Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

https://trial.medpath.com/news/5c43f09ebb6d0f8e/ozempic-shows-anti-aging-effects-in-first-clinical-trial-reversing-biological-age-by-3-1-years

by amichail • 12 months ago

425 784 12 months ago

trial.medpath.com

xeromal2• 12 months ago

I can't open this link but I wonder if the weight loss or the medicine itself is performing the anti-aging

declan_roberts2• 12 months ago

I was just researching this myself before investing in LLY.

For cardiovascular health, they see benefits even with people who are at a healthy BMI, which suggests therapeutic effects beyond just losing weight.

xeromal2• 12 months ago

Very interesting! Thanks for chiming in.

jjtheblunt• 12 months ago

it could also suggest that BMI isn't a great metric, though, as has been in the news often lately.

regardless, thanks too.

riku_iki2• 12 months ago

what would be reversing biological age from regular running and eating chicken breast + veggies with olive oil.

HarHarVeryFunny• 12 months ago

You can tell if that regime reverses aging when you instead start wanting to eat chicken nuggets and mac & cheese.

hackeraccount• 12 months ago

Nice.

amanaplanacanal2• 12 months ago

Wish I could run. Knee says no.

avoutos• 12 months ago

Do you have an injury? Knees over toes exercises can do wonders for rehab. From a form perspective, it also helps to avoid heel-striking.

lurking_swe2• 12 months ago

This isn’t really surprising at all IMO, but it’s nice that it’s been confirmed.

“The researchers believe semaglutide’s anti-aging properties stem from its effects on fat distribution and metabolic health. Excess fat around organs triggers the release of pro-aging molecules that alter DNA methylation in key aging-related genes. By reducing this harmful fat accumulation and preventing low-grade inflammation - both major drivers of epigenetic aging - semaglutide appears to create a more youthful biological environment.“

In other words, being medically obese ages your body quite a bit, its stresses out your body with inflammation, etc. Taking Ozempic helps people lose weight, which also reduces inflammation. This is sort of like saying we proved rain (usually) increases humidity lol. A very obvious finding.

The article even says “ Randy Seeley from the University of Michigan Medical SchoolView company profile expressed little surprise at the findings” :)

torginus• 12 months ago

Yeah this is pretty much a nothingburger. I guess being fat causes biological damage similar to aging, and losing weight (which Ozempic helps with) reverses the process.

ifwinterco4• 12 months ago

Yeah, it looks like it's basically just saying:

1) Being fat is really bad for you 2) Moderate calorie restriction may have some health benefits

Both of which we already knew, the second one being a bit more controversial but a hypothesis that has been around for decades

Cpoll• 12 months ago

I've read [citation needed] that semaglutide has anti-inflammation effects even when there's no weight loss, i.e. there's another mechanism at play as well.

morninglight• 12 months ago

There is another study that comes to mind.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2420092122

readthenotes15• 12 months ago

I have no idea why you're down voted. The replication crisis is real, and it is well known that fraud is a part of it

pie_flavor• 12 months ago

Because it's a content-free dismissal. No attempt is made to link it to this study in particular.

aswegs82• 12 months ago

Maybe because that is a whole different topic that is only tangentially related to this thread?

V__• 12 months ago

Any study which uses epigenetic clocks can be discarded. There is to my knowledge no test which produces reliably measurements which don't have big error bars. The only conclusion this study can really make is: Ozempic changes the 'thing' which the epigenetic clock test also measured.

metalman• 12 months ago

it does seem that there is no reliable connection with "epigenetic clocks" where people are shown to be dying at the same bio age, regardless of calender age......all of the mortality estimating calculations rely on many "factors", so the "ozempic" effects will be just part of a puzzle, where I will bet anything that attitude, demenour, , basic personal conduct will weigh in as the hinge pins that everything else pivots around..........stress, and how that is delt with, and anyone who thinks that one compound is going to reset the whole clock on a complex organism is kidding themselves, which if done right, works ;) so....it's all for the good

taeric• 12 months ago

It remains eye opening to see how much losing weight does to people.

pitpatagain2• 12 months ago

This is specifically a study on people with HIV-associated lipohypertrophy, which is associated with accelerated aging. Not clear what this would mean for people generally.

kjkjadksj9• 12 months ago

People on ozempic certainly look more like the crypt keeper than a younger version of themselves. You lose all that buccal fat that defines your young adult face.

radiofreeeuropa9• 12 months ago

Any means of attaining weight loss at a similar rate will tend to do the same thing. Especially if you’re starting from quite-heavy, not just dropping 20lb or something.

YokoZar• 12 months ago

It varies. People are often thinner in their twenties than their thirties and forties. If you browse some before and after pictures the ones who have had their skin tighten tend to look younger for that reason alone.

pitpatagain2• 12 months ago

Or that's who you notice. My husband takes ozempic for type 2 diabetes and it completely fixed his blood sugar while causing very moderate weight loss.

What the people in this study have causes abnormal visceral fat accumulation in the belly and back and itself causes disturbing changes in body shape and appearance, does not respond or normal weight loss, and hasn't had real treatment options. That ozempic has beneficial effects for it in an RCT is actually awesome, it's the framing given by the headline that is bad.

angmarsbane2• 12 months ago

I notice it in people who have never been the weight that they're suddenly walking around as, with them it often looks overdone, too thin for their features etc, but in those who have used it to get back to weights where I've seen them before...I didn't guess. They had to tell me.

const_cast9• 12 months ago

That's just what happens when you get skinny. People who have always been skinny just look sickly always so we don't notice.

wonderwonder4• 12 months ago

I agree, I'm 46. I dropped from 240lbs in January to 209lbs in June. I have maintained that weight. Recently went to a beach resort for a vacation and the number of random people that commented on my build was embarrassing. From bar tenders making a point of serving me first and asking me how much I benched to the literal wives of other men saying "Hi Vin Diesel" (3 times) in front of their husbands and my wife. I have a shaved head and tan so its going to always be Vin Diesel or the Rock. My wife even commented that people keep staring at me.

I literally realized how amazing life must be for a hot girl.

Must have been because of how disgusting I look...

I think you may be making things up to make yourself feel better friend.

koliber3• 12 months ago

People who lose a lot of fat generally end up with loose skin, regardless of the mechanism they use to lose the fat.

JumpCrisscross10• 12 months ago

lose all that buccal fat that defines your young adult face

The people who should be taking Ozempic aren't lacking in buccal fat.

cthalupa19• 12 months ago

I've dropped about 1/3rd of my bodyweight on retatrutide. The 2nd most common comment I receive is that I look 5+ years younger.

elzbardico3• 12 months ago

Losing facial fat will only make you look older if your skin has low elasticity and/or if you lose too much fat, too much fast. Also, it is very common for people that start eating dramatically less to also reduce their water intake too much and become dehydrated.

Besides ensuring you're getting sufficient water, there are a lot of dermatologic procedures that can help you to recover at least some of your skin elasticity. And in more dramatic cases, there's a plethora of options, from fillers to lifting procedures.

leoh• 12 months ago

True enough, but many studies show that calorie restriction reduces effects of aging

radu_floricica5• 12 months ago

Not really applicable in humans. