[HN Gopher] GLP-1 drugs - the biggest economic disruptor since t...
___________________________________________________________________
GLP-1 drugs - the biggest economic disruptor since the internet?
(2024)
Author : herbertl
Score : 235 points
Date : 2025-03-01 19:33 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wildfirelabs.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (wildfirelabs.substack.com)
| EarlKing wrote:
| One person's results is not everyone's results. To say that this
| is hyperbolic would be the understatement of the millennium.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| What does this even mean? The results of GLP-1 meds are well
| studied and widely understood to be game changing and likely
| revolutionary. The other claims might be hyperbolic but results
| of the medication on individuals is not really a question at
| this point.
| mordymoop wrote:
| People are weirdly resistant to acknowledging the obvious
| implications of things if those implications seem big.
| There's a broad "nothing ever happens" heuristic that people
| tend to mistake for wisdom.
| danjl wrote:
| The short term results are known, but we have very little
| data about the long term effects as of yet.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Not remotely true. We have strong studies out to 10 years
| at this point. Given the overwhelmingly positive results at
| our current state, it would take a huge safety signal
| occurring at 12-20+ years of usage to provoke a change in
| recommendation, and this is exceedingly unlikely. Basically
| all such signals are revealed by 10 years if they exist.
| fourside wrote:
| I think some skepticism is warranted. If this is a medication
| that most of us can be on and it comes with positive health
| benefits, that would mean that humans as a species have lower
| than optimal GLP-1 levels. I guess it's possible that our
| bodies are wired for a world that is unlike today's and that
| these drugs correct for that. But drugs that doesn't come
| with side effects. It also wouldn't be the first time that a
| drug company manages to convince the medical community to
| think a drug is healthier than it really is (OxyContin).
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > I guess it's possible that our bodies are wired for a
| world that is unlike today's and that these drugs correct
| for that.
|
| The constant access to unlimited tasty food we have now is
| completely unprecedented in human history.
|
| Other animals will also overeat if you give them unlimited
| access to tasty high calorie food.
|
| This is absolutely a situation we did not evolve to be able
| to handle unfortunately. Lack of sufficient food was the
| norm for most of our history, so it's not surprising that
| we evolved to want to eat a calorie surplus if possible.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Yeah but a forecast 10 years out is a lot more fun/enlightening
| if it's hyperbolic. It doesn't make much food for thought to
| say 'We predict by 2030 the average consumer will have
| purchased jeans 2 sizes smaller than in 2010'.
|
| In any case, I hope they're directionally correct. A class of
| widely-available drugs that lets us switch off impulses that
| don't suit our environment and wellbeing any more would be
| incredible and world-changing. I'm very curious to try GLP-1
| agonists myself.
| codr7 wrote:
| I'm more worried about longer term side effects.
|
| This sounds a lot like numbing "bad" feelings to me; there's no
| way to selectively numb, it's all or nothing.
|
| Impulsivity isn't all bad.
| cm2187 wrote:
| As opposed to the good long term effects of being obese?
| Trasmatta wrote:
| There are a lot of people who are _not_ obese that are
| taking these drugs. That might be where the fear is coming
| from.
| smt88 wrote:
| Something like 70% of the US is overweight, so there
| actually aren't as many people who aren't experiencing
| negative health effects from being overweight or obese as
| you think
| pessimizer wrote:
| Nothing wrong about wanting to look hot if the danger
| level is not high. I haven't heard about people trying to
| use them to aid an eating disorder, like diabetics do
| with insulin.
| kortilla wrote:
| Most of them likely are obese. Obesity is so normal that
| what most people call "overweight" is actually obese and
| the people they think are obese are morbidly obese.
| codr7 wrote:
| I realize obesity a major issue for a lot of people.
|
| But is it worth giving up your impulses? I mean all of
| them.
|
| I have no proof that's how it works long term, but I do
| feel the question should be asked before we dive in head
| first.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Anecdotally, it isn't really giving up impulses. It
| blunts the desire for a lot of the ones that are related
| to consumption.
|
| I can still get a wild idea at 9 pm and lose myself in
| code. I still see flowers and buy them form my wife
| without planning. I still have a bowl of ice cream before
| bed sometimes.
|
| The best way to describe it is that you still have the
| impulse, but you are able to rationally consider it.
| msabalau wrote:
| As it happens, in the elderly, a BMI at the lower range of
| "obesity" is better than having higher or lower weight.
|
| Of course, with the shortage of geriatricians, most seniors
| are unlikely to find this out.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Breaking news, being obese is good for your health. And
| wait to learn about smoking!
| treis wrote:
| This probably isn't true. What's more likely to be true
| is that it's hard to be overweight when your dying from
| cancer or whatever.
| nemo wrote:
| My wife's taking GLP-1s for health reasons. The author's
| ideas about the effects of these things are not evidence
| based. It isn't a magic drug that makes people ascetics. She
| eats less, but she still impulse buys clothes and things. The
| idea that the drug numbs feelings is not at all what I see,
| while some appetites are diminished, we still both do art,
| enjoy going out doing all the same stuff as before. She's
| lost weight, her vitals are looking better, and we eat out
| less, that's it.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I'm taking GLP-1s and it's absolutely reduced my
| impulsiveness in ways besides food. Not completely, for
| sure, and being less interested in food actually means more
| time to spend on other hobbies.
|
| But it's definitely done _something_ to my non-food
| behaviour, albeit I 'm not sure what exactly. It may well
| be that I was previously trying to satiate my constant
| desperate hunger for food with other forms of harmful
| addictive behaviour, and without the hunger, I just don't
| need that as much. The concept of satisfying one craving
| with another isn't new, after all.
| macintux wrote:
| Interesting, but I'm not sure I buy it.
|
| I certainly don't think Simon is preparing for this massive
| economic shift; I think they're reacting to an existing trend.
|
| > America's largest mall operator, Simon Property Group, is
| converting anchor stores into medical centers and wellness
| spaces. They're doing this because they recognize the writing on
| the wall.
|
| Malls have been dying for years, and COVID felt like the nail in
| the coffin.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| Malls around DC are crazier than ever. But I am not sure if
| people are spending money or not.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There are different classes of mall. In general those class A
| malls targeted at higher income stores and shoppers have been
| more resilient over the past decade than middle or lower.
| (Nordstrom vs Macy's vs. Kmart)
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I was last in NoVA in 2019 and shopped at the Sears at
| Landmark. It was the last store. Crazy=yes.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| It's straight up miserable to be in mclean/tysons between
| october and february. Truly it is america's asshole. And yes,
| people conspicuously consume more than ever. I think this is
| likely not true of most malls, though, the shopping culture
| here is just nuts.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| The large scale economic evidence in the article is as easily
| attributed to population growth and aging.
| iszomer wrote:
| COVID? I felt it was horror subgenre of the backrooms. which
| popularized the idea of liminal spaces, that sealed it's fate.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There were a lot of different things happening but COVID
| certainly cut out some straggling malls.
|
| In general this was a correction. The US ranked first in 2018
| for retail sq ft per capita at 23. To put this in context,
| the next highest country, Canada, had 16 sq ft per person,
| and most developed countries sit around 3-4 sq ft per person.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-
| per...
| morkalork wrote:
| Reading this you'd think we're on the cusp of the sort of utopian
| society seen in Brave New World. Class hierarchy reinforced by
| behaviour regulating drugs given to happy, subservient workers.
| Hell, with all that talk of impulse control, I wonder what it
| will do to people's motivation to protest and riot...
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Access to impulse reduction via medication is problematic and
| will be isolated in the US to those who, frankly speaking,
| probably do not spend at a meaningful rate compared to their
| asset (wealth) standing. It's a brilliant observation though that
| if "something got in the water supply" and en masse consumer
| behavior changed, then absolutely the ripple would be astounding
| to watch. I still recall standing in a field outside Alliance
| airport watching Amazon cargo jets landing at basically 30 minute
| intervals and thinking "all that stuff and this system doesn't
| make economic sense" and I for one eagerly await a...let's just
| call it...recalibration.
| aljgz wrote:
| > When companies like Google see their healthcare costs drop by
| $12,000 per employee annually and productivity increase by 25%,
| we observe a restructuring of corporate America that makes remote
| work a minor adjustment.
|
| In my entire office, there's one overweight person that I know.
| Out of thousands of employees. There could be more, and other
| cities might be different, but you get the idea.
|
| The author intentionally or mistakenly applies some numbers to
| whole populations.
|
| Keep chaining impacts while eliminating small coefficients, your
| end result will be off by more than a few orders of magnitude.
|
| EDIT: I need to be more clear about my point: My BigTech office
| does not represent my country stats: Canada has a 26% obesity and
| 36% overweight adult population. Just taking those numbers,
| applying them to all populations is wrong.
|
| The analysis is wrong in other subtle but important ways as well.
| A 25% increase in performance of an allegedly low performing
| group of a company would not increase the overall company's
| efficency as much.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > In my entire office, there's one overweight person that I
| know. Out of thousands of employees.
|
| That seems incompatible with the numbers that show something
| like 3/4 of the US population being overweight.
|
| (And yeah, BMI isn't great, but it works pretty well with an
| aggregate population of sedentary individuals, which the
| population at large is.)
| thundergolfer wrote:
| The population of a specific Google office could be two std
| deviations from the mean. My office area, SoHo NYC, has a
| dramatically lower obesity rate than the USA average. Maybe
| 10-20% of the population is overweight, let alone obese, and
| it's mostly the service workers.
| luckylion wrote:
| But 1 of 1000s? That sounds like it's made up, or a very,
| very, very fitness-focused company.
| aljgz wrote:
| I edited my response. I'm from Canada, but we also have a
| 26% obesity stats.
| brokensegue wrote:
| 40% of Americans are obese and way more are merely overweight.
| Either your office is small, a huge fluke, weirdly selected or
| you're not observant enough.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Or not in the US.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| 6th option: They are overweight, but do not know, so they
| don't recognize what overweight looks like. But also, it's
| pretty easy to not look overweight if you're not obese. 30
| pounds can be as little as a few waist sizes. I can gain and
| lose 15 pounds without looking like I changed at all.
| brokensegue wrote:
| That counts as not observant to me
| anal_reactor wrote:
| When you're like 5kg overweight it can definitely hide
| well, especially if your body shape is proportional.
| treis wrote:
| That 40% isn't evenly distributed.
| bgnn wrote:
| Luckily there's the rest of the world.
| thfuran wrote:
| >The author intentionally or mistakenly applies some numbers to
| whole populations.
|
| You're doing it far worse than they are. The obesity rate in
| the US is something like 30%, with some regional variation.
| SilasX wrote:
| So... certain jobs will be obsolete because we found a silver
| bullet for obesity?
|
| This is in the vein of "we eliminated a massive category of
| accidental deaths? But... but then what about the organ
| waitlist?"
