A new ‘miracle’ weight-loss drug really works — raising huge questions
Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy uses a hormone to regulate hunger. It’s wildly effective, but is it misguided?- Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/96a61dc0...a2-2b6a382b7a3b
This is a more thoughtful article than many others I've noticed about the new semaglutide drugs. Quote:
What's clear is that this drug does something real. Quote:
One patient described feeling as if her mind was "freed from its obsession with eating". |
JL thanks for posting this! I had suggested a friend who wants WL surgery to look into it. The link you posted was behind a paywall for me, but this one opened: https://www.ft.com/content/96a61dc0...U6EF-LmswZHiEJ8
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Oh, sorry. I'm not a subscriber and I was able to read it so I thought it was a good link.
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I have that feeling getting 130+gms of protein and lowering fat. I did not have that feeling eating the same approx amount of calories - 1500 - and the same approx amount of carbs, 100-120. So for me, it took lowering fat and increasing protein.
I fully understand people wanting to take this drug, though. Unlike the surgery where people can still manage to gain all their weight back through emotional eating or whatever reason, this sounds like as long as you take it, you have a reduced appetite. Or could emotional eaters overcome the drug too? Now that would be an interesting study. At the end, the woman introduced in the beginning says, Quote:
implying there has to be some kind of intent to lose weight even with the drug. But otherwise, medically, once the price comes down and as long as serious side effects don't emerge, I can see the medical establishment jumping on this for this reason: Quote:
Well, the countries with national health insurance will be interested but perhaps not the U.S. as Big Food and the weight loss industry may lobby against it. And then there's the puritanical attitude that fat people deserve their fate. |
I get that feeling when my blood sugar is lowish.
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But does the drug fix insulin resistance which drives obesity? Does the drug fix other medical issues that are caused by eating higher carb? It’s fixing an external issue, appearances of being obese, but it doesn’t fix the health of the person.
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It sounds like the person taking the drug has a newfound ability to resist overeating, which includes carbs presumably. They lose weight, so that alone will address insulin resistance.
That article said they've yet to study other health effects, such as cardiac outcome, but how can major weight loss such as 70 lbs not be of benefit? Just dragging around less body mass relieves some strain on the heart. |
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The drug price tag would buy a lot of real food. Quote:
She's right to worry. Because they will. |
Gypsybird said:
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JLx said: Quote:
WB said: Quote:
All very good points. I tried both links to read the actual article, both came up with a paywall. Therefore I also have no idea if it addressed the issues of what kinds of food they're being directed to eat. Is it just eat whatever you want (candy, cake, and potato chips), and stop when you feel full? And what of underlying emotional/compulsive eating issues? There are people who will feel full or even excessively full, but will continue to eat just because the food is there. |
https://mobile.twitter.com/Financia...090248046641152
Sometimes you can get past a paywall through a social media link, so try that. I did already quote the woman at the beginning of the article saying Quote:
Anyone taking this drug is going to be obese and presumably doesn't want to be, so they're prepared to "watch what they eat" but find it easier to do so because of the what the drug does for them: Quote:
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And interestingly, as soon as the drug is withdrawn, the appetite and weight returns. With a vengeance, it sounds like. Quote:
So it sounds like this plan, would not work - well, depending on the diet and exercise plan, I suppose: Quote:
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Sorry, I had completely missed that line (I'm not feeling particularly well at the moment.... a bit of brain fog) But the combination of these 2 factors is really disturbing: Quote:
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That means that if you happen to have a spare $32,400 sitting around ($1,350/month for 24 months), you can take it for 2 years, lose a whole pile of weight, then gain it all back (with interest? Most likely...) after you've reached the 2 year limit on using it. Medically approved yo-yo dieting. Which brings us back to this again: Quote:
...Which in the end isn't really going to help at all. |
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How interesting, because that's exactly how I felt when I went low-carb. It only increased as I went VLC. Now, that's what works for me. I've become more and more aware that people vary rather widely. Perhaps the most important thing for them to know is how food and weight interact, and how everyone has to figure out the details themselves after that. Perhaps, if the 2 years with the drug is less expensive and dangerous than WLS, it's even a good thing... as always, if used judiciously for the patient's sake, not wildly in the water supply in the fever dreams of Wall Street. What if they took the two years in a REAL data-driven program using a glucose meter. Then, taper them off the drug? The article makes it sound like none of THAT is happening. |
But look at how many people don't stick to low carb. Are the many, many people who are no longer posting here all out there enjoying their low-carb diets and keeping weight off? Somehow I doubt it. And speaking of enjoyment, VLC is not an enjoyable diet for me at all. I asked one of my doctors once, why low carb wasn't talked about more for diabetics, and he said, "Because people don't stick to it".
I wonder if this drug is similar to how I felt on Metform when I first went on it. It was clearly an appetite suppressant in the beginning. So much so that when I had to go off it for two days to have a CT scan, I noticed the difference! Then that effect faded over time. I asked my pharmacist about that when we were chatting one day and he said that is a common experience. Rather than surgery, I could see trying this drug at times in my past, times of utter despair over my inability to simply eat as I intended. But if it means being on a drug for life - well, that's questionable. Someone in that article compared it to high blood pressure medication which is actually a good comparison because some people can often get off them with other lifestyle changes - which should be the goal. If this drug enabled people to lose a lot of weight and feel better as a result, that alone may be motivating. But I also see that it might not. But saying it encouraged yo-yo dieting seems misguided as that is what people are doing now. Krista Varady, for those who may not recognize her name, is the Intermittent Fasting Researcher who influenced the 5:2 Diet book. When it was so successful, she rushed out her own book which did not impress me, iirc, beyond the basic concept of IF. Food plans that included Pop-tarts, for instance. |
I see myself as one of those people for whom VLC works. But there's some moderate carb programs that work quite well for other people. I think the important thing the drug could do is give someone a space where they could figure out lifestyle changes. Which would let them taper off the drug.
To me, the biggest problem is people who would rather take a pill than change their lifestyle. Even though these don't work the same way. |
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