I'd take them even if they didn't make me lose weight - and I'm the type of person that doesn't like takeing Tylenol unless absolutely necessary.<p>The best way I can describe it: my body and mind are no longer is in starvation mode. I plan, do, act and sleep well.
Semaglutide does an incredible job of keeping my autoimmune issues in check. The only side effect I've had is needing to drink more water or else I feel like I've got the flu. Minimal tradeoff IMO
Did you have to reach a certain dose for such effects?
Studies show almost all subjects regained the weight and reversed gains within 2 years. This means underlying issues (e.g., food addiction) aren't being addressed. Short of changing habits, the only maintenance solution is lifelong drug use and that doesn't sit well with me.
Why not? People take depression meds, blood pressure meds, all kinds of meds for their whole life. I'll be on omeprazole for reflux my whole life. It doesn't solve the underlying problem of my gut being prone to overpumping acid into my stomach. So omeprazole is problematic?<p>The underlying issue <i>is</i> being treated, it's treated by taking the drug. It works. It's doing its job.<p>I'd be curious as to how you came to this conclusion.
If they were a normal weight they would not have been prescribed the drug. The underlying issue is they're overweight because they eat too much. Anything more is speculation.<p>There is usually no free lunch when it comes to pharma, and extrapolating long term or lifetime dependence as being equivalent to short term interventions is an unsupported leap.
I think there's a distinct difference between taking medicine for things you can fix on your own (diet + exercise) vs things you cannot (excess acid production).
> things you can fix on your own (diet + exercise)<p>We have decades of research showing this is more in the "excess acid production" realm of things.
I'm not on GLP-1s, but I've been looking at very seriously because something I can't "fix on my own" is just... always feeling hungry. That's just how my body works. Exercise doesn't help; there's no reasonable amount of exercise that will help with my office-worker stomach wanting 3000 calories a day. So far through my life I've just lived with it and managed my diet as best I can and it just absolutely sucks.
Why? They both get you to the same place, and one is vastly more likely to work. I don't get the weird moralizing around this.
Unfortunately for a lot of people with weight issues it stems from becoming overweight during puberty which is uniquely bad. Your body's appetite signals are permanently impaired if you become overweight during puberty because during this window your fat cells don't just increase in size, but also in number and this increased quantity does not go away once created. Fat cell shrink as weight is loss, but they are not destroyed and they are responsible for appetite signaling. It's one of the reasons that childhood obesity is actually leagues worse than it first appears and I think should be considered child abuse in extreme circumstances.
And this morning, I cut another hole in my belt. Turns out, losing weight and being thin was never about willpower or laziness in the face of absolute food abundance. It was mostly about whether a person was born lucky enough to have a moderate appetite, or was born burdened by exaggerated appetite.<p>The underlying issue is physiological food cravings, not some personal failing or lack of willpower, and GLP-1 absolutely addresses those "underlying issues". That it isn't some one and done pill is hardly a realistic expectation as that would require probably genetic and epigenetic reprogramming.
I've gained and lost 10kg twice in my life. Maintaining the weight loss isn't that hard once you've a rhythm dialed in.<p>In my case I just weight myself daily, track the weight and scale my food consumption with the current trend. If I'm gaining weight I'll skip a meal.<p>It takes a while to figure out what works for you but I can tell you that making small lifestyle changes to maintain your weight is fairly easy compared to figuring out how to lose 10 kg.
Given that we know that diets and changing habits doesn't have lasting effects, what doesn't sit well with me is to risk my health to avoid taking a drug that helps.
It’s the food equivalent of declaring bankruptcy. If you don’t fix the behaviours you’ll just end up in debt again.
A couple years of reduced weight, and all the benefits that entails, doesn't sound bad.
The "underlying issues" are not all moral failings as you hint. In my case, as I've aged my appetite due blood sugar/insulin resistance/etc means I'm basically hungry all the time if I restrict calories to maintain lower body weight. Yes - even if I exercise frequently. Yes - even with healthy food and snacks. My wife tells me my stomach is growling at night.<p>I will slowly gain about 10-15lbs a year due to excess calories if I try to maintain weight at < overweight BMI. GLP-1 drugs have been great to take that edge off.
Why? If you have too much help or whatever being produced such that your body eats too much, just take a drug. The harm of being fat is worse than anything ozempic does
Plenty of people have lifelong drug use of, say, caffeine, or aspirin as a blood thinner, or various antihistamines. Why is this somehow worse? Particularly keeping in mind that it's very easy to make, so once the patents expire, it's going to be dirt cheap as generics everywhere.
