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Maybe if they'd done it much more progressively (i.e. picked a less effective treatment method) then they might not have the Ozempic Face, but the attempts to stigmatize this/make it scandalous are silly in the media.
Glad these drugs exist and are an option for people struggling with obesity though.
"weight lifting" is doing a lot of lifting here probably. Strength training and building muscle is so beneficial for weight loss/body building in the literal sense.
I'm not sure that fasting is a good long term solution for people -- it's hard to schedule around this without being in that very specific situation.
As you said though, it's on everyone to do what works for them, not what I say or anyone else says.
There are absolutely downsides to GLP1 drugs, but the way they work is well-studied, and with a low enough price and high enough availability (and a lot of luck to not have significant side effects), someone COULD get on them or some future better version of the drugs and have lowered/controlled appetite which enables them to lose weight over the long term.
Always taking the drug isn't ideal (and ideally you'd eventually get off), but it's better than the alternative.
Then again, I'm biased.
Recent commercialization and buzz is definitely new and there have been new formulations of course.
It is quite remarkable that people might think simply telling people to "lose weight" will work still, in this day and age.
> So Grace fought to get her middle-schooler on the new obesity drugs. Because no pediatric obesity specialists were available, she enlisted help from a medical researcher who diagnosed her daughter with a rare genetic disorder, PCSK1 deficiency, that causes rapid weight gain. (As it turns out, Grace was later diagnosed with this condition as well.)
In general it's probably best to do what helps kids feel comfortable earlier rather than later, especially if there is lower risk of dependency later in life.
This seems very much like a two-way door.
https://glp1.guide/content/do-people-regain-all-the-weight-l...
Now, we need price to go down and availability to go up, but people who think all the weight bounces back as a sort of "gotcha" are silly. It's possible, but is a testament to the difficulty of dealing with obesity -- not some sort of gotcha of the drug.
>. I know there are a number of folks of the opinion that its somehow cheating. But for me I am left wondering "Is this just how normal people feel?".
Heavily under-weighting (heh) the opinions of people on the internet (and honestly most people in real life) is the way to go.
We generally don't (and shouldn't) ridicule people for taking scientifically proven treatments that can help save/prolong their lives.
Of course cardio with a consistent routine is great too, but the potential for injury/schedule stuff can be hard.
If it's within reach for you, a small home gym (but in a room that is NOT the garage) is also fantastic, much easier to do 5 mins spontaneously and feel badly if you miss a day of doing at least 5 mins.
> Additionally, before GLP1 I’ve struggled a lot with tasks like grocery shopping and cooking because of my ADHD. But… since I’ve been on this GLP1, I have more mental availability to plan meals (super interesting!) I’ve actually found it a manageable task to plan a meal, acquire the correct ingredients and then prepare the meal, so I’ve been making far healthier meals (and it doesn’t even feel like I’m trying).
This is a huge thing and I'm pretty sure you're not the first I've seen say it. Impulse control is something a lot of society needs help with and eating is just the beginning.
Always great to look ahead though -- and most of these drugs work in similar way, i.e. they are GLP1 + something else.
I personally think we're going to see a huge rise in the use of drugs like Rybelsus that are much easier to manage (oral instead of an injection), especially if people feel that they just want some help, rather than need an intense dosage.
Just to zoom in on this -- the understanding of how GLP1 based therapies work seems to also be evolving to have the benefits primarily be brain-focused. While of course GLP1 interacts in lots of ways with your other organs, but the effects on appetite suppression (and suppression of other urges) seems to be majorly brain based.
Some research into how it might work together:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9455625
In fact I wonder if the negative effects of GLP1 drugs (gastroparesis, GI issues) might be completely gone if we can target the agonists towards the brain only somehow.
This is a really powerful analogy for what GLP1s may be able to effectively do for brains, though it might be reaching a bit.
