I'm thinking that ozempic and zepbound will have something to say about this. When ozempic becomes available as a generic (2032) it's going to be available for $10 a dose and a huge amount of people will be taking it.
Ozempic's mechanism of action is not "ramp up your metabolism" or "make you absorb fewer calories from food." It's "make the desire to eat less intense, making it easier to remain on a diet plan." That diet plan could be, "eat exactly the same things but less of them," but it will often be, "cut out unhealthy snacks" or whatever.
If people can't be convinced to eat carrots over chips, what makes you think they're going to suddenly eat carrots over chips after eating medication that makes them want to eat less?
A lot of people struggle with intense cravings for foods that they know to be unhealthy. These cravings stack up against their willpower and sometimes overcome that willpower and they eat in ways that they know are unhealthy.
If the cravings are less intense, willpower wins more often, cravings win less often.
I think that you will indeed see that some people on ozempic eat much the same mix of foods as before, but less so. But others will in fact change their dietary mix. And I'm pretty sure that the empirical evidence supports me on this.
Yes N=2, small sample sizes, but I could also see how being less snacky makes one less likely to eat chips. (Why I almost pathologically don't keep easy to eat food in my pantry, granted this can also backfire too).
If you don't care much for food then you don't mind eating the carrots and you don't mind losing the chips. If your entire life is food, then you do mind.
I'm not sure what angle you are getting at. There is tons of data that shows that yes, people lose weight on it.
i.e. the benefits of the weight loss almost certainly outweigh any side effects that are likely to manifest.
Viagra's original purpose was for heart conditions, that purpose didn't make the headlines (or spam folders) either.
Similar to zero-calorie sugar substitutes, "too good to be true" isn't always the case. Sometimes new inventions really are just better.
Only fools would convince themselves a drug has no sideeffect.
The worst is that these drugs were created for legitimate use but are now being abused by what I would call lazy fat who can't get their finger out of their arse and start eating healthy.
When there is a natural, effective and no side effects alternative, why go the medication way.
A few years after graduation, for unrelated reasons, I was on antidepressants. I massively over-ate, became obese, gained stretch marks that will likely remain for life.
There was no voice in my head telling me I was even over-eating, there was no awareness of what I was doing to myself even when I felt the weird tingle in my belly that in retrospect was the tearing flesh that has the outward sign of a stretch mark — I ate without thought.
There is no "natural, effective" solution, because our natural instincts are at odds with our unnatural world.
Ozempic is exactly the type of drug Unilevel/Nestlé would create if they were tasked with reducing obesity. I wonder if they'll include a free 7 day dose of it with Mars bars.
That's pretty much the exact opposite of what you seem to think it does, and is exactly the kind of thing that will hurt Nestlé's junk food line. (Though probably not their bottled tap water line).
Seriously — the US and Europe have not been in a remotely "natural" condition since over a century before I was born. Even the air we breathe is significantly different from its natural condition.
Why do you think I gave that example?
Would you also tell people suffering from depression to just cheer the fuck up instead of going the medication way?
0: most kids, I just got the disease instead and the vax later
The opioids thing is hardly comparable. Everybody clearly knew the risks (for the past 100+ years) and chose to ignore them. This is an almost entirely new type of drugs.
OxyContin was marketed to be the safe alternative to all opioids that came before it, impossible to become addicted to and extremely difficult to overdose from. This was a lie.
Well.. no since you cant really win anything. With pharmaceuticals on the other I hand I think 1 Oxycontin/etc. like “situation” would be a reasonable price to pay for let’s say 4 major successes.
You were talking about decades. Surely you noticed the advancements in treating cancer, HIV and a multitude of other conditions since the 90s?
> This was a lie.
Sure. But it’s on the same level as saying that filtered cigarettes don’t cause cancer. If a doctor actually believes that he’s just too dumb to be a doctor… (although I assume most safety claims were relative to other opioids and not in absolute terms?)
Are there any signs that the situation with Semaglutides is that similar? Yes they are new and not well understood drugs (well not really but sort of..) and it’s not inconceivable that their longterm cost might end up outweighing the benefits but I don’t really see any signs of an actual conspiracy yet.