I'm just sharing my personal preference and not trying to tell people how to live their lives. I don't like personally like the idea that I'll only be healthy if I take this drug for the rest of my life when I could (again - speaking for me), be more disciplined about the food I put into my body.
Why this has to be all or nothing?<p>You can use the drug to loose weight while trying to understand the underlying problem.
“be more disciplined” - did you read any studies about the sources of obesity? Or do you struggle with weight since childhood yourself?
Just started Tirzepatide. Started with a small dose. Probably too small as there were no side effects <i>aside from a minor headache</i> and no reduction in apatite. It did make me feel good in the morning, no idea what that was about. In a couple months they will get me Reta. Going though these shady health clinics vs. using a shady bitcoin site is far more expensive but supposedly safer. No idea if I will stick with this. I just wanted something to help me do a prolonged fast <i>40+ days</i> but I doubt this is it.<p>I wanted to get this through a local doctor but they reacted like I wanted to snort cocaine off someones buttcrack when I asked for a GLP.
As a habitual habit developer, Im keeping my hopes up that in 5 or 10 years, this is something that can help me and many others.<p>I've read experiences from people on illicit substances that claimed they helped them quit.<p>It would be beat if this carried over to things like caffeine/nicotine/thc/etc.
Tirzepatide at 1mg/week reduced my muscle soreness. I felt less depressed but this might just have been situational because I've been plagued by bad soreness after working out for years.<p>Unfortunately after twelve weeks I had to stop because I felt a lot of nausea and tenderness in my upper abdomen, and was worried it might be pancreatitis developing. I'm not sure why it would happen at such a low dose but the symptoms reduced pretty quickly as it wore off.<p>I may go back on later with a dose spread over a longer period with the hypothesis that the drug has a longer half life in my body and what I experienced was a gradual build up. Considering I lost 15 pounds over 3 months as well, I believe this to be very plausible.
I got pancreatitis from Zepbound, but it was indirect.<p>Turns out rapid weight loss can cause gallstones, especially if you're genetically predisposed to them. I had one that ended up stuck in the bile duct, causing acute pancreatitis. I had to get my gallbladder removed shortly after and hundreds of stones were found.<p>I would consider getting an ultrasound since the stones don't just go away when you stop taking the drug.<p>(Gallbladder removal aside I had no lasting issues and kept the weight off.)
My insurance stopped covering, now I'm looking at $450 for Zepbound / month. Just the weight coming back is making me more depressed...
I get mine on the black market, 50c/mg for semaglutide, $3 per month at my current rate of usage. I’ve been on it for years, I was getting gray market at $12/mg for 3 years before RFK clamped down on that market. It’s exactly the same stuff (for me, no guarantee for others), had it tested in a lab and as the side effect profile is on point. It massively relieved my ME/CFS, back when I started there was no way I could have gotten a prescription let alone insurance to cover it.
You can probably use some coupons like goodrx to get it for $300 a month.
Metabolic theories of mental illnesses and cancer are seriously understudied.
What about the reports of bone density loss? Any downsides to this?
Could be related to endorphins and BDNF, similar to the effect from fasting.
What’s the downside to this magical drug. There has to be a downside…
And downsides of penicilin? There are some but they are massively offset by not having alt consequences
Why does there <i>have</i> to be a downside?<p>What was the downside of washing hands before surgery?
Because our bodies are delicate systems of networks, and inputs in one area can have complex/unpredictable outputs elsewhere, it seems.<p>Typically, if something "works", there often appear to be side effects. A free lunch is rare.<p><a href="https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/understanding-medication-side-effects-and-homeostasis" rel="nofollow">https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/understanding-medica...</a>
I got severely downvoted in the past for badmouthing GLP1s here. Then I did my research, got on them and I take it all back. These things are on par with statins in terms of potential societal impacts.
That says more about the harmful effects of obesity than anything.
That's quite admirable to correct yourself in public. Good on ya.
Very weird (or funny?) to use statins as an example of a ‘good and effective’ drug.
Hasn't done jack shit for my depression.<p>Also worth mentioning GLP1's are known to cause anhedonia. So there's that...
I'm curious if this post will also have the same phenomena I've seen before of people springing out of the woodwork to post moralizing comments about people shouldn't rely on drugs, about how actually GLP-1s are bad because they don't fix problems indefinitely with a single dose, about how people should fix their problems by just having more willpower, talking about 'but what about the unknown side effects?' of drugs that have been in use for twenty years already, etc.
so, the whole mouse thing is a scam, and now they are openly testing on us, first, and publishing in psychology today to see if we notice.fiendish.
Mice are not people, but interesting link