[ajross]

> No, the symptom is being treated, not the underlying issue.

That's a semantic argument. The "issue", medically, to most people viewing this as a health problem, is excess body fat and not eating behavior.

I mean, you're not wrong, but this seems silly. YES, it would be better to have developed a cure for disordered and unrestrained eating. We didn't. And we don't really even know how. Oops, as it were. But we do have a treatment that avoids the most significant impacts of those problems.

Medicine is harder than software engineering. Not all bugs are shallow even with all the eyes in the world.

[fwip]

Additionally - GLP1 drugs work by changing those eating patterns.

[hack1312]

But those changes don’t stick if the drug is discontinued.

[ssl-3]

Is the drug at risk of being discontinued? If so, then can that risk be quantified in any way?

(For comparison: Countless scores of diets are discontinued daily.)

[nemomarx]

Diets also don't stick when you discontinue them.

It would be an incredible advancement if we figured out a reliable and replicatable way to just eat less food, but until then I think a drug that makes you do that is pretty decent.

[hack1312]

> Diets also don’t stick when you discontinue them.

Yes, obviously. Which is why sustainable weight loss takes a commitment to making a change in lifestyle.

What’s more sustainable, changing your lifestyle to maintain the weight you lost, or being beholden to taking a drug to maintain that same lifestyle change for a hope at maintenance?

[topgrain2]

The drug is more likely to work long-term. Diet & exercise, as a treatment plan, are distressingly ineffective.

Well-studied problem.

It makes more sense when you realize that something like sheer dieting/exercising willpower isn't why some populations are skinnier than others. Pick another country with a healthier-weight population, start placing some of them in the US, and they'll gain weight. Put them back, and it'll drop again.

If "just diet and exercise" (the advice, and individual effort to that effect) aren't what are keeping some populations skinnier, why would it cure a population with an obesity epidemic?

[nemomarx]

From the last time I looked at studies on basically any diet, I think prescribing people drugs for life probably lasts longer. Do you have any longitudinal studies of people making lifestyle changes for 10+ years to keep off weight?

[macintux]

At a large enough scale, being beholden to a drug is far more sustainable.

We’ve tried shaming people into being healthy. Amazingly enough, it doesn’t work very well.