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Jevons paradox applied to healthy people vs unhealthy. Healthy
| people create more demand not less.
|
| You order out you just order healthier. Healthier food is more
| expensive than junk food.
|
| You buy an expensive bike. More clothes.
|
| Healthcare is still expensive because people get older and older
| people need more care.
| sapiogram wrote:
| I don't think Jevon's Paradox applies here. People won't buy
| healthier food, they'll buy _less_ food.
| tejtm wrote:
| Food is the easiest expense to maintain. If you are eating
| less, you absolutely may as well eat better.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Looks like this is a worse case/best case scenario, rarely it
| will happen like that. There will be some effect but if people
| aren't eating muffins, they are eating power balls. Not drinking
| beer, drinking tea. I would ear mark a 5-10% of that effect max,
| he's going for 100%
| cj wrote:
| I started Tirzepatide 3-4 weeks ago. (Mostly as an experiment to
| understand the hype around GLP's... I don't have diabetes and
| only very slightly overweight at 20% body fat). Even at the
| lowest 2.5mg starter dose which you're only allowed to stay on
| for 1 month:
|
| - Extreme appetite suppression to the point where I've started
| calorie counting specifically to make sure that I'm eating
| enough. It's incredibly easy to forget to eat.
|
| - No more feelings of hunger. At all. This is somewhat
| depressing. Eating is no longer enjoyable and feels like a chore.
| I woke up hungry for the first time in a while a couple days ago
| and was _excited_ - jumped out of bed and ran to eat something
| just for the pure joy of it. I 've only felt that a few times in
| the past few weeks, compared to every day off the drug.
|
| - I completely stopped drinking. Have you ever been to a bar
| after eating a big meal at a restaurant, and had trouble drinking
| because you were too full from your meal? That's how I feel all
| the time. 1 or 2 beers and it becomes uncomfortable to have
| anymore.
|
| - Normally I go grocery shopping and within 3-4 days, all the
| "good stuff" (snacks) I bought are eaten. Now, since I stopped
| snacking and eating much less, groceries simply last way longer.
| <-- $$ saved in groceries significantly offsets the monthly price
| of the medication
|
| - My morning starbucks routine has changed from 2 food items to
| just 1, which alone saves me $200/mo (sorry starbucks).
|
| - Haven't noticed anything regarding impulse control outside of
| food. No anecdata to share on that point...
|
| After a few weeks on the drug, I'm 100% convinced that once this
| drug is widely available and cheap... being overweight will be a
| choice (choosing not to take the drug).
|
| The most important aspect of the drug that makes it work so well
| is it forces you to change your habits, no will power required.
| It also punishes you for bad eating habits. (That late night trip
| to McDonalds will have you feeling like shit the next day).
|
| I'm the kind of person that used to be able to order just about
| anything on a restaurant menu and clean my plate completely. Now
| I simply can't do that. It's actually kind of embarrassing being
| at a restaurant with friends and being completely uninterested in
| the food.
| devmor wrote:
| > Extreme appetite suppression to the point where I've started
| calorie counting specifically to make sure that I'm eating
| enough. It's incredibly easy to forget to eat.
|
| This is the largest of several reasons I hesitate to try it for
| myself. I am a very big guy (I would be about 184lbs if I had
| 0% bodyfat at my current musculature level). From the
| experiences I hear, I would not only struggle to have enough
| energy to do any kind of rigorous exercise, but struggle to
| consume the amount of protein I require to even maintain my
| current muscle mass.
|
| I do have issues with overeating and the prospect of a drug
| that prevents me from consuming too many calories is
| attractive, but the side effects sound counterintuitive to any
| kind of natural fitness.
| meroes wrote:
| I'm somewhat the same. I need to be active for other health
| reasons (physical therapy, etc) and not eating enough saps my
| ability to push forward physically.
| cj wrote:
| I've been hyper aware of the muscle loss caveats and I think
| it's the most important thing to know when starting the drug.
|
| You really need to prioritize protein intake and make sure
| your calorie deficit isn't extreme.
|
| Losing too much weight too quickly, with or without the help
| of a drug, can be very unhealthy.
|
| I drink 4 protein shakes a day (160g total) in addition to
| regular food. If it weren't for the protein shakes I
| definitely would be protein deficient.
|
| You're 100% spot on with decreased energy at the gym. I've
| had to pull back 4x weekly cardio to 1-2x weekly. Then again,
| anyone who's in a calorie deficit has lower energy. It's not
| a unique phenomenon of the drug, just a side effect of weight
| loss.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| > Then again, anyone who's in a calorie deficit has lower
| energy.
|
| Presumably if you're trying to lose weight, you have energy
| to burn you carry around with you. A calorie deficit
| doesn't imply lack of calories to burn. Presumably you're
| _trying_ to trigger ketogenesis.
|
| Granted, this is a lot less easy to access than simply
| eating simple carbs right before a workout and likely a lot
| less comfortable.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Presumably you 're trying to trigger ketogenesis._
|
| Only if you're actually on a keto diet; most weight loss
| routines run a calorie deficit without triggering
| ketogenesis.
|
| Also there's this whole thing about set points - you
| probably got to your weight _somehow_ , and if it wasn't
| through consistently making stupid choices over many
| years, chances are this is what the body learned to
| consider an equilibrium state. Which means that, if you
| start running a calorie deficit, it's going to fight you
| every step of the way. It will happily scale down
| performance to conserve energy instead of burning the
| accumulated fat, so you'll just be slow and groggy but
| not lose weight. There's been reported cases where people
| got mental illness-level obsessive thoughts about food,
| which appeared when they were hungry, and stopped when
| they ate _enough_.
|
| The degree of this problem varies between people, but
| it's generally not that easy to effectively lose weight,
| and some people simply lost the genetic/environmental
| lottery on this.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| > The degree of this problem varies between people, but
| it's generally not that easy to effectively lose weight,
| and some people simply lost the genetic/environmental
| lottery on this.
|
| Yea, I think your eating and food habits you learn as a
| child and teenager tend to shape you for life. I was
| malnourished as a child (I was considered a picky eater)
| but as an adult I've found it quite easy to keep within
| the caloric bounds a doctor told me to keep to. One thing
| I've noticed is that hunger just doesn't bother me the
| way it does with people who struggle to lose weight or
| with binge eating--mostly a pain in the ass (I need to
| remind and force myself to eat), but occasionally
| something I'm grateful for as I watch the people around
| me struggle on an existential level with their cravings
| and bodies.
|
| I also don't have a sweet tooth, and I put that on not
| being allowed sweets as a child except under very
| exceptional circumstances. I'm also a (thankfully
| recovering) alcoholic, so don't mistake this for being
| generally good at avoiding cravings.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > Also there's this whole thing about set points - you
| probably got to your weight somehow, and if it wasn't
| through consistently making stupid choices over many
| years, chances are this is what the body learned to
| consider an equilibrium state.
|
| The idea of set points is controversial and not
| necessarily the accepted scientific consensus.
| gcanyon wrote:
| > Losing too much weight too quickly, with or without the
| help of a drug, can be very unhealthy.
|
| Is there evidence to back this up? It sounds reasonable,
| especially without a limit on "too quickly" but (anecdata
| incoming) I'm curious because: - When I
| first tried a low-carb diet (for non-weight reasons) I lost
| about thirty pounds in under three months without really
| trying, and hit something like 12% bodyfat - When I
| started intermittent fasting (mostly unrelated to weight) I
| again lost about thirty pounds, this time in a little over
| three months, and probably ended up around 15% bodyfat
| - Since then I found that neither low-carb nor intermittent
| fasting had a significant effect on my weight, so: -
| When my doctor suggested I lose some weight I pretty
| forcibly calorie restricted, and lost about thirty pounds
| over four months (only down to about 20-something % that
| time) - And just recently, for cholesterol, I've
| done it again and lost 25 pounds so far in something under
| three months.
|
| ...and as far as I know I haven't suffered any ill effects.
| I have a concept 2 rowing machine, and I just rowed my
| slowest 10K ever :-/ but I _did_ row a 10K, and I _am_ in
| significant calorie deficit, and I probably _have_ lost a
| fair bit of muscle along with fat, and I _have_ been away
| from the rower for several months, so all up -\\_(tsu)_ /-
|
| All of which to ask, what evidence do you have, and what's
| "too quickly"?
| machomaster wrote:
| The issues with "too quickly" are:
|
| 1. the loss of muscle mass
|
| 2. low energy
|
| 3. unnecessary suffering
|
| 4. high fatigue
|
| 4.1. inability to maintain the low calorie diet for long
| enough
|
| 4.2. relapse; jojo-dieting.
|
| 1, 4.1 and 4.2 are the biggest problems.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| If it makes you feel better, this class of drugs has been
| part of bodybuilding cutting stacks for a while now. It makes
| the process much easier and as long as you're diligent about
| your shakes, no big deal.
| meroes wrote:
| Wild that a drug with no other side effects that we know of
| besides pre existing pancreas issues can mute a
| bodybuilder's hunger on a cut.
