I use GLP-1 to control my weight, which was obese according to the BMI before taking it. I don't really care about the other benefits that may or may not be true or relevant to me, but I am deeply convinced that controlling my weight is massively beneficial for my long-term health and completely overweighs all my concerns about side effects.
Many here have expressed skepticism at GLP1s because they don't require the personal discipline of caloric deficit and might have unknown side effects.
So far, all the unknown side effects I've read about have been like this.
all of the side effects that people are attributing to tirzepatide seem to be ones that are symptoms of losing a lot of weight quickly and eating a low calorie diet for an extended time.
hair loss is a symptom that fits into that category.
N of 1, but I had serious low drive/motivation side effects from Wegovy. Everything enjoyable became less enjoyable, from alcohol, to running, and after a couple of months, even getting out of bed. I lost weight slower than I had previously with old school calorie counting (most of which I have kept off to this day). Within a couple weeks of getting off it I was back to normal.
My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
I felt something like that affect, though not very pronounced, for the first couple weeks. Since then I've felt completely normal. Life is way more fun now.
Sounds quite a bit like when I started the probiotics I've been on for quite a few many years now: When I started these ones, I actually started feeling worse than before. Ultimately though, after IIRC about two weeks of feeling worse than before, things got better.
I started out being lethargic all the time (in hindsight: way, way too many years, I just didn't put 2+2 together on multiple symptoms!). Migraine headaches from certain foods as well as any amount of alcohol and even non-alcoholic beer for example, essentially anything that produces histamines (which certain foods as well as alcohol consumption does).
After the probiotics "fought and won the battle" against whatever was inhabiting my intestines before that, I felt totally fine. No more lethargy. Could eat all the histamine rich foods in the world (Roquefort, here I come again, you're soooo tasty! Maybe with a glass of red wine too) and be fine. Never looked back. Life is way more fun now.
I might want to get on GLP-1s to not like alcohol and too much Roquefort now, while still not being lethargic, lol!
One thing that colors how I view it is that I am more in the "would like to lose 15 lbs" space than the "needs to lose 50 lbs" space at this point in my life. I have a BMI of 27 and ran a half marathon right when I first tried Wegovy, and I already weigh 30 lbs less than I did at my 2021 peak. My A1c is 4.6. I actually recently reached out to my doctor about trying a different GLP-1 and she told me that given my labs and that I haven't been gaining weight she doesn't feel right prescribing me one.
So I am a lot more picky about side effects than I would be if I seriously needed to lose weight or had diabetes.
With a BMI of 27 why would you try GLP-1s at all? I would also be less forgiving of side effects if I were in that situation.
But my BMI was like 39, and now it is ~25. My blood test results the last couple of years have been phenomenal. All of the extra cardiac testing I've done suggests I managed to dodge a lot of the effects of being obese, which is just genetic luck (heart disease does not run in my family, most of my immediate ancestors lived well into their 90s and all of them died of something other than heart disease, even though some were fairly overweight).
I have played a little roulette with GLP-1s lately because I am curious, and found that at my current weight (5'11" or so and 175lb) seems to be where my body is willing to go, and that's about it. I stalled out pretty abruptly, and if I increase the dose all I get are uncomfortable side effects and no real weight loss -- even though the discomfort pushes my caloric intake well into the "cannot get enough vitamins and minerals" level. It's remarkable. I was once 165 naturally but 30 years ago, and that just isn't a realistic goal any more, so says my body. This is fine, I feel very good now. Well, when I'm on the maintenance dose ;-). Then I have no side effects, I just live a normal life eating normal amounts of healthy food and having a way easier time exercising than when I was heavy.
Honestly I was finding the last 15 lbs to be stubborn, and had a borderline mild sleep apnea test that meant my doctor offered it and my insurance would cover it. I also wanted to see what all the hype was about.
> My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
Possibly some of them could also be unintentionally countering the impacts through things like self-medicating with caffeine.
I have no personal experience with GLP-1s but suddenly quitting caffeine after decades of daily use was pretty eye-opening in terms of how much it was boosting my baseline mood. And I'm not talking about being cranky for a couple of days after quitting, I'm talking about a very noticeable sustained change from when I was a frequent caffeine user to when I stopped having it altogether.
