[smiley1437]

Tirzepatide (and likely other GLPs) have limitations that are rarely brought up in the general media

- Patients have about 72 weeks to reach maximum loss, they don't lose any more weight after 72 weeks even on the highest dose.

- Patients appear to immediately gain the weight back as soon as they stop taking it.

It's right in the phase 3 trial outcomes paper:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10667099/

I suspect that this info is intentionally down-played so that it doesn't affect sales.

[mapontosevenths]

I'm fairly certain that literally every doctor tells literally every patient this. Mine sure did. It's also on the handout your pharmacy gives you, the website for the drug, and in fine print at the bottom of most commercials.

Nobody expects a single does of ibuprofen to cure your headaches for life. Similarly, this doesn't "fix" your biochemistry for life, you have to take it in order for it to work.

[kion]

I've been on Zepbound for ~25 weeks now and one of the first things my doctor told me was that this was a lifetime drug. He pointed out that I had a choice, of lifetime drugs. I needed to do something to get my cholesterol under control. That meant start statins now and likely add blood pressure meds and diabetes meds in the next 2-5 years. Alternatively I could start Zepbound, which would likely address all 3 and result in better quality of life in the next year. So far it seems like it is doing exactly that.

I'm sure some people are going into this without that knowledge, but people are being told this is a lifetime commitment. What you don't see a lot of is why people stop taking it. There's some cases of people losing and then stopping, but the majority are because insurance is forcing people off of it. Just look at the recent CVS Caremark forced switch from Zepbound (2nd Gen) to Wegovy (1st Gen) in July.

[pooloo]

> Just look at the recent CVS Caremark forced switch from Zepbound (2nd Gen) to Wegovy (1st Gen) in July.

This is something I wasn't aware of, are you on 2nd gen Zepbound then?

My wife has been plateaued at an undesirable weight and has been wanting to try this, however, the VA refuses to support it regardless of the fact she fits their guidelines and requirements to receive it. They recently banned it due to costs.

I prefer her to use Zepbound if we can get it, the question is how? We refuse to use the alternative methods where the drug is hand made to be equivalent to them as that seems very sketchy.

[themafia]

> I suspect that this info is intentionally down-played so that it doesn't affect sales.

Yea, hard to figure out why drug companies keep producing "Faustian bargains" in our current system. What galls me is people assume the best for new drugs instead of forcing the _for profit_ entity to prove it's actually safe and useful.

To the extent that, reliably, the first comment on these posts on Hacker News are some wishy washy anecdotal emotional blackmail garbage that completely obfuscates the point and runs direct interference for these large profitable organizations.

To the extent that it's hard to believe that these posts even on this tiny corner of the internet aren't bought and paid for. We live in a society that cherishes organized crime and denigrates hard work. I would not look forward to "new drugs" in this regime.

[astrange]

Novo Nordisk is majority owned by a charity and is therefore not a for-profit entity.

> What galls me is people assume the best for new drugs instead of forcing the _for profit_ entity to prove it's actually safe and useful.

That's what the FDA approval process is. They already did that in 2017.

[throwup238]

Novo Nordisk Foundation is a nonprofit but Novi Nordisk the pharmaceutical company is very much a for profit entity - it’s publicly traded on several stock exchanges including the NYSE. The foundation owns most of the voting shares but only about a quarter of all outstanding shares.