| devmor wrote:
| I would be interested in reading about that, but it doesn't
| de facto make me feel any better given my anecdotal
| experience with bodybuilders watching them take drastic
| health risks for aesthetics - it just shifts my concern to
| other points.
| loeg wrote:
| You can just take a lower dose, or cease taking the drug.
| Appetite comes back. It's pretty low risk.
| saurik wrote:
| > Even at the lowest 2.5mg starter dose which you're only
| allowed to stay on for 1 month...
|
| So they are going to force you onto a higher dose?!
| willis936 wrote:
| Yes, up to 15 mg. Maintenance levels at 5, 10, and 15. If you
| cannot tolerate a maintenance level you can still get it, but
| insurance will not cover it ($1000/mo rather than $15/mo.)
| This is not an unreasonable situation.
|
| https://www.goodrx.com/zepbound/dosage
| cj wrote:
| Luckily during the "shortage" you can currently get GLP-1's
| in vials rather than injection pens.
|
| The brand name GLP's you can't control the dose. But when
| you get it in a vial from a compounding pharmacy you can
| inject however much or little you want.
|
| Not looking forward to ever using the brand name version
| specifically for this reason
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The injection pen I have see has two marked dosages, but
| there is nothing stopping you from injecting more or
| less.
|
| Basically it is a ratcheting mechanism where after ~10
| clicks you get .25 mg dosage and 20 clicks gets you .50.
| Basically, no doctor is going to endorse it, but you can
| dial a dose to whatever amount you want.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Aren't any states like California trying to ban
| compounding pharmacies? It's an unfortunate attack on
| individual freedom, but I am not sure if we will still
| have them 20 years from now.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Aren't any states like California trying to ban
| compounding pharmacies?
|
| No. California has not banned compounding pharmacies, nor
| is there a significant movement to do so in the
| legislature, among the people (who could do so by ballot
| measure), or a proposal by the governor to do so.
| California does require additional licensure for sterile
| compounding, but that is very much not a ban on sterile
| compounding or compounding more generally.
|
| Relevant to GLP-1s, though, several state pharmacy boards
| (not California's, as far as I know) have raised issues
| that compounded GLP-1 drugs that they have seen appear to
| be illegal, because they use a form other than the FDA-
| approved base form of semaglutide (which is only
| available from Novo Nordisk), and th3 form used is not
| itself approved for human use, and have taken steps to
| crack down on _that_. But that 's also not banning
| compounding, but enforcing existing rules on compounding.
| loeg wrote:
| I get vials direct from Lilly and can choose what dose I
| take. Ask your PCP to check out LillyDirect.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Hum, I don't know, here in the UK, no one is forcing you to
| do anything. I am free to chose if I want to step up, down
| or stay on the current dosage every month. And I took the
| cautious approach to only step up when I stopped feeling
| the effects at the current dosage, so 8 months in, I am
| only starting on 10mg (range is 2.5 to 15mg in 2.5
| increments).
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Is that really true? I remember reading that people with
| side effects often were given lower doses.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| It depends. The 5mg, 10mg, and 15mg were the doses tested and
| recommended as maintence doses. The 2.5mg is meant as a
| starter to reduce side effects but since most people don't
| see results with it the recommendation is that you only take
| it for 4 weeks. The 7.5mg and 12.5mg doses are meant as
| transitional doses but you can stay on them longer than 4
| weeks.
|
| Some doctors will go by the Lilly recommendations but I think
| more are allowing people to stay on the lowest dose providing
| benefits. That leaves your health insurance as the only other
| obstacle.
|
| There is a chart at https://zepbound.lilly.com/hcp/dosage
|
| I was one of the rare people that saw results with 2.5mg but
| by the end of that first month I had plateaued. After 3
| months at 5.0mg I've plateaued again and will probably move
| up to 7.5mg in the near future and stay on it as long as I
| can.
|
| Some people like to go back to 2.5mg as their maintence dose
| after reaching their weight loss goals.
| op00to wrote:
| The inbetween doses are just used for titration. They were
| not studied as long term doses like the maintenance doses.
| It's stupid, and you can get exceptions if you are
| persistent. I preferred 7.5 mg over 10 mg for example.
| willis936 wrote:
| Yes well your PCP / pharmacist should not have prescribed you
| an appetite suppressant when you have below average body fat %.
| The effects are very worth it for people weighing them against
| heart disease and mobility issues. It's not a Faustian bargain,
| it's all right on the tin. When you stop taking it the effects
| go away. If you want to be indulgent and it fits your lifestyle
| you can reversibly make that decision. The power to make that
| decision is difficult to overstate.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Why is it only appropriate for people with heart disease /
| mobility issues but not for someone who is merely overweight?
| This feels like finger-wagging for the sake of finger-
| wagging.
| willis936 wrote:
| It isn't. 20% body fat is 6% below average. That isn't
| "merely overweight", it's likely underweight. No, I don't
| think underweight people should take appetite suppressants
| and I don't think that qualifies as a hot take. I think
| anyone who is medically overweight (which is a very modest
| BMI qualifier for anyone with any amount of muscle) should
| have the choice. Many US medical systems and insurers
| agree, which is a good place to be.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| >it's likely underweight.
|
| The only way this can possibly be correct is if you think
| that the "correct" weight is whatever the population
| average happens to be which is just...wild to me.
|
| If we assume commenter is male (a statistical
| likelihood), then 20% is the high end of normal, and
| could very safely be halved. In the less likely case that
| they are female, then it is right in the middle of the
| normal range, and could safely be reduced by 5-10% at
| least.
| DuckConference wrote:
| What are you smoking? 20% is a perfectly healthy bodyfat
| number and (for a man) anything down to 15% or so is
| fine. Sub 10% is when you pretty much need a crazy
| bodybuilder lifestyle to maintain it. And on the other
| side, 25% is around the lien where you start facing some
| minor health risks from excess body fat.
| loeg wrote:
| Average is overweight, though.
| pedalpete wrote:
| You're confusing average with good. 15% body fat (for a
| man) is completely healthy, so as the OP said, he is
| slightly overweight.
| aeturnum wrote:
| > _Yes well your PCP / pharmacist should not have prescribed
| you an appetite suppressant when you have below average body
| fat %._
|
| Why do you think this? I agree that people who have
| associated risk factors should be prioritized, but if there's
| enough for everyone why wouldn't we give it to anyone who
| wants it?
| willis936 wrote:
| Because anorexia exists it would do harm to completely
| unregulate access to appetite suppressants. Someone should
| be looking out for people who would willingly wither away.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I don't think anyone is suggesting it should be over the
| counter? Of course a doctor should monitor you while you
| are on it. We shouldn't give it to people who would use
| it to deepen a mental health diagnosis.
|
| Those concerns have nothing to do with the fact that it's
| ok for people to choose to start or stop medications if
| they would prefer (supplies allowing).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| People who don't need to be chronically medicated should
| not be. There are always side effects, and we don't even
| know for sure what the long term risks of these medications
| are yet.
|
| And crowing about saving $200/mo not buying food at
| Starbucks, well now Novo Nordisk is getting that.
|
| Toast a bagel at home for $0.50/day instead.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I am not an expert but my impression is semaglutide has
| been in development since the 90s and in use as a drug
| for about a decade for people with diabetes. The drug and
| mechanism are old, the use is new.
|
| I do not agree that people who don't "need" to be
| chronically medicated should not be. I think you can
| decide to take whatever you want for your own reasons. I
| am not going to tell you what you can and and can't take
| - unless you're like...taking something that makes you
| destructive or generate externalities or whatever. But
| this seems like the opposite?
|
| Lots of questions here around profit and the awful
| medical system in the US, but on a basic level I think
| people should be able to do what they prefer and is safe.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I was giving advice, not proposing a prohibition against
| doing what you want to do. It's your body, and your
| health.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _People who don 't need to be chronically medicated
| should not be._
|
| If they're like typical westerners, they already self-
| medicate with coffee every day, with alcohol
| occasionally, and a big fraction of them (though much
| less than couple decades ago) also treat themselves with
| tobacco smoke - and ironically, weight loss is one of the
| few benefits some people actually use to defend their
| smoking.
|
| Do they _need_ all that medication? Well, it 's socially
| unfavorable to say so wrt. alcohol, but ask any of the
| daily coffee drinkers whether they need their morning
| coffee...
| cj wrote:
| After using them, I think GLP-1's will eventually be
| rebranded as a weight management / weight maintenance drug
| rather than a weight loss drug in order to appeal to the
| masses.
|
| It's a very interesting feeling to feel like you're in full
| control of what you eat, not influenced by random cravings or
| hunger.
|
| In my case I'm planning to only stay on it another month or 2
| to drop 10lbs. I can easily see people cycling on/off this
| drug throughout the year to keep weight in check while
| removing will power from the equation completely. It's quite
| remarkable.
| layer8 wrote:
| A rebranding to a non-prescription drug will depend on how
| the prevalence x severity of side effects [0] turns out
| longer-term. I hope that you are right, but it seems too
| early to tell.
|
| [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667
| 36812...
|
| https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/glp-1-receptor-
| agonist...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| "Gastrointestinal side effects" I assume that is code for
| excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces.
| layer8 wrote:
| "common gastrointestinal side-effects of GLP-1RAs
| treatment (including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and
| constipation) can persist for several days and may affect
| more than 1 in 10 patients"
| op00to wrote:
| For me, nausea only appears when I eat poorly - poor
| quality, or more than I should. Also increasing a dose
| can cause a bit of nausea for a few hours.
| gwbrooks wrote:
| People seem to handle it very differently, according to
| my doc. I never had issues while taking Mounjaro or
| Synjardy (a prescription pill for diabetes management
| with similar side effects) alone, but the two together
| meant I could count on a couple of bad days a week.
|
| Sidebar: Mounjaro changed my life. I'd been very diabetic
| (300 units of insulin a day) for years on end. Taking
| that much insulin, my normally large frame got very large
| indeed. A couple of months into the Mounjaro and I was
| off insulin; a year into it and I was down 75 lbs and
| healthier than I'd been in 20 years.