One thing that this makes me wonder about is the effect of GLP1s on disorders like ADHD[0]
No mention of the risks and side effects, but those are some staggering numbers in such a short period of time.
> For the amycretin trial, which involved 16 people with an average weight of 89 kilograms, those given a placebo lost one percent of their body weight over 12 weeks.
Really small sample size...
That said, great to have these drugs be more available period -- manufacturing is going to have to keep up with a lot of demand as research uncovers more benefits of GLP1 RAs.
> Chronic GI issues are definitely something that should be avoided and I think lower dosing helps with that.
This simple/obvious take is really quite often left out of the common objections to the drug on side-effect grounds. I wasn't sure it was necessarily true but it certainly makes intuitive sense -- if you're having a strong reaction, take a lower dose and plan your weight loss around that.
Any reason you moved between these in particular? Victoza/Saxenda have had some weird side effects that are not quite shared with semaglutide/tirzepatide I've seen in the past.
> All I used to do was wake up and wonder what food I was going to have, when I was going to have it, how much. It's like that ruminating voice in your head when you're depressed - it's just there all the time constant.
Thanks for this insight into what food noise is like
I do want to note that GLP1s are not miracle cures for insatiable hunger, they don't necessarily work for everyone and may (rarely) have side effects that aren't worth bearing.
That said, the way it's affecting people's hunger/food noise/etc is absolutely mindblowing.
> Hand on heart, the last few weeks i've been on a GLP1 has been the easiest time i've ever had "dieting". It doesn't even feel like a diet because I just don't give a shit about food.
What's your plan for post-GLP1? You noted going to the gym -- are you going to try and build muscle to up the metabolism in the meantime and then when you get off try to coast after a little regain?
Also, are you taking this chance to build healthier eating habits (i.e. changing what you buy, make, etc)? I wonder if you can still build eating routine while on GLP1 that helps you post-GLP1.
This is really powerful. I think most people are going to want to pair going to the gym with it (hedonic treadmill and all that), but the ease of control over when you want to eat/food noise is actually extremely impressive.
Next, finding ways to boost the body's natural production of GLP1.
Also note that the battle of insurance coverage of the drug is raging -- many do not pay retail for the drug, and Wegovy improving heart conditions opens up another path to needing to be covered by insurers.
On the fringes, I read (can't remember where) that some other large pharmas in the US are working on their own formulations that trigger GLP1, and abroad India and China have taken an interest (there are quite a few Chinese research papers floating around on the effects).
The costs are very well known (about as well known as ever for any pharmacological weight loss option) -- GLP1 RAs don't work for everyone, and they cause gastro-intestinal issues and can have other complications.
They're actually quite amazing (well I might be biased, I spend a lot of time looking them up).
That said, Wegovy is made by Novo Nordisk, and there are quite a lot of other drugs that likely have the same general effect:
- Ozempic
- Rybelsus (this is a pill)
- Mounjaro (different formulation, Tirzepatide)
- Zepbound
The FDA of course hasn't approved any of these other medications for this outcome but I'm betting that they're all circling the same abilities.
https://glp1.guide/content/glp1-pricing-2024-02
Of course, insurers are struggling to not cover the bill, and although it's in the medicaid list it's up to states to choose whether to cover it or not
There HAVE been some questions as to how it works (and that the traditional understanding might be wrong), but...
While medicaid accepted the drugs federally, it's up to states to control how they support the drugs on their plans, and the cost of them seems to be creating a problem for most states.
Will be very interesting if this bill goes through in Colorado, how will they fund the increasing cost? Or is it a bet that prices will go down.
[0]: https://glp1.guide/content/glp1s-increasingly-not-covered-by...
It certainly does explain the effects on other kinds of addictive behavior, but that effect is less supported by research (that I can find, anyway).
The idea that the drugs that work don't meed the cost-benefit threshold is quite the detached analysis.
That said, price needs to go down and availability needs to go up. Countries like china, india, and others getting into the GLP1 RA game will do that before long.