Speaking of which, nicotine is another effective weight loss drug. I have to wonder if some portion of the increase in median BMI (ignoring the morbidly obese) in America over the last 50 years is it becoming less socially acceptable to chain smoke.
Looks like it's typical to gain 5-10lbs when quitting smoking.
Edit: pulled up the data and there's been a 30lb increase in median weight in America, so (loosely guessing) the smoking effect is probably somewhere between 5 and 10% of that change.
> don't require the personal discipline of caloric deficit
This reminds of a of Reddit thread I saw on r/cholesterol where a similar sentiment was expressed. Several cardiologists weighed in with comments to the effect that "personal discipline" has been tried for the last 50 years or so and has utterly failed to arrest heart disease and that, yes, GLP-1s are a miracle drug.
Yes, but the obvious is also worth noting that the nature of those statements is necessarily heavily biased.
Cardiologists are either looking at the broader population or the individuals more likely to lack that discipline. The majority of people are healthy and have no problems maintaining their health.
It's not the caloric deficit, it's the insulin. Cells don't have caloric receptors, only insulin receptors. I created an info site about this. Managing your insulin have the same effects as GLP-1 meds.
Or you can just eat whole foods and do exercise. If you're an able bodied adult with a job, a basic understanding of the effects of foods with unnaturraly high sugar content, and even a slight care about your looks; then you really don't need personal discipline beyond what day-to-day life requires.
Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
Yeah GLP1s work, but it always boggles my mind how eager people are to jump on them over the alternative.
>Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
This is nonsense.
Being fat takes literally no effort at all, all it takes is your discipline slipping a couple nights a week. Being a healthy weight takes (for some) perfect discipline every day, ignoring hunger, putting weight management before everything else in your life, etc.
I've worked physically demanding jobs in paralelll with both long distance running and weightlifting for about 15 years of my life, I've significant muscle mass and good enough cardio to run 15k any day without any particular prep, yet I've hovered around obesity mark for the last 10 years. And now as a parent, any effort to cook leaner food takes time I dont have, as does exercise.
I'm not on any weight loss drugs as I do not want to risk any negative side effects, already being a sleep deprived toddler-parent.
But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those that need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there. Spending your 20s-30s-40s struggling and failing to keep a healthy weight is a slow death of its own.
60 years ago obesity in every stable country was a tiny fraction of what it is today. Are people 10-50x less disciplined today? Really? Or are there just more incentives for processed food companies to sell you their crap? Are quick dopamine hits so easily accessible that people are becoming less driven? Is mainstream society not pressuring obese people enough to change course for being unhealthy?
Yes there's WAY more distractions today, and all those factors make it harder to navigate life practicing healthy habits, but you still have agency. The natural state of the human body is to use calories. The brain alone burns an astonishing amount of calories just thinking. Also no one's force feeding you anything.
There's plenty of countries with a lower "quality of life" index that barely have
obesity problems. Maybe the natural tendency of the human body is not to slowly get fat?
If you can wake up on time everyday, shower everyday, brush your teeth, read emails; how hard is it to not eat obviously trash foods?
Nobody's asking you to learn a high cognitive load skill or play a competitive sport. You don't even need consider counting calories. Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
No processed foods 6 days of the week. Jog for 10 minutes on days you're able to. Bodyweight squats. Short sprints if you enjoy them.
See how simple/doable those steps are? If you have the money for GLP1s and a fancy gym membership then by all means do whatever works, but acting like being fat in a first-world country is a difficult problem to solve is just strange.
> Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
sure! depends on the exact poll but 50% of americans have reported issues with being able to afford groceries. 1/8th of households have actual food insecurity. whatever, that’s not even the main problem i have with your reply
> See how simple/doable those steps are?
i’ve already lost weight without GLP-1s using food tracking, etc. you don’t have to condescendingly prescribe lifestyle changes to me. it wasn’t simple and often did not feel doable, even though i am able to brush my teeth every day (?)
the objection i have is pretending these are simple, repeatable, or obvious pieces of advice that can slot in to any ‘ol lifestyle if you just care how you look or whatever
i’m also amused you couldn’t help yourself from saying “just” again
> Vadim Gladyshev, a Harvard biologist who assisted Novo with its molecular measurements, said: "In an unhealthy population, I do think it's an anti-aging drug. But in a healthy population, no one knows."