| op00to wrote:
| It's actually the opposite. GLP-1s slow down the
| digestive tract, so my shits are far more well formed
| than before. This isn't like olestra, where excess fat
| caused diarrhea.
| ctrlp wrote:
| In this sense, I see adoption among some people as akin to
| nootropics or attention management drugs like modafinil. A
| way to have more control over your own mind. Interesting
| times, I guess, but caveat emptor.
| timr wrote:
| They might be branded that way, but that's not what they
| are. They have dramatic effects on the metabolic pathway
| and insulin response that need to be carefully considered
| if you're not actually diabetic.
|
| I recommend that you listen to the most recent Peter Attia
| podcast, which is a 2+ hour interview with Ralph DeFronzo
| (diabetes expert) where he goes _deep_ into the effects of
| GLP-1 agonists on insulin response and other metabolic
| pathways. I came away with the impression that we 're being
| too casual with how these drugs are being used -- if you're
| overweight these impacts are probably all for the good, but
| if you're not, it's more questionable.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/ralphdefronzo/
| cj wrote:
| I'll have to rewatch that video. Saw it a couple days ago
| and walked away with the opposite take. DeFronzo spent a
| whole lot of time heavily praising the generation of
| drugs (including the next generation in phase 2 trials)
|
| If there's a specific part you remember talking about the
| negatives I'd be interested to hear.
|
| I legitimately have a difficult time finding anything
| negative when researching the drug, other than tolerable
| side effects like GI upset.
| casey2 wrote:
| I assume GP isn't a woman, why do you think 20% is normal for
| men. The point is that there are no side effects and there is
| no reason to stop taking it, especially if it saves him
| money.
|
| Are you just using average as weasel words here? I get my
| best pump and generally have the best workout sessions at
| ~10-12%, which is easily maintainable for me, but definitely
| not for most people, having a drug that makes it effortless
| for most people is a GOOD thing. People shouldn't have to
| suffer to get to <15% if they aren't born with good genetics?
|
| And what about strength athletes who want to build up a large
| runway? Now literally all of them can get down to ~7% no
| problem, and have no problems on the way up either.
| fallingknife wrote:
| You shouldn't have to ask permission from a PCP / pharmacist
| in the first place. Who are you to decide whether side
| effects are worth it for anybody but yourself?
| anonnon wrote:
| > when you have below average body fat %
|
| I can't speak to their choice of taking the drug, but it's
| wild how warped people's perceptions are now of what
| constitutes "healthy" and "fat" thanks to the obesity
| epidemic. People remark on how George Costanza on Seinfeld
| was once considered fat (because he was), or how Homer's
| scale-tipping 300 lbs. in the _King-Size Homer_ episode of
| The Simpsons was considered comically obese (because it was).
| Never mind the fact that people almost always underestimate
| how fat they actually are and are almost always disappointed
| by their DEXA scans. Even if the OP 's estimate is correct
| that they're just a little north of 20% BF (as a man),
| they're still overweight, and specifically overfat, and
| probably look soft and doughy.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > My morning starbucks routine has changed from 2 food items to
| just 1, which alone saves me $200/mo
|
| > Now, since I stopped snacking and eating much less, groceries
| simply last way longer. <-- $$ saved in groceries significantly
| offsets the monthly price of the medication
|
| JFC, how much were you spending on food? I just looked it up
| and this drug costs hundreds of dollars per month, and
| apparently that's just a fraction of your food budget. So you
| were spending well over a thousand dollars on food each month?
| cj wrote:
| You can get wegovy generic for $299/mo and Zepbound generic
| for $399/mo currently through telemedicine via compounding
| pharmacies, without insurance.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Maybe they are in Canada.
|
| Name brand Ozempic is $230 CAD or $160 from Costco up here
| SoftTalker wrote:
| [flagged]
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| What a take.
|
| I have no idea what Americans overpaying for healthcare
| has to do with a Danish drug company participating in the
| Canadian Healthcare market.
|
| I'd rather thank the Canadian government for having a
| drug pricing review process.
|
| If these companies don't want to sell their drugs here,
| no one is making them. They are still here, so I think
| it's safe to assume that they are still making money.
| twoodfin wrote:
| I don't think it should be controversial to say that if
| the US imposed a Canadian-style price control regime on
| more than the handful of drugs currently regulated by
| Medicare, the future number of drugs developed and
| commercialized would drop significantly.
|
| It's just basic addressable market vs. development cost
| math.
| phatfish wrote:
| Would the number of drugs developed drop, or would a few
| luxury yacht companies go bankrupt?
| twoodfin wrote:
| The number of drugs developed would drop. In particular,
| the really expensive to develop drugs that target rare
| conditions, exploit novel pathways, or require difficult
| synthesis.
|
| The kinds of drugs that routinely experience years of
| delayed availability in markets like Canada and the UK
| until the learning curve has kicked in via the US and
| other less constrained markets.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The drug companies in Canada are part of the drug pricing
| process. Their development costs are considered. In
| exchange, they get additional monopoly priveleges on
| patented medicine.
|
| Canada doesn't even have particularly low drug pricing
| compared to the rest of the world, the opposite in fact.
| Canada just had low drug prices compared to the most
| expensive market on the planet.
|
| It's possible that lower drug prices in one country would
| disincentivize a global industry that touches almost
| every human on earth. Or it could not.
| loeg wrote:
| It's unambiguously the case that the US subsidizes drug
| development for the rest of the world, including non-US
| pharma companies like Novo.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Just because they extract massive profits from the US
| market does not mean that they would stop operating if
| they only extracted healthy profits.
| loeg wrote:
| They would continue operating but fund less speculative
| drug development.
| pqtyw wrote:
| I'm sure Novo Nordisk would survive even with slightly
| lower margins.
|
| Also what proportion of that $1,000 goes to the
| manufacturer? From what I understand various middlemen
| and such get a significant proportion of that without
| providing any value?
|
| e.g. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2024/09/...
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| hamandcheese wrote:
| If you don't cook, it is very easy to spend $1000+ on food in
| a month, especially if you live in a high cost of living
| area.
|
| I'm single, live alone, work a lot, and earn a lot. Food
| delivery apps are hella expensive... but I still pay it quite
| frequently. Yes, I am ashamed, thanks for asking.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I resonate with your comment about appetite loss. It is
| surprising how much it has affected my happiness, to have this
| few times a day pleasure taken away.
|
| A month ago I suffered through a norovirus infection, the first
| time for me. In three days I lost six pounds (my BMI is 21.2
| now). At first I wasn't surprised or worried -- after all, I
| had emptied out my digestive tract and was dehydrated. But a
| month has gone by and my appetite has been AWOL. I've lost
| another pound (5'11" @ 152 lbs). I have an appointment next
| week with my doctor's PA to see if something else is going on.
|
| The taste of food is the same, but the craving is lacking. When
| I eat, my guts are telling my brain it is time to stop eating,
| as if I had eaten a pound of mashed potatoes only an hour ago.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| > That late night trip to McDonalds will have you feeling like
| shit the next day
|
| I've never had this reaction to fast food before. I only eat
| mcdonalds every few months and yea it's not the highest quality
| food, but I don't think there's anything in it to make you sick
| any more than other burger places have. I imagine you'd have to
| have restricted fast-food nutrition for quite some time before
| you feel a difference.
|
| I'd like to see a study comparing people who ate mcdonalds who
| thought of it like slop vs those who saw it as a treat. I'm
| curious how much of this is psychosomatic, or how much of the
| craving for mcdonalds is rooted in feeling like crap in the
| first place.
|
| (Granted, I've never had an issue with maintaining my appetite
| before, in fact I have issues keeping weight on, so I might
| have a fundamentally different relationship with food.)
| _diyar wrote:
| The way I read it, i think the original commenter would
| usually agree with you, but the effect of the drug turns the
| post-fast food / treat satiation from joy to pain.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| I believe you're correct. Apologies for the confusion.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| >> That late night trip to Mcs will have you feeling like
| crap the next day
|
| > I've never had this reaction to fast food before.
|
| I do. Because of it, I eat fastfood when I'm willing to pay
| that price, ~5x/decade.
|
| > I'd like to see a study comparing people who ate mcs who
| thought of it like slop vs those who saw it as a treat. I'm
| curious how much of this is psychosomatic.
|
| The notion that our psychology could be holding us back from
| fastfood completeness is one that never occurred to me. I
| like how novel it is.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| I believe you, but what do you think it is in the food that
| causes such severe reactions for you but doesn't affect me
| at all? Humans lived through periods of extreme starvation
| and other forms of malnutrition--our genetics are extremely
| clear on this, as is our tendancy to cannibalize our
| muscles when they're underused. It seems absurd to me a
| slightly different selection of nutrients could cause acute
| distress. (Hence my recourse to psychology--which would map
| well with the shift towards the moralization of nutrition
| these past few decades.)
