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Comment by doctoboggan | Hacker News Reader

I had just assumed that all these new things this is a cure for are just down stream affects of being overweight, and losing the weight also reduces the incidence of these other issues as well.

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One reported benefit from Ozempic is that it improves self control. For instance, there are some studies that show it's easier to stop smoking on Ozempic[1]. I can't think of any way that would be modulated just by being less overweight.

[1]: https://www.goodrx.com/classes/glp-1-agonists/semaglutide-fo...

Once you have proven to yourself you can eat less and lose weight, you believe you can do the same with other things like smoking.

Makes sense

That's not how it works.

There is not enough evidence to say this is true.

It could absolutely be a factor in the effectiveness.

Placebo is a highly effective drug.

I say this as an extreme evangelist of GLP-1s. Behavior modification and habit building appears to me to be a large part of it. Friends on it who have used to as a performance enhancing drug to change habits have generally stuck with newly developed habits even coming off the drug. Friends who used it as a magic weight loss drug largely returned to previous weights and poor health, even some maxing out the doses over time.

Correct. Reduced smoking, alcohol, and other behaviors have been documented. There's a complex relationship between the gut and certain behaviors. These drugs slow down gut processing, and delay the reward mechanism. With slightly less reward from the body, the scales may tip slightly in favor of self control.

Source: currently using GLP and seeing reduced positive feedback from alcohol (incidentally)...

As a migraine sufferer who is not overweight, I don't agree. I think it's likely there's a strong connection between inflammation and migraines, but even if that's not the case, migraines have triggers. I've spent years working out what mine are but still when there's an unfortunate combination (a storm/high pressure, plus I worked too much yesterday, plus I drank a tiny bit too much coffee, plus I didn't have time to workout for a day, plus I drank a glass of wine last night etc.) then I will get a migraine.

It's frustrating because if this combination of things doesn't line up, being busy so that I skip a workout and then drink a glass of wine to relax in the evening would be totally fine. But add a couple more variables that are out of my control, then a migraine will hit me and I can't do anything for two days.

I can see that a drug which reduced my craving for things like chocolate, coffee, wine, food - especially at times when I'm stressed and my willpower is low - might have large results on reducing my migraines.

so its a cure for the body positivity movement and all of the proponents reverted back to default understanding of health

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