I'm glad the article actually said what we're all thinking. It makes perfect sense that managing blood glucose and a healthier diet/weight would "slow biological aging" regardless of how it was done.
I'm only skeptical of GLP-1 because it seems unnecessary, but if it helps some people I guess it's their choice.
I kept reading and reading for that point to be made in the article, and it was burried right at the end. That's the most important part. It seems all the miracle benefits of GLP-1 so far can be explained by basically going on a diet.
Yep, the miracle is that your body already produces these hormones. The body can adapt quickly into a new healthier equilibrium and keep on trucking almost like nothing ever happened (talking like within less than a year). Losing some fat can be nice, but that's missing the point. Insulin resistance is the fundamental problem, and the cure for most is a set of fairly trivial changes to diet and lifestyle.
Eat less overall, get more fiber, take walks after meals, and lift weights. You can check your A1C at home in 5 minutes for little to no cost. Check it a few times a year, and you're set. The most significant dietary change is cutting carbs, and quite frankly most of the food to blame is bland garbage anyway. Nobody is even taking that food away. Just eat less of it, if you really must, and get a grip!
So far, all the unknown side effects I've read about have been like this.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/lawsuits-claiming-o...
Think of all the things they're not gonna be at risk for, not being diabetic now.
hair loss is a symptom that fits into that category.
My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
Sounds quite a bit like when I started the probiotics I've been on for quite a few many years now: When I started these ones, I actually started feeling worse than before. Ultimately though, after IIRC about two weeks of feeling worse than before, things got better.
I started out being lethargic all the time (in hindsight: way, way too many years, I just didn't put 2+2 together on multiple symptoms!). Migraine headaches from certain foods as well as any amount of alcohol and even non-alcoholic beer for example, essentially anything that produces histamines (which certain foods as well as alcohol consumption does).
After the probiotics "fought and won the battle" against whatever was inhabiting my intestines before that, I felt totally fine. No more lethargy. Could eat all the histamine rich foods in the world (Roquefort, here I come again, you're soooo tasty! Maybe with a glass of red wine too) and be fine. Never looked back. Life is way more fun now.
I might want to get on GLP-1s to not like alcohol and too much Roquefort now, while still not being lethargic, lol!
So I am a lot more picky about side effects than I would be if I seriously needed to lose weight or had diabetes.
But my BMI was like 39, and now it is ~25. My blood test results the last couple of years have been phenomenal. All of the extra cardiac testing I've done suggests I managed to dodge a lot of the effects of being obese, which is just genetic luck (heart disease does not run in my family, most of my immediate ancestors lived well into their 90s and all of them died of something other than heart disease, even though some were fairly overweight).
I have played a little roulette with GLP-1s lately because I am curious, and found that at my current weight (5'11" or so and 175lb) seems to be where my body is willing to go, and that's about it. I stalled out pretty abruptly, and if I increase the dose all I get are uncomfortable side effects and no real weight loss -- even though the discomfort pushes my caloric intake well into the "cannot get enough vitamins and minerals" level. It's remarkable. I was once 165 naturally but 30 years ago, and that just isn't a realistic goal any more, so says my body. This is fine, I feel very good now. Well, when I'm on the maintenance dose ;-). Then I have no side effects, I just live a normal life eating normal amounts of healthy food and having a way easier time exercising than when I was heavy.
Possibly some of them could also be unintentionally countering the impacts through things like self-medicating with caffeine.
I have no personal experience with GLP-1s but suddenly quitting caffeine after decades of daily use was pretty eye-opening in terms of how much it was boosting my baseline mood. And I'm not talking about being cranky for a couple of days after quitting, I'm talking about a very noticeable sustained change from when I was a frequent caffeine user to when I stopped having it altogether.
My entire life I have been underweight and also ridiculously hooked on caffeine. At work I would easily go through 5-8 cups of coffee in a day.
I quit caffeine to become a parent a few years ago and suddenly I am able to put on fat and muscle so much easier.