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| >I believe you, but what do you think it is in the food
| that causes such severe reactions for you but doesn't
| affect me at all?
|
| Food sensitivities are primarily a lot of medical
| questions, for which we have few answers. For example
| many fresh breads will give me stomach cramps and
| Rosacea. I can eat those same ingredients+amounts in
| other foods and be fine.
|
| Many fastfoods ramp my brainfog up to 11. I don't know
| why. I'm in a poor position to consider the issue while
| the brainfog is in play. I could consider it later but
| the best I can hope for is unsubstantiated guesses.
| ctrlp wrote:
| I've heard similar accounts and it sounds pretty wild. I'm not
| overweight and don't take anything but I do enjoy food. It
| would be horrible to me to lose the enjoyment of such a primal
| pleasure. If the choice is between being overweight and giving
| up the pleasure of eating altogether, I can imagine plenty of
| gourmands who would rather carry the extra weight for the
| physical and social pleasures of food. I've heard anecdotal
| reports of people losing their enjoyment of food permanently,
| even when discontinuing the drug. Canot confirm but that would
| be a high cost to pay, imho.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Counter-anecdote.
|
| I have not lost my appreciation for good food, I just eat
| less of it. I used to be unable to leave any food on my plate
| regardless of how good or bad it was, now I'm perfectly happy
| to leave something uneaten if it isn't to my taste.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Same, I'm on one of them and I still love and enjoy eating
| and am perfectly capable of eating my beloved junk food.
| I'm just highly likely to feel done after a few bites
| instead of... dozens and dozens of bites.
|
| Losing the pleasure of food was one of my main concerns
| starting it, and it hasn't been an issue _whatsoever_.
|
| Meanwhile, I'm back down to my healthy weight range, which
| I haven't seen since 2021, which was about the _third_ time
| I 'd been at that weight and then ballooned up. I was just
| about at the top of that range after _two months_ , down
| about 30 pounds, and it took _no effort whatsoever_.
|
| I feel amazing. Muscle mass is also doing fine, and I'm
| well into middle age so any protective properties of youth
| are largely gone, still having no problems there.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Same for me, I don't recognise those symptoms (loss of
| taste, loss of impulses). My understanding is that all it
| does it to replicate the signal the stomach sends when it
| is full, and so you just feel full / a bit burpy, even on
| an empty stomach. But you do enjoy the same taste than
| before the drug.
|
| That being said side effects vary and lots of people
| mention it gives them nausea. I can easily imagine how that
| would interfere with taste.
| op00to wrote:
| I actually appreciate food far more now, because I am no
| longer worried that I have to consume "enough" food. A
| small amount is just as satisfying. A large amount makes me
| ill, and you only make that mistake once.
| throwaway657656 wrote:
| The above describes me but it is the consequence of my
| behaviors/habits. Being a workaholic, I learned long ago to
| ignore the leash that pulls me to the refrigerator. It seems by
| brain no longer sends me a "you need to eat" signal similar to
| the way free divers can become oblivious to the "you need to
| breath" signal.
|
| I wonder if with time, you can learn from this drug, form the
| helpful habits/behaviors and then stop taking it.
| fallingknife wrote:
| That's interesting. I started ozempic about 3 months ago and
| the effects are really not dramatic at all. Is Terzepatide
| supposed to be more powerful?
| loeg wrote:
| Tirzepatide is supposed to be more powerful, but GP also just
| appears to be relatively sensitive to the drug.
| blitzar wrote:
| Cocaine makes you feel really good and heroin is fun.
| loeg wrote:
| I started in November and am down ~25 lb.
|
| > Even at the lowest 2.5mg starter dose which you're only
| allowed to stay on for 1 month
|
| Uh, you're allowed to stay there as long as you want. I was on
| 2.5 for two months and asked my Dr to up the dose, as
| progression kind of stalled in the second month. I've been
| hanging out around 3.5-4.5mg/week since then losing ~5 lb/month
| steadily.
|
| Sounds like you're pretty sensitive to it, which is nice. You
| can lower the dose even further if you think it's too strong at
| 2.5mg/week.
|
| It is definitely a game changer.
| api wrote:
| Does it have any impact on focus or motivation to get work
| done, do hobbies or recreational activities, engage in human
| relationships, sex, intellectual curiosity, etc.?
|
| It would be fascinating and almost too good to be true if we
| found a way to suppress only largely harmful (in our current
| environment) urges but leave the good ones intact.
|
| Something like that becoming widely available could change the
| world, and mostly for the better. It would refocus our entire
| economy on much more constructive pursuits instead of gambling,
| addiction, and pandering to transient urges.
| asveikau wrote:
| > My morning starbucks routine has changed from 2 food items to
| just 1, which alone saves me $200/mo (sorry starbucks).
|
| Starbucks food is especially calorie dense. I realized this
| when I lost a bunch of weight in 2018 and I noticed the calorie
| counts on the printed cards that some stores have. Even for
| junk food, Starbucks junk food is more calorific than average
| for the same items.
|
| I started to consider that for a typical customer's
| consumption, McDonald's might actually be healthier than
| Starbucks. Which totally goes against the image people have of
| both places.
|
| People think if they are "going for coffee", it's better for
| you than having a milkshake and following it with candy. But
| it's essentially what they're doing.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am 8 months in, you do develop a tolerance over time to the
| drug (and why you need to increase the dosage progressively). I
| have gone up slower than the prescibed steps but still, this
| drug is to help doing diets, I don't think it would work as a
| long term medication. And as far as I can tell, when you get
| off the drug or have become tolerant to the current dosage, it
| is easy to gain back some weight if you are not careful. So the
| point being I don't think it will suppress completely obesity,
| but it will certainly help people make a time limited effort to
| go down to a lower weight.
| raincom wrote:
| Some doctor advised a protocol: stay on GLP-1 for 3 months,
| then take metformin for a month or two; then repeat the
| cycle. I have to dig out the source for this.
| decryption wrote:
| I've been on tirzepatide for 8 weeks (2.5mg then 5mg) and have
| a very similar conclusion as you. I started off at 160kg 8
| weeks ago and now I'm down to 145kg. No other change in my
| lifestyle except eating radically less. Two 500-calorie-ish
| meals a day and some fruit as a snack, that's about it.
|
| For decades I've struggled with diets but tirzepatide is the
| only thing that's made me stick with it. Will power alone
| wasn't enough, but with tirzepatide I'm very confident I'll get
| down to a under 100kg for the first time since I was a
| teenager, within a few months.
| silverlake wrote:
| This is me without any drugs. I'm very interested in food, but
| I only want a few bites to taste.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Be careful with all this. At one point I had gone 72 hours
| without eating or drinking anything and one beer by the pool
| had me on the floor. I keep hydrated these days but sometimes
| it's an effort.
| wkearney99 wrote:
| Atkins-ish diet caused the same thing for me with a car
| accident back in the 90's. Sudden uptake of carbs with the
| alcohol resulted in lost memory of over 13 hours, a '68 De
| Ville convertible that got totaled and 2 months spent with a
| wired jaw.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm curious -- do you have any brain fog? Are you able to
| exercise? When you exercise, do you wind up eating more, i.e.
| the caloric amount that you exercised?
|
| I've never had any psychological difficulty with losing weight.
| I don't care if I'm hungry.
|
| But what happens when I eat less and lose weight is that I have
| trouble concentrating. The glucose my brain needs just isn't
| there. And if I do physical activity, forget about it -- my
| blood sugar is going to my muscles and I'm unproductive for
| hours afterwards as I just can't think. Also, if I go to the
| gym, my muscles take a week to recover instead of a couple of
| days, because they're just not getting the glucose they need to
| repair themselves.
|
| I don't hear any of these complaints from GLP users though,
| which baffles me. Not eating enough affects us in lots of ways
| besides just being hungry. How has it been for you?
| op00to wrote:
| No brain fog. I walk at a very brisk pace ~6 miles a day. My
| calories are far less than before I started. I have to be
| very careful to have enough protein. When I exert myself, the
| recovery period is the same time as before.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat per day?
|
| I get so confused because the small amounts of food that
| people talk about eating on GLP, don't seem like enough to
| sustain themselves long-term.
|
| Are they exaggerating? Or do they talk about not eating
| dinner, but that's because they had 1,700 calorie lunch at
| the burger place? Or is that just during weight loss, and
| then once a target weight is hit, they're eating like a
| normal (healthy-weight) person again?
|
| I just genuinely don't understand how people are
| _surviving_ with the diets they describe.
| op00to wrote:
| Yes, I calorie track around 1900 calories average. Maybe
| up to 2000?
|
| They are probably losing muscle mass!
| fire_lake wrote:
| Since you are not terribly overweight you could reach a healthy
| weight with relatively minor lifestyle and diet adjustments.
| Isn't this preferable to the side effects (some probably
| unknown) involved in these drugs? Genuine question.
| op00to wrote:
| The effects seemed to wane slightly for me, but it vastly
| changed my relationship with food. I was raised in a family
| with plenty of food, but food was used as a weapon of
| manipulation and thus I was taught to eat as much as I can else
| it might be taken away. With Zepbound I now eat appropriate
| portions. Can't really stand more than a single beer. I don't
| mind being at a restaurant and not really eating. I'll have a
| bite of this or that and be happy.
|
| My shits, however, have been glorious since starting the drug.
| Truly pleasant steamers that rocket right out.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Where did you purchase it?
| herpdyderp wrote:
| > Eating is no longer enjoyable and feels like a chore
|
| I used to view eating as a chore and it was great. Then (no
| joke) I got into tech and everywhere I work they have fancy
| food or frequent team lunches or something of that nature.
|
| I wish I could go back.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I understand that on population level we can't just tell
| everyone "get on a diet", but when talking to you in
| particular, why couldn't you... just get on a diet?
|
| Personally, I love food. I can't live without stuffing candy in
| my mouth. But I also have a tendency to get fat, so I weight
| myself every day, and based on that I either have a diet day or
| a cheat day. Moreover, I do a lot of physical exercise every
| day. The idea of having to depend on a drug to live is scary to
| me.
|
| Having said the above, I'm sure that one day we'll create a
| drug that makes life of majority of population better, and
| we'll be able to administer it to everyone without major
| consequences.
| valunord wrote:
| Thanks for experimenting with your body. I'll be sure to check
| back in about ten years to see how all this shakes out.
|
| Keto + intermittent fasting are my magic pill right now and
| have been for some years.
| luketheobscure wrote:
| Is there a term for this style of writing? It's like a longform
| linkedin post. I don't mean this as a criticism, it just seems
| like written language is evolving to better capture our
| diminishing attention spans.
| rsync wrote:
| I have been working on a new written form I refer to as an
| "Iceberg Article":
|
| https://john.kozubik.com/pub/IcebergArticle/tip.html
|
| ... which is intended to present detailed, long-form treatments
| of a subject yet, at the same time, provide something
| interesting and actionable in a brief moment.
