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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Eating better and working out is hard. If the medication can get you a similar outcome with minimal side effects, that seems like a prudent protocol to prescribe.

If it’s determined to be safe (statistically), why not? Might only be necessary until we can inexpensively synthesize miR-1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34196488

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Why not both? A healthy lifestyle combined with pills that work.

If you're living a healthy lifestyle, then you probably don't need pills to lose weight. We know diet and exercise (with an emphasis on the diet) will yield weight loss, if it's maintained.

However, that's a big if. Behavior modification is hard. There are both physiological and emotional factors that need to be addressed, and cause many attempts at weight loss to fail.

The drugs are a second line treatment when behavior modification fails.

(And that said, exercise is still important. Overweight or not, it has a massive impact on longevity, physical health, and mental health.)

Unfortunately there aren't any shortcuts to good health

Apparently there is now.

Exercise and diet have positive health effects other than losing weight. Many people with normal weight according to BMI still have an unhealthy body fat percentage. That said, if this drug can keep its promise it will have an enormous positive effect on public health.

If you’re regularly doing something unhealthy (like smoking or eating lead paint chips), stopping that is both good for you and a shortcut.

How do you know that?

My understanding is that the way the drug works is by improving your diet.

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