I think the fact that 95% of our society consumes one of the best weight loss drugs (caffeine) anyway really skews a substantial portion of the data.
Looks like it's typical to gain 5-10lbs when quitting smoking.
Edit: pulled up the data and there's been a 30lb increase in median weight in America, so (loosely guessing) the smoking effect is probably somewhere between 5 and 10% of that change.
This reminds of a of Reddit thread I saw on r/cholesterol where a similar sentiment was expressed. Several cardiologists weighed in with comments to the effect that "personal discipline" has been tried for the last 50 years or so and has utterly failed to arrest heart disease and that, yes, GLP-1s are a miracle drug.
Cardiologists are either looking at the broader population or the individuals more likely to lack that discipline. The majority of people are healthy and have no problems maintaining their health.
You should tell the scientists about that, seems like they completely overlooked it!
Or you can just eat whole foods and do exercise. If you're an able bodied adult with a job, a basic understanding of the effects of foods with unnaturraly high sugar content, and even a slight care about your looks; then you really don't need personal discipline beyond what day-to-day life requires.
Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
Yeah GLP1s work, but it always boggles my mind how eager people are to jump on them over the alternative.
This is nonsense.
Being fat takes literally no effort at all, all it takes is your discipline slipping a couple nights a week. Being a healthy weight takes (for some) perfect discipline every day, ignoring hunger, putting weight management before everything else in your life, etc.
I've worked physically demanding jobs in paralelll with both long distance running and weightlifting for about 15 years of my life, I've significant muscle mass and good enough cardio to run 15k any day without any particular prep, yet I've hovered around obesity mark for the last 10 years. And now as a parent, any effort to cook leaner food takes time I dont have, as does exercise.
I'm not on any weight loss drugs as I do not want to risk any negative side effects, already being a sleep deprived toddler-parent.
But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those that need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there. Spending your 20s-30s-40s struggling and failing to keep a healthy weight is a slow death of its own.
Yes there's WAY more distractions today, and all those factors make it harder to navigate life practicing healthy habits, but you still have agency. The natural state of the human body is to use calories. The brain alone burns an astonishing amount of calories just thinking. Also no one's force feeding you anything.
There's plenty of countries with a lower "quality of life" index that barely have obesity problems. Maybe the natural tendency of the human body is not to slowly get fat?
If you can wake up on time everyday, shower everyday, brush your teeth, read emails; how hard is it to not eat obviously trash foods?
Nobody's asking you to learn a high cognitive load skill or play a competitive sport. You don't even need consider counting calories. Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
No processed foods 6 days of the week. Jog for 10 minutes on days you're able to. Bodyweight squats. Short sprints if you enjoy them.
See how simple/doable those steps are? If you have the money for GLP1s and a fancy gym membership then by all means do whatever works, but acting like being fat in a first-world country is a difficult problem to solve is just strange.
sure! depends on the exact poll but 50% of americans have reported issues with being able to afford groceries. 1/8th of households have actual food insecurity. whatever, that’s not even the main problem i have with your reply
> See how simple/doable those steps are?
i’ve already lost weight without GLP-1s using food tracking, etc. you don’t have to condescendingly prescribe lifestyle changes to me. it wasn’t simple and often did not feel doable, even though i am able to brush my teeth every day (?)
the objection i have is pretending these are simple, repeatable, or obvious pieces of advice that can slot in to any ‘ol lifestyle if you just care how you look or whatever
i’m also amused you couldn’t help yourself from saying “just” again
GLP-1 may slow biological aging
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132328
I'm glad the article actually said what we're all thinking. It makes perfect sense that managing blood glucose and a healthier diet/weight would "slow biological aging" regardless of how it was done.
I'm only skeptical of GLP-1 because it seems unnecessary, but if it helps some people I guess it's their choice.
Eat less overall, get more fiber, take walks after meals, and lift weights. You can check your A1C at home in 5 minutes for little to no cost. Check it a few times a year, and you're set. The most significant dietary change is cutting carbs, and quite frankly most of the food to blame is bland garbage anyway. Nobody is even taking that food away. Just eat less of it, if you really must, and get a grip!
You can get the stuff at a mall kiosk now.