| morkalork wrote:
| National Geographic articles are the very embodiment of this
| style.
| robmerki wrote:
| Hype cycle slop reminiscent of Business Insider, etc. Reminds
| of me engagement bait threads on Twitter which always include
| the "thread" emoji and the downward pointing finger emoji.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Yeah, it's got that "visionary thought leader" vibe dialed up
| to 11. There's some interesting analysis in there, but it leans
| hard into the grandiosity--like he's the only one seeing the
| big picture while the rest of the world sleepwalks into a $100
| trillion shift.
| moritonal wrote:
| I've had a hunch it's about the shrinking width of pages. The
| text-width is about 11-13 words (at a max-width of 728) and the
| author seems to have written around this.
|
| Because it's so thin, anything longer than 12 words becomes a
| paragraph which "slows" the reader, so there are a lot of
| punchy short sentences. This style would look silly if it was
| written on a wider left-aligned blog.
| jancsika wrote:
| That's funny you mention text-width, I've noticed that with
| "punchy" articles like these.
|
| Alternatively, when I see the old-school blogs that fill the
| entire page-width, I get the instant feeling I'm about to
| read something opinionated and quixotic.
|
| Sure enough, the last HN article with that style hit it--
| _let 's rescue the web by sending around WASM-blobs to be
| rendered to a common Wayland-like compositing surface_.
| Thanks again, default CSS!
| rustcleaner wrote:
| I am a fan of Carroll Quigley's style of writing (Georgetown
| University professor and ole Slick-Willie's mentor). I find
| having DeepSeek restate articles in his style to be much more
| enjoyably ingestible.
| crmd wrote:
| Wow, I just followed your suggestion and the output text was
| exactly the style of writing I enjoy and try to employ
| myself. Gonna check Quigley out. Thank you!
| gukov wrote:
| It gives me serious TED talk vibes. I guess it could be called
| that. Or maybe it's the twitter thread style?
|
| A lot of catchy one liner hook sentences ("they're literally
| removing concession stands from NFL stadiums!") that sort of
| add up to make the author's point.
|
| I'm pretty sure fact checking line by line will make the whole
| thing less impressive.
| belter wrote:
| TLDR: Dont eat so much, you wont be so fat.
| zzgo wrote:
| Broetry.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I think it can best be described as tweet storm/thread style
| writing.
|
| Everything has to be distilled down to ~200 char chunks that
| can be understood on their own as well as within the wider
| context.
| thrance wrote:
| Pseudo-insightful quips anthology?
| mrtksn wrote:
| I have been reading similar big promises about Ozempic
| specifically. I've seen calculations on the impact over airlines
| and many others things.
|
| Wouldn't be easier just to look what happens in countries with
| low obesity rates? Certainly its good but doesn't appear to be
| 100T good.
| jefffoster wrote:
| It's not only the low obesity rates, the article states it
| suppresses impulsiveness.
| rsync wrote:
| The real trend is deflation.
|
| People are having fewer children.
|
| Fewer miles are driven to fewer offices for fewer trips in cars.
|
| Fewer impulse buys are being made and fewer dollars will be made
| by advertisements (according to the ops conjecture).
|
| This is not inflationary. It is the opposite.
|
| We live in a _deeply deflationary_ world and we should not be
| confused by the local, transitory inflation that we may be
| experiencing at this moment.
| fonkyyack wrote:
| This! Consumption is made of impulse choices. (most of the
| times).
|
| Also we are having fewer children, does this drug reduce also
| the impulse of having sexual desires? In that case that would
| be even worst.
| immibis wrote:
| Monetary deflation is easy to solve: just print more money.
|
| But who do you give it to? Well, obviously, you give it to
| billionaires because they are the best at managing money
| because they're billionaires. They can then spend it on wages,
| without having to produce anything useful because they are just
| getting free printed money.
| dtquad wrote:
| I'm from the country of Ozempic and Wegovy and neither Novo
| Nordisk nor our media have been portraying these drugs as general
| purpose anti-addiction drugs. However there have been some
| international studies that reveal that it might actually be. Can
| Novo Nordisk extend their patent of their existing drug if they
| find new applications for the drug?
|
| Some of Silicon Valley's excess productivity over the rest of the
| world is driven by ADHD medication. Curious what happens when
| they also start taking GLP-1 medication.
| daveguy wrote:
| Yes, a patent can be extended with a different use case. Drug
| repurposing or repositioning is mostly done exactly because of
| this financial benefit. Unfortunately that does not apply to
| currently generic drugs, so pharmaceutical companies don't put
| the resources into repurposing off-patent drugs that could be
| helpful.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_repositioning
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Don't those drugs have serious side effects? I remember reading
| something but not sure where
| devmor wrote:
| I recently did a bunch of consultation and research to decide
| if I wanted to start taking them, and the only currently
| discussed serious side effects are applicable exclusively to
| people with a history of pancreatic disorders.
| agnishom wrote:
| The author is assuming that everyone will proactively start
| taking this drug. But I don't understand why? If Jerry is not
| obese, why would Jerry randomly start taking an anti-obesity
| drug?
| devmor wrote:
| It is a bit of a silly proposition, considering that 40% of
| Americans are obese, and many of that population cannot afford
| $800-$2000 prescriptions.
| casey2 wrote:
| It's not silly at all. In 15-20 years this stuff will be
| <$100 for weeks of use. For many people $800 dollars is less
| than the they spend on food in the same time
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Yup.
|
| The current retail cost in Canada is ~$160 USD per syringe
| for Ozempic.
| devmor wrote:
| That's a bit of a ridiculous assumption to make, given that
| there are plenty of medications that have cost pennies to
| make for decades and still retail for hundreds to
| thousands.
|
| Perhaps in non-US locations it will be that cheap for sure.
| slevis wrote:
| Because the author assumes that the drugs are not only anti-
| obesity drugs but impulse controlling
| casey2 wrote:
| Correctly assumes*
| mike_hearn wrote:
| But this thread and the article's comment sections have
| many people saying it doesn't really do that for them.
| slevis wrote:
| Well, the author did not reference any actual studies. But
| some people here have shared an effect on their general
| impulse control. Do you have any pointers to good studies
| about this effect?
| fullstackwife wrote:
| The same mechanism: Jerry is not hungry, yet Jerry will eat
| another slice of pizza.
| casey2 wrote:
| It's not an "anti-obesity drug" it's a "set your hunger level
| to whatever you want drug"
|
| If Jerry is a body builder he can get to whatever body fat % he
| wants.
|
| If Jerry wants to save money or doesn't want to wake up early
| hungry he can do that too.
|
| If Jerry has religious beliefs about impulses coming from
| shaitan, he can get rid of them.
|
| Besides, 75% of Americans are overweight/obese that's pretty
| much everyone.
| adammarples wrote:
| The number one group of people who will never ever want a
| powerful appetite suppressant are body builders. Lifting
| weights isn't hard, eating 6 meals a day is and they don't
| need to make it ten times harder for no reason.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| Many body builders go through bulk and cut phases.
| textlapse wrote:
| If a person is careful and sophisticated enough to warrant GLP-1
| drugs, they probably weren't the ones that were binge drinking
| and DUIing and doing careless things in the first place.
|
| There are a lot of people who are sitting in front of a computer
| or a phone playing Roblox/Fortnite and watching TikTok and so on
| all day and night.
|
| The economy evolves and will work around them...
| slevis wrote:
| Is GLP-1 really changing general impulse control? But I do buy
| the argument. If impulse controlling drugs are going to be
| effective, the economic impact is basically not quantifiable...
| not only the economic impact but it would change society as a
| whole in extremely fundamental ways (e.g. dating)
| kadushka wrote:
| So this drug would mess with my head - am I understanding it
| right?
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Everything messes with your head, this adjusts the mess
| levels.
| bozhark wrote:
| Maybe gut? Lot's of serotonin receptors there, right?
| permanent wrote:
| There is not evidence to suggest general impulse control.
| That's extrapolation (beyond food items) and likely untrue
| IMHO.
| slevis wrote:
| Some comments below someone claimed the opposite... do you
| have any studies?
| teleforce wrote:
| >Consider this: When alcohol consumption drops 40% (as it does
| for many people on these medications), we're not just talking
| about lower beer sales. We're talking about:
|
| Apparently in most muslim households this drops to 100% or zero
| consumption, you don't need freaking drugs for that
| phatfish wrote:
| Converting to Islam feels like a bigger commitment than reading
| side effects of the drug you are about to take.
| timewizard wrote:
| > alcohol spending fell 85%
|
| You've replaced one drug with another. Freud would be proud.
|
| > If you told someone in 1850 that air conditioning would reshape
| the global economy, they'd think you were crazy.
|
| This is incredibly misinformed. You've lived /with/ refrigeration
| and /without/ malaria for so long you have no Earthly idea how
| people in the opposite state lived their lives or saw the world
| around them.
|
| > We're discussing the first medication that effectively
| regulates human impulse control. Think about that.
|
| It has side effects. Think about that.
|
| > The significant economic impact occurs in the second and third-
| order effects.
|
| Yes and many of them will be negative. This is hyper futurism
| with zero grounding in the past. This is extremely lazy writing.
| casey2 wrote:
| I can't understand this type of thinking.
|
| "you replaced this drug with hundreds of known downsides with
| one that has none"
|
| Nice nonargument for the rest of your post. It's somehow
| misinformed to state the fact that the southern manufacturing
| industry simply cannot exist before air conditioning
|
| Frankly your attitude is evil and you are a proponent of evil.
| timewizard wrote:
| > with one that has none
|
| I can't understand this type of thinking. Of course it has
| downsides. You are being extremely disingenuous to say this.
| Let alone not acknowledging that different people experience
| different side effects. Plus you're completely ignoring the
| /reasons/ why people drink in the first place and abandoning
| any effort to impact those. Do you work for the company
| producing this drug or are you genuinely this gullible?
|
| > your attitude is evil and you are a proponent of evil.
