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Comment by toomuchtodo

4 days ago

GLP-1s disprove this to an extent. Personal responsibility is based on a fallacy, it’s just brain chemistry.

So give everyone GLP-1s to cast the shadow of personality responsibility (reduction in adverse reward center operations, broadly speaking) through better brain chemistry. Existence is hard, we can twiddle the wetware to make it less hard.

22 comments

toomuchtodo

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diath  4 days ago

The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work - if you force yourself into a caloric deficit through the inhibition of hunger hormones using drugs that you will lose weight. It has nothing to do with people choosing to eat highly processed unhealthy foods over healthier options. When you're on Ozempic or peptides like Retatrutide/Tirzepatide you don't think "I will not eat a bag of chips today because it's unhealthy and calorie dense", you simply don't think about eating because your feeling of hunger is inhibited.

  • toomuchtodo  4 days ago

    You are incorrect. GLP-1s modify food desires as well. “Will power” is merely hormone levels in this regard.

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

    > Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) are increasingly used for type 2 diabetes and obesity treatment. Their effects on appetite and satiety are well established, but less is known about their associations with food purchases. Case reports and small observational studies suggest that GLP-1RA initiation is associated with altered preferences from highly processed, energy-dense products to minimally processed foods. We examined whether initiation of GLP-1RAs for treatment was associated with changes in nutritional quality and processing level of supermarket purchases.

    > Changes in purchasing patterns after GLP-1RA initiation were seen across most nutrient categories. Opposed to comparisons, after the first prescription, participants purchased fewer calories, sugars, saturated fats, and carbohydrates, alongside modestly more protein. The share of ultraprocessed foods also decreased. Although modest at the individual level, these changes may accumulate at the population level, particularly given increasing GLP-1RA use.

    • diath  4 days ago

      Food desires are simply addictions like smoking. If you cease consuming high amounts of processed food and sugar (through the inhibition of hunger), then you also kill these cravings.

      1 reply →

  • JoshTriplett  4 days ago

    > The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work

    This is incorrect, as demonstrated over and over again. For many people's bodies, consuming less will result in the body changing its metabolism to burn less, and not dipping into fat stores. Conversely, for many people's bodies, exercising more does not in fact change their metabolism and the amount of energy they burn. (There are studies that going from "zero" to "not zero" makes a meaningful difference, but "not zero" to "quite active" often doesn't.) "CICO" is not useful or actionable for many people.

    • slopinthebag  4 days ago

      That there is variance in energy expenditure both within a population and within a person over time doesn't mean that a caloric deficit doesn't work. It just means that using a single scalar value (which is usually a gross estimate) to drive your caloric intake is a poor approach.

      The body has means to regulate it's energy expenditure to maintain homeostasis, and in some people it can be a hundreds of kcal difference. But if you're trying to lose body fat on a 10% estimated deficit and fail, the conclusion shouldn't be that a 20% deficit will also fail.

      10 replies →

bossyTeacher  3 days ago

> Personal responsibility is based on a fallacy,

That fallacy is "free will", which as we know doesn't exist at least in the way we think it does. Society's reckoning with the idea of free will as something fictional is on par with our upcoming intelligence reckoning, evolutionary reckoning and heliocentric reckoning.

whackernews  4 days ago

Eh? I mean, this sounds potentially interesting but I don’t understand it!