[jackschultz]

I wonder how much this might change in the coming years purely from GLP-1s. Articles like this[0] (which yes, Betteridge's law applies) talk about how it’s pretty likely they’ll be able to be used by everyone. But even now, taking people with cardiovascular high probabilities and dropping that risk way down purely by giving them the feeling that they’re more full more frequently is crazy to think about. Not sure opinions here but I’m at the point of telling my parents they should both be on these right now in their upper 60s.

Some people shrug it off or claim that they’re higher status because they lost weight via diet and exercise, but I map that to people who think they’re better programmers because they don’t use llms for coding, when the real result is what matters. Similar to people thinking AI slop, there are news articles about what happens if you stop GLP-1s and gain the weight back. But the stories of people who either continue to microdose, or also learn the feelings of their body and how it differs have long term success. Similar to those who know how to work with llms get good results, but the news is about how smarter people don’t use it.

All very interesting subjects. What a world we’re in.

[0] https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-...

[ls612]

Obesity reduction if seen through in the long run will have comparable benefits to smoking cessation. The scale of the win here is hard to overstate.

[46493168]

Then why the fuck hasn't the US just added it to Medicare / Medicaid coverage? It makes no sense. These healthcare schemes are costly, and covering this medication would make it... less costly.

[eudamoniac]

Same reason TRT is covered in only acutely necessary situations. The system is not good at covering QoL care with a long term outlook.

Pretty much every man over 45 should get on TRT, because his health and QOL will improve more from that than perhaps anything else.

[m0llusk]

Then the reductions in lean muscle mass will start to become visible in all cause mortality statistics. This could be a rough ride.

[TheDong]

What does "less muscle-mass" mean in terms of mortality statistics?

We already know women live longer than men on average, and also have less muscle-mass than men on average, so clearly it's not having too much of an impact on women.

Without looking into actual statistics here, Japan is known for having a high life expectancy, and stereotypically Japan's population is both relatively thin, and has relatively little muscle, so that also seems to defy that expectation.

What sort of mortality are you expecting here?

[m0llusk]

You seem to be working from base principles without consulting the literature.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28991040/ Conclusions: Low muscle strength was independently associated with elevated risk of all-cause mortality, regardless of muscle mass, metabolic syndrome, ...

https://www.amjmed.com/article/s0002-9343(14)00138-7/fulltex... Muscle mass is associated inversely with mortality risk in older adults independently of fat mass and cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors

And specifically GLP-1 usage is associated with significant loss of lean mass: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38937282/ In some studies, reductions in lean mass range between 40% and 60% as a proportion of total weight lost ...

This might be a good start. There is quite a bit of material here and as might be expected much of it is fairly recent and gets a lot of this kind of skinny equals long life feedback that isn't strongly supported by clinical data.

[eudamoniac]

A person who does it naturally is still higher status. Staying thin naturally, especially if also fit, indicates a level of will, health focus, and self respect that I appreciate. I wouldn't like to start dating a woman and learn that she has a "thinness subscription". That's a lot of money being spent to avoid discipline, and lack of discipline also is just unattractive. I would consider GLP1 use in a potential partner equivalent to him/her ordering food all the time; it wastes money and indicates that he/she may be lazy or struggling with executive function.