|
| So you label things you don't understand as evil? What is
| this meant to accomplish?
|
| If you really believe what you say then why aren't you
| pressing for the drug to be free? For free consultations to
| be given out? If it's truly this magical then it's very
| irresponsible to let a for profit company own it, sell it,
| and market it. Isn't it? Wouldn't that actually be evil? To
| champion this cause merely to make money for a patent holder?
|
| You diminish these terms in your careless use of them.
| FitCodIa wrote:
| Thank you for this comment!
|
| First, those in power rebased the diet of the masses to carbs.
| Consequence: an eternal epidemic of obesity, with the many
| known complications and illnesses as a result.
|
| Then, they now try to remedy the problem by fucking with the
| human body's mechanisms. 100% guaranteed to cause terrible side
| effects, in the long term. It's _always_ more complex than you
| think. The more coveted a "medication" for a _societal_
| problem is -- with the problem being the pigswill that is fed
| to the masses, and our absolutely terrible sedentary, movement-
| less lifestyle --, the more quickly it will be greenlit, and
| the greater damage it will do over time (those pesky "unknown
| unknowns"). The _hubris_ of human industry is unlimited; here
| 's one example:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Leaded_gaso...
|
| > On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press
| conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which
| he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical
| under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds,
| declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to
| any problems.
|
| Here's another:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal
|
| And the list goes on and on.
|
| The obvious solution to the obesity epidemic is to dismantle
| the food industry and the 8 hours workday. Our eating and
| movement/exercise habits need to revert to not just pre-
| industrial, but _pre-agricultural_ standards. Move a lot every
| week (at least on 4 days per week), welcome hunger back into
| our lives (hunger allows you to appreciate and enjoy simple
| food -- intermittent fasting is amazing), and eat food with
| high volume, but low calorie content, and /or with low glycemic
| index. Our stomach volume and our blood sugar control had
| evolved for those types of foodstuffs, yet due to said rebasing
| of the diet of the masses to carbs, we've been filling our
| bellies with artificial food that's _hyper-charged_ on calories
| and that get absorbed _immediately_. That 's the _recipe_ for
| growing fat tissue.
|
| Two wrongs don't make a right.
|
| And a final comment:
|
| > Analysts predict that by 2030, 30% of American adults will be
| on these medications
|
| Why doesn't that prediction make everyone shit their pants,
| from fear? Do you really want to make all those people
| dependent on Big Pharma just so they can _eat healthily_? How
| more _basic_ do our bodily needs get than that?
|
| This meds are pure evil, they're a non-answer, they're a cop-
| out, they only transfer power from Big Food to Big Pharma.
|
| This is the same shit as trying to "cure" _society-wide_
| depression and anxiety with drugs. It only suppresses (or
| replaces) the symptoms, without fixing the root cause. We 're
| depressed because our engineered societies make our lives
| _meaningless_. The struggle for survival is real, and the
| universe is unfair and indifferent, so we certainly need
| society, to cope with that. Just not this way.
| GZGavinZhao wrote:
| I would feel like an absolute failure if I need medicine to help
| create willpower.
|
| EDIT: under the assumption of an average person who is not under
| any medical condition that may result in lack of willpower
| netsharc wrote:
| Wasn't there an ADHD drug that was popular for hyper-
| productivity, in the years where being productive was all the
| hype?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Yeah. Amphetamines. All of those are drugs are like a scooby
| doo villain unmasking and amphetamines are underneath the
| mask.
| blitzar wrote:
| Work place performance enhancing drugs are still a thing. If
| you are not on them you are at a major disadvantage.
| throwaway657656 wrote:
| Not ADHD specifically, but about 12 years ago, the media was
| hyping Provigil as a "secret weapon" of the ultra-productive.
|
| Despite having a prescription, CVS told me that my insurance
| wouldn't cover it and it would cost $1500 for 30 pills. I
| walked away and then went back to buy it. If I could just get
| 30 additional minutes of billable time per day per pill it
| would be worth it.
|
| I took about 5 over a week and destroyed the rest. It wasn't
| good for anything but keep me awake in a semi-zombie low-
| creative state. This very expensive drug/lesson was effective
| and making me realize I need to seriously work on my impulse
| control.
| mhb wrote:
| How would you feel if you were born with an unusual and
| detrimental somatic condition that could be fixed with
| medicine?
| GZGavinZhao wrote:
| Updated, I should clarify that assuming no medical needs.
| cedws wrote:
| This is the same line of thinking as "drug addicts should just
| stop doing drugs."
| GZGavinZhao wrote:
| Apologies, I've updated to clarify that my comment is under
| the assumption that the host is not already under a non-
| natural influence or medical condition. For example, in the
| case if there is a medicine that would help drug addicts with
| their addiction I would be 100% for it.
| cedws wrote:
| Even so.
|
| Food can evoke the same neurochemical response as hard
| drugs or sex for some people. It is even more readily
| available than either of those things, and it is advertised
| and produced by multinational conglomerates with huge
| advertising budgets. They have the resources to maximise
| the attractiveness of their products and optimise the way
| they taste to be as pleasurable to eat as possible. Usually
| that means filling them with terrible ingredients.
|
| It's not much different than social media. People get
| addicted to social media because they don't stand a chance
| against social media companies that employ an army of
| people to optimise every facet of their product for
| addictiveness.
|
| Modern lifestyles are more sendentary than they used to be,
| and that plays a part in the explosion of obesity, but so
| do the conglomerates that produce the junk food.
| layer8 wrote:
| Not as much as if such medicine weren't available. ;)
| furyofantares wrote:
| I guess people whose strengths and weaknesses differ from your
| own should feel like absolute failures then.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I would point out that it isn't unforeseen, given that genz don't
| drink, go out or do drugs to anywhere near the extent that
| millennials did at the same age.
| (https://www.statista.com/chart/30783/alcohol-consumption-by-...)
|
| I would also gently point out the evidence for tempering alcohol
| only seems to be evident with people who have high BMI
| https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/mental-heal...
|
| So yes, its worth thinking about how our economy is organised.
|
| But the thing that is going to kneecap the US economy in the
| short terms are one of the following:
|
| o Tariffs
|
| o Cutting government spending (especially welfare)
|
| o a steep rise in unemployment caused by government firing of
| civil servants
|
| o fucking with the structure of the monetary system
|
| o AI eliminating whole classes of jobs (taxi driving, phone
| centers, clerical work, etc etc)
| dehrmann wrote:
| Genz just swapped traditional vices for social media...which
| also deals with impulse control.
| kansface wrote:
| I wonder which is more harmful?
| fallingknife wrote:
| I can't say which is more harmful, but social media is a
| hell of a lot less fun
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I take LSD every two to three months, and I'm always
| excited to do so, even though I usually get bad trips.
| Weed consistently gives me at least five minutes of joy
| bawolff wrote:
| >- Movie theaters becoming "social experience centers"
|
| >- Retail spaces becoming venues to "try before you subscribe"
|
| >- Restaurants becoming "social nutrition centers"
|
| >- Shopping malls converting to "wellness districts"
|
| Except for resturants, all of these have had problems for a long
| time. People have been talking about the death of shopping malls
| since the 90s.
|
| Feels like other factors are in play here.
| dboreham wrote:
| This isn't a new idea. Jim Cramer has been warning about reduced
| earnings by alcohol beverage companies and snack food vendors due
| to GLP-1s for at least a year.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| The article posits that 80% of the top income quintile will be on
| this medication.
|
| I have to ask, why? (I'm not in the US, I should add). Like,
| sure, is the average American overweight? Yes. Are 80% of the top
| 20% of earners? Seems pretty doubtful, plenty of the rich look to
| be in reasonable shape.
|
| That statistic suggests that 80% of successful people have such
| poor impulse control that they end up seriously overweight or
| obese. And I say that as someone who likes a treat every couple
| of days, but exercises enough to maintain a fairly healthy
| weight.
|
| Admittedly if there were a GLP1 for procrastination, I'd be on
| that stuff like a shot...
| cedws wrote:
| There are some signs that these drugs have effects beyond just
| apetite supression leading to weight loss. I recall reading
| something about them having a direct slowing effect on the
| metabolism, which increases longevity, among other benefits. I
| can foresee it being used like a supplement among those who can
| afford it.
| gcanyon wrote:
| > Admittedly if there were a GLP1 for procrastination, I'd be
| on that stuff like a shot...
|
| Me too! Maybe later... <kidding>
| goda90 wrote:
| I think an angle not covered is that the "impulse economy"
| actually degrades impulse control. Advertising, social media
| feeds, etc are all hammering away at people's willpower, and
| getting is addicted to giving in to impulses. If these things
| disappear, maybe even people who aren't on these drugs would have
| more impulse control.
| cedws wrote:
| This class of the drugs is the biggest thing to happen in
| medicine in a long time in my view (as somebody who does not work
| in the industry.)
|
| Is there any data to show they have an effect on other addictive
| behaviours, like drug addiction, social media addiction, caffeine
| addiction?
| sub7 wrote:
| My guess is there's also a long term explosion in
| liver/stomach/pancreatic cancers coming which might be the
| diabetes/heart attack/strokes of the 21st century.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Read up on fen-phen.
| Animats wrote:
| Wow. And this is the first generation of this class of drugs.
| Better drugs with fewer side effects are in the pipeline.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Maybe, or maybe not.
|
| Drugs are not like a smartphone. There is no reason to believe
| you can improve on them (except on price)
| _diyar wrote:
| I see your point. But consider that drug generations are
| generally not defined by the manufacturer, but by the broad
| community of researchers and clinicians finding step-changes
| in their effectiveness/side-effect tradeoffs.
|
| So by definition, if they ever consider a "new generation" of
| GLP1-agonists, they will be better by definition.
