Hacker News Reader

Comment by fransje26 | Hacker News Reader

Ah, but that is the beauty of it you see. You can then also sell a medication to counter the heart damage..

Beyond the sarcasm, it is concerning that most comments read here are raving about how much of a positive effect this cure could have. From a quick scroll, I haven't seen any addressing the fact that a new pill is not helping solve the cause of the problem.

We, as a society, have absolutely no reason to be obese. Yet, we choose to ignore the root of the problem, and cheer on the palliative chemical solutions. These solutions inevitably come we serious health side effects that we accept without blinking, as the most natural thing. And the industry also cheers as they can now also sell a second cure to address the side effects of the fist cure.

It shouldn't be forgotten that the pharmaceutical industry is, fist of all, a business.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-n...

View on HN

The main cause of the problem is probably the widespread availability of cheap processed food in the US and, increasingly, other rich countries. I would support regulating these foods, but that would be very politically difficult and it would probably take many years for regulations to gain enough traction to make a difference.

We know from behavioral genetics that, for people in the same environment, individual differences in obesity are about 70% heritable. And there's loads of evidence that the standard "diet and exercise" approach does not lead to long-term weight loss in the vast majority of people who attempt it. (It does lead to shorter-term weight loss, but then people regain the weight, for biological reasons.)

So, short of massive regulation of modern "food products", the only options are either bariatric surgery (which does produce long-term weight loss) or some new intervention. The GLP drugs are the most promising candidates in that category.

I agree that there's too much triumphalism about these drugs at the moment. We don't really know yet whether they will produce long-term weight loss without serious side effects.

How is a drug that reduces appetite and eating not solving the root cause of obesity?

Because the root cause isn't a sudden increase in appetite. What caused people's appetite to increase?

>Because the root cause isn't a sudden increase in appetite.

It seems plausible that the introduction of evolutionarily novel ultraprocessed foods, designed by scientists in labs to be as tasty as possible, could increase a lot of people's appetites.

I agree that they might create a positive feedback loop, see for example the ever-present sugar cravings that take a few days-weeks of no dessert or sugar to subside.

The processed foods however is what we’d want to get rid of. Otherwise all we do is slow down the loop, and add in more side effects.

> It seems plausible that the introduction of evolutionarily novel ultraprocessed foods, designed by scientists in labs to be as tasty as possible, could increase a lot of people's appetites.

Bravo. So we also know what we should go after instead of simply compensating the issue with new pills. Because we also know how well the pill approach worked in the US when handling pain..

This would address future generations, after a lengthy analysis and fights about what actually should be regulated and how. It wouldn't do anything for people right now.

So yeah, we could improve the future, but there's also lots of people who need help today and bringing up "but we failed in that one specific case" while being silent about everything else in medicine is silly.

The solution to a problem isn't limited to undoing the cause.

Pros and cons not withstanding, any intervention which reduces obesity is a solution. Think of it like having a flat and thinking that taking the nail out of the tire is the only way to fix it. Replacing the tire also works.

Any permanent solution must address the cause otherwise it isn't a solution, it's at best a band-aid.

The problem with analogies like this is that they make no sense. A medication that suppresses appetite isn't replacing the tire.

Second, replacing the tire is worthless if the road ahead has another million nails on it.

> We, as a society, have absolutely no reason to be obese. Yet, we choose to ignore the root of the problem

This applies to lots of conditions, right? I mean, society has absolutely no reason to have HIV. Just wear condoms and/or be obstinate. Easy peasy, right?

Fortunately, we have medication to treat and prevent HIV. Quite expensive, but they save lives.

We should rejoice that medications have been developed to cure otherwise incurable diseases. But this does not apply to the current case.

When 50% of your population is obese, and a further 33% is overweight, you have a major health crisis at play. And maybe, instead of trying to find better ways of soaking up the leaking water, we should focus on fixing the leak, not matter how great the cleaning products are that are being sold to us.

We've heavily regulated cigarettes, we've heavily regulated (some) life-threatening chemicals, it's time to focus on the rubbish being sold to us as food, and it's time to educate our populations without being too soft on the sensibilities of some, or too lenient towards the commercial interests of others.

> be obstinate

I don't think obstinance only works. Being a curmudgeon doesn't prevent one from having unprotected sex. :)

And I say this as someone who just says no to everything ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com