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by ceejayoz 5 hours ago
Why does there have to be a downside?

What was the downside of washing hands before surgery?

2 comments

One argument would be that Ozempic doesn't give your body any additional resources. It just triggers your body to behave in a different way. But if the changes it causes are universally good, why didn't evolution already make your body work that way?

I suppose the counterargument would be that modern life is different from the evolutionary environment, and so it's possible for a change to be beneficial now that wasn't beneficial then. But it would still be good to understand better the mechanism of the effect of Ozempic on things like addiction.

> But if the changes it causes are universally good, why didn't evolution already make your body work that way?

That’s not how evolution works.

Because our bodies are delicate systems of networks, and inputs in one area can have complex/unpredictable outputs elsewhere, it seems.

Typically, if something "works", there often appear to be side effects. A free lunch is rare.

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/understanding-medica...

> Typically, if something "works", there often appear to be side effects

Unless it’s literally a deficit. There isn’t a downside to treating vitamin C deficiency with vitamin C.

The fact that GLP-1 seems to have roles not just in satiety but that agonists seem to reduce other types of impulsiveness (e.g. gambling, shopping) is interesting. That's not something you'd predict as a consequence, and perhaps is downstream of some gut-brain connection.

Of course we already manipulate brain chemistry in other more direct ways with antidepressants so perhaps any unwanted second-order effects could be minor in comparison to the profile of existing antidepressants .

Yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't heard about impulsiveness. I had read that taste preferences changed - e.g., salty, sweet, savory, fatty:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7105351/

I've been watching developments on how GLP1s seem to go beyond just hunger/insulin response, even how they may affect symptoms of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which is difficult on women who have it:

https://academic.oup.com/ejendo/article/194/3/S25/8488941