterol goes back up when I stop taking statins. I don’t get this very common argument.

[pixl97]

I mean come up with a pill that changes your eating habits and doesn't just repress them. Don't think anyone's got close to that yet.

In the meantime overweight people are going to take what they can get.

[glp1guide]

> I mean come up with a pill that changes your eating habits and doesn't just repress them. Don't think anyone's got close to that yet.

So GLP1 gene therapy (if it ever gets here) might be the most reasonable way to achieve this, and might be the safest we've ever seen so far outside of maybe brain control.

> In the meantime overweight people are going to take what they can get.

100%. And AFAIK GLP1s are some of the safest we've seen so far, and much more effective than "eat less and move more" (as true as that may be).

[makeitdouble]

Tobacco did that (imagine going for nicotine patches instead of smoking), meth did that, a lot of things do that. It all comes down to the side effects and whether it's worth having the drug around.

Up until now we say "no, fuck it" after a few decades of having the thing widely available. My point is wether we should shortcut the cycle and so no _before_ doing the society wide trial and having to fight for decades to have it stop.

> In the meantime overweight people are going to take what they can

Most don't take anything right now

[pixl97]

Tobacco and meth happen to be some of the most highly addictive drugs that exist, that also have the side effect of weight loss.

I don't think I've seen anybody tweaking out for a fix of ozempic, though please feel free to inform me if addiction is an actual side effect that I've not heard of.

[cactusplant7374]

Withdrawal for tobacco is basically mild discomfort. It can't be in the same class as drugs that cause seizures, profuse sweating, and death upon immediate cessation.

[NoGravitas]

Depends what you mean by mild. For me, going cold turkey from nicotine was migraines, severe anxiety, irritability, and fatigue. Not life threatening, but I was unable to function. That said, tapering off with a controlled time-release dosage (patches) was sufficient to reduce it to actual mild discomfort for me.

[makeitdouble]

Ozempic has started to be in wider use very recently, and we know it has a side effects of restraining dopamine release.

My point is we still know very little about long term effects, and in particular about what happens when the brain's reward centers are affected at scale (for a diversity of people) + for years.

Yet we're already going down the path of the "miracle drug" [0] and that freaks me out.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Drug-Crystal-Meth-ebook/dp/B0...

[glp1guide]

> Isn't the worry that Ozempic is only "effective and save" as far as all the other weight loss drugs being utter predatory bullshit ?

Yes, but note that there are other more legitimate alternatives like gastric bypass, etc!

> Last time I looked into it the "loss" is only happening while taking the medication and you get back to normal once you stop, regardless of how long you’ve been taking it. So if stabilizing at a thinner state is your goal, the drug would be mostly useless or you should be ready to take the rest of your life.

This is untrue -- most people do not bounce all the way back to their original weight once they stop, and simply having the space from what seems to anecdotally be quite annoying symptoms ("food noise") might be well worth it.

https://glp1.guide/content/do-people-regain-all-the-weight-l...

> Going only a tad too far, it feels like recomming meth for its energizing and diet effects, that's not something we want at wide scale.

It's absolutely not this -- there are studies and trials on how GLP1 RAs work, their effects, and at this point they are a go-to effective treatment for type 2 diabetes, and the FDA has just approved them for heart disease.

The way they work is not completely known (for example the mental effects seem to be underweighted), but the mechanism of action is completely different a drug like meth.

[makeitdouble]

> This is untrue -- most people do not bounce all the way back to their original weight once they stop, and simply having the space from what seems to anecdotally be quite annoying symptoms ("food noise") might be well worth it.

5% weight loss at the end of the day, and no cardio metabolic improvement [0]. So basically the net change was super small and cosmetic. I understand this could still be useful for very specific cases, but it's more of a niche that we're willing to admit.

> the mechanism of action is completely different

I hear you, I and I think we'll see more and more diverse drugs with different mechanisms. I'm just not sure we should be saying "this time it's different" every single time when we could take more measured approach before pushing it to the masses. Right now we're already in the YOLO phase waiting to see how it will pan out now that everyone and their dog want the miracle weight loss drug.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35441470/

[glp1guide]

> 5% weight loss at the end of the day, and no cardio metabolic improvement [0]. So basically the net change was super small and cosmetic. I understand this could still be useful for very specific cases, but it's more of a niche that we're willing to admit.

Hey 5% weight loss is pretty good! And remember, there maybe a period of time where the process repeats after getting off (no research to support this yet).

Also, I think you're under-estimating the psychological benefits. The lessened/blunted impulses to eat/do other addictive things might prove to be way more valuable in the time frame than simply the weight loss.

Also, note that the 5% is basically the worst case -- it's possible for more motivated people to keep more than that off, especially if they change their lifestyles appropriately, and importantly the drugs help people get in a headspace to do that.

> I hear you, I and I think we'll see more and more diverse drugs with different mechanisms. I'm just not sure we should be saying "this time it's different" every single time when we could take more measured approach before pushing it to the masses. Right now we're already in the YOLO phase waiting to see how it will pan out now that everyone and their dog want the miracle weight loss drug.

Yeah but I'd say this time it is different -- we've literally never had any weight loss drug that was this effective with so few side effects, and is well studied and essentially has an arms race between the largest pharma companies in the world to produce.

I agree with you though -- it's not a miracle drug, but it's the closest we've seen so far, so that's worth celebrating.

Personally I don't think anyone has to push this drug -- the masses are demanding it -- it's just that only rich people/lucky people with good health plans can afford it so far.