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  #1   ^
Old Wed, Sep-06-23, 08:41
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
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Default Wonder drugs can’t solve our obesity problem

A contentious issue so putting this opinion piece here in the War Zone.

Quote:
Wonder drugs can’t solve our obesity problem

Wegovy is making its inventors rich but the real solutions to Britain’s crisis lie in education and a ban on junk food ads


They’re partying in Denmark, having discovered a miracle drug that appears to guarantee weight loss. More than 10,000 staff at Novo Nordisk held an all-day rave last week. The 100-year-old firm is suddenly close to becoming the most valuable company in Europe, worth £340 billion, because of its new slimming sensation, Wegovy, which is being sought by everyone from Elon Musk to the NHS.

At the same time food suppliers and supermarkets have been raking in the cash. Deliveroo had revenues of close to £2 billion last year from serving us convenient snacks day and night; McDonald’s sales and profits continue to rise.

So there we have it. Big food companies have been fattening us up for 50 years but big pharma companies will save us. Both industries are making vast profits out of people’s desire for doughnuts, burgers, fried chicken and muffins and our subsequent misery at being overweight. Meanwhile the NHS has to pick up the bill for our addiction to ultra-processed food. Obesity has been costing public healthcare billions and accounts for one in six hospital admissions. Now doctors must spend even more on drugs to help alleviate the problem. It seems insane.

The proponents of Wegovy say this really is a wonder cure that will help deal with obesity and its related diseases by suppressing people’s appetites. The drug, semaglutide, mimics a venom found in the mouth of a Gila monster lizard, which needs to eat only four times a year. It regulates blood sugar levels, which is why it was first used for type 2 diabetes, alongside its sister drug, Ozempic. It is also thought to help with high blood pressure and heart disease.

However, the NHS has announced that it will only provide a weekly injection of Wegovy to 50,000 people for two years as part of a weight management plan. What then? Even if they eventually extend this to more overweight people, will these patients inflate and deflate for the rest of their lives as they go on and off the drug? Or will they end up having to take an injection of semaglutide once a week for life?

Online pharmacies such as Boots have said they will sell Wegovy for about £200 a month but that’s £2,400 year. Only the richest can afford the cost of going private indefinitely. Most of the 26 per cent of people in this country who are clinically termed as obese, including a fifth of 11-year-olds, could be playing a game of snakes and ladders, up one year, down the next, as they binge and abstain.

Even those who can afford Wegovy long-term may find that it doesn’t work for them. One friend who took it discovered the nausea, dizziness and lethargy she endured were so debilitating that she had to stop, and piled on even more weight. Another lost three stone but also his sense of taste and smell. The saddest side effect of Wegovy is that it can put you off food, rather than teaching you to celebrate each mouthful.

Every generation has a wonder drug to deal with the nation’s ills. In the UK in the 1980s, Prozac was seen as the panacea for depression: take the little white pill and all will be fine, yet mental health problems have spiralled. It’s always preferable to treat the causes rather than the symptoms.

Everyone knows that if you exercise more and eat less, you’ll be fitter. This sounds easy but it’s impossible for many to summon the willpower to eat healthily in the 21st century. Showing daily self-restraint is exhausting, particularly for children if they are constantly bombarded with advertisements for sugary cereals, unhealthy food at school, cheap chocolate and crisps, and aren’t playing enough sport while glued to their screens.

Adults in this country face similar difficulties. Amazon deliveries, working from home, affordable cars and household gadgets are convenient but mean most of us don’t move as much as older generations once did. Meanwhile, frazzled parents with little money and time can at least “reward’ their families with pizza and ice cream. Everywhere we go now, there is an abundant array of food: at service stations, on trains, in coffee shops.

No one should be fat-shamed for being supersized; we’re all fighting an industry intent on turning you into an addict, convincing you to eat artificial, highly processed, cheap, easy foods. These salty, sugary concoctions often imitate the carbs-to-fat ratio in breast milk and have hyper-palatability but leave us craving more.

The prime minister, with his Peloton bike and indoor swimming pool, doesn’t appear to understand. Maybe he has looked at his predecessors who have tried and failed with 689 anti-obesity measures since 1992. However, the 2018 sugar tax on fizzy drinks has been a success, with companies reformulating their brands, and should be extended to ultra-processed food. There should also be a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm and schools should be encouraged to reintroduce sport alongside maths as a compulsory part of the day.

The Danish aren’t stockpiling Wegovy for themselves. They have one of the lowest rates of obesity in Europe, having introduced a tax on unhealthy products and encouraged the nation to eat a low-fat Nordic diet and get on their bikes.

In Vietnam they are also obsessed with food but theirs is almost all home-prepared from dozens of local ingredients, often grown on people’s balconies and in their backyards, and enjoyed with the family. They don’t crave sugar and salt, but herbs, rice, fish and vegetables, and they love cooking. Maybe that’s why they have the lowest obesity rates in the world.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...oblem-tb20g9dmm
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  #2   ^
Old Wed, Sep-06-23, 12:55
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Bob-a-rama Bob-a-rama is offline
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Too many assume that they can follow self-destructive behavior and science will be able to come to their rescue.

