Comment by krisroadruck
4 hours ago
Reporting on these drugs is so bad. Most of the benefits AND downsides they keep reporting are the same for any major rapid weight loss. Be it hair shedding or sleep apnea resolving. They keep acting like these are novel drug specific side effects rather than weight-loss related side effects.
At this point it might legit be impossible for a side effect to be discovered that outweighs the immense health benefits of losing weight.
It feels like people want there to be some horrible side effect to these drugs. Idk if it’s some moral objection to weight loss without discipline, or just general mistrust of big pharma.
It's absolutely the moral thing. Even on HN there are an endless number of people who treat the use of GLP-1s as a failure that must be publicly shamed.
I suspect a big part of that stems from the fact that many people treat being overweight as a moral failure in and of itself, and rather than repenting and doing the morally right and correct thing to lose the weight on your own, using a GLP-1 is "cheating".
Of course, all that ignores that people's bodies are different, and some people will be slim no matter what they do, while others are doomed to be heavier regardless what they do on their own (barring extremes like developing eating disorders), but I'm not sure it would matter even should everyone understand that -- a large proportion of people need someone they perceive as lesser whom they can look down upon, and physical appearance is a quick and easy means to categorize others.
That's because people are recommending them for long term use, and treating them like some miracle cure, when the only affect is appetite suppression. If you are malnourished for years, you're just going to die. These things are useful for a few months if you really, really have no willpower and don't want to develop any. For anyone else (most people), it's much healthier to learn how to do difficult things.
Yes, there absolutely is a sense of "it was hard for me, but I did it anyway, you should do the hard thing too". But that's not out of nowhere. Willpower is a muscle. If someone never exercises it, it's going to atrophy. It doesn't need to be shameful, but people who promote these things need to seriously consider the reality that most people's hunger is caused by something real, and just not being hungry does not solve any of those underlying problems.
My mother is a little bit overweight, which is a problem of calories OUT being too low. She doesn't exercise enough. She doesn't have energy to exercise. That's a problem of calories IN being too low. She's taking a GLP-1 now to lose weight. It very exactly does not solve either of those issues. She has less energy. Most of the weight being lost is muscle mass. I think it's despicable that these things were rushed through the medical system. I don't think it's the layman's fault for being manipulated into thinking it's medicine.
Recently I've talked to someone who said she is worried about those drugs as they will create 2 tier society because only people with money will get thin. This also increases already bad fat phobia in our society according to her.
She has a PhD in biotechnology and works in a lab. She is also quite thin (always was).
It's crab mentality disguised as moral position. It's especially obvious when the same people advocate for free access to drugs, alcohol or gambling. You should have freedom you do anything as long as it doesn't improve your life or move you to in social hierarchy.
Generics sell in India for $15/mo so it’s not gonna be too bad, long term.
Who are these mythical people that are
- Concerned about fatphobia
- Worried Ozempic might create a two tier society
- Believe we should have unrestricted access to gambling and drugs
This sounds like a goomba to me.
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> It feels like people want there to be some horrible side effect to these drugs.
Being able to lose weight is, in many minds, associated with self-discipline. A route to the same goal that elides self-discipline is consequently viewed as a cheat, a shortcut.
It's a product if the cultural pervasiveness of the Protestant work ethic and its relation to the health and wellness domains. That fine, in my opinion, if one is Protestant, but why carry the baggage for someone else's religion if you're not one, ya know?
Culture and religion are intertwined even if separate. Western civilization is "culturally Christian" even in secular countries like France. Many places in the US are thus "culturally Protestant" even if most of their current-day population don't follow that religion.
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Yes, it does look superficially like the kind of thing that happens with nutrient deficiencies. Many of these people eat extremely unhealthily and continue to, but now in significantly lower quantities.
I know with the famous 382 day fast guy they fed him vitamins, but I don't believe they do that with GLP-1/Ozempic prescriptions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast
“Millions of people live longer healthier lives by reducing cardiovascular and diabetes risk, but their fingernails might be more brittle!” Doesn’t hit the same does it?
I lost 170 lbs natty (100lbs the first year) and my hair and nails only got better. If your generative follices are dying off you are not losing weight healthily.
if you're losing it as a weight loss drug and that's a side effect of the rapid weight loss that otherwise wouldn't occur it's a side effect of the drug in any practical sense, or are you trying to establish the 'guns don't kill people' for pharmaceuticals?
It's a side effect of the treatment regimen that many people in all likelihood aren't even aware of so it's good to report it like this
Idk, i think its important to distinguish between side effects that would also happen via diet and exercise vs side effects that do not happen when losing weight via other means.
Diet and exercise have not caused any of that ever.
It sounds more like malnutrition and starvation.
I'll concede it may still be better than being fat, though.
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People losing hair through "exercise" are using supplements.
If you shoot someone in the face, generally speaking that person will die. Not everyone who takes GLP-1s actually lose weight. A decent fraction of people are non-responders. Those people also tend to not lose their hair or have their sleep apnea and knee problems go away. Your analogy isn't as clever as you might think.
no listed side effect on every drug, or effect for that matter applies to all people. Anti-Depressants don't work for a fairly large amount of users, that doesn't mean we don't list those effects.
it feels like you are being deliberately obtuse so I may be wasting my time, but I'll attempt to assume the best and try one more time. This is very basic correlation vs causation stuff. The side effect is related to rapid weightless of any kind. Weightloss is a "side effect" of the drug. Hairloss is a side effect of rapid weight loss. There is a chain of effects there but it's not X causes Z, it's X might cause Y, which causes Z. This distinction matters less for negatives - still good to tell people but for positives it is disingenuous. If you don't lose weight, your sleep apnea doesn't go away. Your joint pain doesn't get better. Your blood pressure doesn't go down - because the drug doesn't cause those things, the weight loss does.
If you’re drunk and bump your head into a lantern, would you say that haematomas are a side-effect of alcohol consumption?
FDA trials follow this approach. If something bad happens it’s logged as an adverse event; if they croak it’s a serious adverse event (SAE).
So if you have a treatment for moles, and a patient (trial participant) has a mole on their back treated and then falls down the stairs or is run over by a trolley the agency wants you to do an analysis to see if the treatment might have had something to do with getting run over or not taking the lift.
Note: this is not an exaggeration. I have written phase I and phase II clinical trial protocols earlier in my career.