| caycep wrote:
| the economy depends on dopamine dysfunction in the VTA area i
| guess
| submeta wrote:
| Big food corporations profit from ultra-processed foods that
| manipulate our natural systems. They design products that
| override satiety signals using calculated combinations of sugar,
| fat and salt to activate brain dopamine pathways. Their priority
| is profit growth, not consumer health.
|
| The consequences are significant health issues like obesity,
| diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Healthcare systems struggle
| with preventable conditions while millions experience declining
| health and shorter lifespans. These corporations employ
| questionable strategies: marketing to children, lobbying against
| regulations, funding misleading research, and shifting
| responsibility to consumers.
|
| Medications like Ozempic represent a threat to this model by
| reducing appetite and interrupting compulsive eating. Recent
| industry concerns about declining sales show how these
| medications could undermine their business approach. If consumers
| regain control over their eating habits, corporations may finally
| face consequences for practices that have profited from health
| problems for decades.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Big food corporations profit from ultra-processed foods that
| manipulate our natural systems._
|
| I've just never bought this.
|
| Does grandma manipulate you when she adds sugar to her cherry
| pie? Does she manipulate you when she adds salt to her mashed
| potatoes?
|
| Foods -- "ultra-processed" or not -- don't "manipulate" you.
| They literally just either taste better or taste worse.
| Grandma, and her grandma before her, used sugar, fat, and salt,
| and thank goodness they did. These are normal ingredients. It's
| not like they're nicotine or heroin or something.
|
| I mean, is a fig tree "manipulating" you when its figs ripen
| with sugar so they'll be eaten?
|
| You're not being manipulated. You're just choosing to eat what
| you choose to eat based on what you like.
| otterley wrote:
| You should visit a food processing plant sometime. What they
| are doing with food is not what your grandma does when she
| cooks it from ingredients you can buy at the grocery store.
| And I bet your grandma doesn't have a food chemistry lab to
| guide her recipes.
|
| Similarly, fig trees don't make Fig Newtons. They make figs.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Oh, I'm familiar with it. And you know what? They mostly
| _are_ doing what grandma does. Just in vastly larger ovens
| etc. Even if you want to talk about corn syrup, what do you
| think grandma made her pecan pie with?
|
| And the things that _are_ different -- emulsifiers,
| stabilizers, natural /artifical flavors, etc. -- aren't
| actually making the product unhealthy, at least not in any
| way that causes weight gain. Those _aren 't_ sugars, fats,
| or salt. They're just making it last longer on the shelf,
| and have more flavor. But it's not changing the nutrition,
| and it's not making us eat more of it.
|
| You really think Chips Ahoy is making you fat in a way that
| grandma's chocolate chip cookies don't?
| otterley wrote:
| I don't know if it's the nature of the products
| themselves, or if it's because they're vastly cheaper and
| more accessible. There's a natural limit to the numbers
| of cookies to be had from Grandma before she goes "that's
| enough," vs being able to get 64 at the local market
| anytime you want for a pittance.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| Yeah it's anti-capitalist rants at every turn around here.
| Capitalism is the best system we have to make people happy in
| a fair way. It's not a system to teach people the benefits of
| moderation or charity. You're supposed to bring that to the
| table yourself. There's no economic system in the world that
| can fix character flaws.
| lm28469 wrote:
| No matter how I look at it 60g of sugar in small bottle of
| coke is criminal. My wife bakes cakes for 10 people with less
| added sugar.
|
| Junk food definitely is designed to abuse our natural
| instincts and needs, from packaging to ingredients. Go one
| year without processed food, you won't physically be able to
| drink coke or eat fastfood
| fallingknife wrote:
| "Big food corporations" lol. You think every professional chef
| doesn't know the same tricks? There are basically 3 things that
| taste good. Fat, salt, and sugar.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Sounds dystopian. And also Ozempic face. To me it seems that it
| doesn't activate all fat cells in the same way natural weight
| loss does. I do have a feeling that GLP-1 agonists will
| eventually bite us in the ass. Usually this is the way with
| molecules that are too miracle - hello cocaine, plastics, teflon
| and amphetamines. There may be some spectacular risks that will
| become evident after decades.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Interesting article, but I do have a nit:
|
| > Nike is shifting from "Just Do It" impulse messaging to long-
| term wellness partnerships
|
| My read of "just do it" is actually the opposite. It's a message
| to dedicated athletes about not making excuses end executing.
| _diyar wrote:
| In marketing world, many consider the slogan "Just Do It" to
| have a double meaning: 1) Don't make excuses, get after your
| goals! (the one you're espousing) 2) Treat yourself, just buy
| it (the one the articles author is emphasizing).
| neilv wrote:
| > _We 're discussing the first medication that effectively
| regulates human impulse control._
|
| Is this another numbing zombie drug, like over-prescribed anti-
| depressants -- that some people genuinely need, but that make
| some other people accept a situation that they would otherwise be
| up to challenging and improving?
|
| Also, are there side effects than can make it backfire for any
| patients? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaver_(Firefly)#Origin
| lurk2 wrote:
| It's an interesting idea, but ultimately being sensationalized.
| The article starts off by making a compelling case that the
| widespread adoption of these impulse-control drugs will disrupt
| the economy and lead to many changes in business models built
| around impulse buys. The issue is that these drugs only entered
| the public consciousness within the last two years, and many of
| the business model changes that the author implies are
| attributable to the drugs have been going on for a lot longer
| than that. His treatment of retail is an obvious one (he's
| ignoring the impact of changing consumer practices that came
| about due to online shopping). The replacement of anchor stores
| with medical centers is another one - I can remember reading
| about this on Hacker News in 2017.
|
| I suspect his projections on the impacts these drugs will have on
| crime rates and alcohol consumption are probably also overblown.
| I could be wrong, but I would think that the sorts of people who
| seek out prescription drugs for impulse control aren't likely to
| overlap with people who drive drunk in the first place.
|
| The anecdote about the lost muffin revenue was still quite
| interesting.
| sfpotter wrote:
| ??? They're going to be trying to get on a weight loss drug,
| not an "impulse control drug". And I don't see why you would
| assume there's little overlap between people who desperately
| want to lose weight and people who drive drunk.
| lurk2 wrote:
| From the article: "We're not just talking about weight loss.
| We're discussing the first medication that effectively
| regulates human impulse control. Think about that."
|
| > I don't see why you would assume there's little overlap
| between people who desperately want to lose weight and people
| who drive drunk.
|
| This is only a hunch, but I would guess that drunk driving is
| associated with low conscientiousness and that the sorts of
| people who are going to go through the trouble of getting
| medicated to lose weight are unlikely to be the sorts of
| people who drive drunk in the first place.
|
| Maybe I was misinterpreting the point he was trying to make.
| jajko wrote:
| Revolution it may be, but yeah its made to be sensational,
| which often means facts may be used out of context or twisted
| for specific narrative.
|
| Don't worry there will be tons of complementary businesses like
| overpriced healthy food megastores and countless gyms that will
| absorb unemployed workforce and all that 'suddenly available'
| cash. Junk food is cheap, quality tasty healthy one not so
| much.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I don't see any comments talking about it, and it's not mentioned
| in the article, but if it changes impulse control I wonder what
| effect that will have on politics. Hopefully one where people
| will take a longer view and look at policies rather than
| impulsively voting for the candidate they think they like the
| most.
| blitzar wrote:
| For the rest of the world, not so much. For America however, this
| is a huge disruptor.
|
| The pride associated with having a body shape that a well trained
| Ai would classify as Manatee rather than Human is rapidly
| changing and _eventually_ society will be better off for it.
| sarchertech wrote:
| There are maybe a few thousand people in the country who are
| proud of being fat.
|
| Also everyone is getting fatter. America is just 30 years ahead
| of most of the rest of the world in terms of obesity.
|
| Take whatever country you care to name and the population of
| that country 30 years ago would call the population today lard-
| asses.
| thrownawaysz wrote:
| I'm on Saxenda (liraglutide) since last August. Started at 163kg,
| so far 39kgs down I'm at 124kg right now. And I'm not stopping
| here. Anything under 105kg is already good but I really want to
| reach a two digit weight.
|
| Saxenda + a calorie restricted diet is pretty much the best
| combo. Can't complain, never felt any better.
| rs186 wrote:
| Off topic: Since we are doing clickbait titles, I thought ChatGPT
| / Gen AI in general might be a better candidate for "the biggest
| economic disruptor since the internet", based on hype, especially
| from the "leaders" who claim that AGI is just a few months away.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| The article describes a psychotic lifestyle as normal.
|
| I didn't need a drug to reject having breakfast at Starbucks. I
| bake my own bread. I wake up early to have time to eat it in
| peace. I take enough time to roast my own coffee beans. I commute
| by bike.
|
| It's about having some standards. A concept of a lifestyle and
| person that isn't just a corpo drone.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| I've lost 35lbs on them and won't ever stop using them.
| skmurphy wrote:
| The most significant takeaway for me from this analysis was that
| many businesses were aligned with helping people become or remain
| obese. Where do the opportunities flow to now that people can
| apply their disposable income to items beyond food and alcohol?
| Something similar happened during the "low carb" shift when
| bakery goods sales decreased, but people shifted to high protein
| (and perhaps high fat) food away from high carb. But it was still
| food. This feels a little different.
| raphman wrote:
| Is this person an expert of any kind? They throw around dozens of
| numbers without any sources. For example,
|
| > 'A movie theater chain recently analyzed their user data and
| discovered that 72% of their profits came from concessions,
| primarily from impulse purchases made by people who swore they
| "wouldn't buy anything."'
|
| This combination of non-descript source, precise numbers, and
| 'quotes' looks like the usual bullshit one reads in self-help
| books. I conducted a quick online search but couldn't find any
| direct source for this claim (although the number might be in the
| right ballpark).
| dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote:
| This is just the start. Those in the know are already stacking:
|
| GLP-1 Agonists, Senolytics, NMDA Modulators, Hormones and
| Peptides, NAD+ and mTOR Modulation, Nootropics and Adaptogens...
|
| Forget weight loss. These people are going for immortality.
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