Don't bet your life on that.
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  #3   ^
Old Wed, Sep-06-23, 15:03
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob-a-rama
Too many assume that they can follow self-destructive behavior and science will be able to come to their rescue.

Don't bet your life on that.



Too true. Very sad.

Big pharma rakes in the huge bucks, squeezing the little fish. Its very sad.
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  #4   ^
Old Thu, Sep-07-23, 03:06
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JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Demi, thank you posting the entire article from The Times. I’m seeing more articles in the US about serious side effects, and now personal injury attorneys going after the Pharma companies for downplaying the serious permanent side effects. This story is fast evolving.

https://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=485276

I live in an area with many large Novo Nordisk US operations, getting bigger by the monthhttps://www.fiercepharma.com/manufa...-north-carolina
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  #5   ^
Old Sat, Sep-23-23, 13:20
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Bob-a-rama Bob-a-rama is offline
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When I was a child, our family physician said that we should assume every drug has a side-effect, some mild, some major.

He said they were very powerful tools, but should be used as a last resort when more natural methods don't work.

I think he was wise.

Bob
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  #6   ^
Old Sat, Sep-23-23, 14:31
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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THAT is what I teach my children!

Every drug comes with a hidden price, sometimes little, sometimes BIG. Avoid all drugs, even pain relievers when possible.
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  #7   ^
Old Sun, Sep-24-23, 06:29
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ms Arielle
THAT is what I teach my children!

Every drug comes with a hidden price, sometimes little, sometimes BIG. Avoid all drugs, even pain relievers when possible.


I live by that. Not a purist; I believe in supplements, especially since my weakened state means I can't always digest enough food without help.

But now it's shown that the constant steroid injections into troubled joints was a bad idea. The person would have been better off not having any treatment, sadly.

Masking the symptoms so people keep eating high profit items. That's what it is boiling down to. Because for many, lessened joint pain is worth giving up "treats." They are abusive partners, we might say.
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  #8   ^
Old Sun, Sep-24-23, 09:19
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Yes, we are victims of powerful food companies and pharmaceutical companies. Follow the 🤑 money.
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  #9   ^
Old Mon, Sep-25-23, 04:11
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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This is an ironic result of the last century's successes with drugs like the sulfas and antibiotics. The conviction spread among the general public. Snake oil remedies switched to pill form as a result. Everyone believed in magic drugs.

In the sixties transplants started, and it's not the surgery as much as shutting down what was seen as the "troublesome part" of their great triumph of replacement. Knowing what we know about steroids since then, I find it troubling that it is extended to people who don't have a transplanted organ. To me, that's a big difference.

I had a much easier time rejecting the autoimmune standard of care because there really isn't one. My own issues presented and progressed in atypical ways. I couldn't figure it out at first, and so any notes might not be down as autoimmune at all. It was hard for them to commit to a diagnosis, then, difficult to treat. So I avoided it, too, since I already knew what they would say and do, and it was already not working for me.

My GP at the time agreed that if I could avoid the drugs, I should. Never got passed on to a specialist, but there's nothing new out there, since.

Dr. Terry Wahl's book highlighted my own convictions, and she convinced me "it's all one disease." They get hung up on the classification and which drug and miss the whole point of what's causing it. It's their training, the local Patient Advocate agrees. It's so mechanical, the doctors themselves aren't thinking about what they are doing.

They will admit they don't know why my immune system is confused. Now that I'm in a properly nourished body, I don't think so. The oxalate theory explained my remaining symptoms even after fixing so many with better food. I feel, and perform, better. It also explains that my body is actually reacting to something, and even the lingering symptoms can be explained by different ways the body sheds oxalate.

And yet, DH has moved himself towards something more unconventional in many ways. After too many bags of veg spoiling in the fridge, I convinced him our programming was pointless. I'm the one who actually likes romaine and onion, and ate whatever didn't spoil. He realized he was eating something he didn't like out of obligation, he had been taught that as a child, as we both were.

I had a habit of periods where I went off nuts and vegetables, and now I simply stay off them. It was the oxalates all along.

So, it's not a lack of necessary pharmacueticals in my case. I think they should be up front about what they are offering, and start with a B-12 shot for vegans. People cross a threshold because they go "plant based" and I'm convinced a lot of it presents like autoimmune.

Now we are in a mess.
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  #10   ^
Old Mon, Sep-25-23, 07:22
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Growing up I was surrounded by reseachers. So developed the mindset that medicine and drugs was nearly godlike. Even remember a topnotch physiologist kindly telling me to eliminate one stick of butter (really margarine), to decrease my obesity.

We now need the research to show the real benefits of eating real food, danger of franken foods and more on side effects of drugs.
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  #11   ^
Old Tue, Sep-26-23, 18:56
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Bob-a-rama Bob-a-rama is offline
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Some of the tools that have been developed in my lifetime are truly miraculous. When, needed, they provide life and comfort that were not even imagined 50 years ago. But using these methods when they aren't necessary IMO is asking for trouble.

But then, I'm no doctor, so I can't make the decision for anyone but myself.
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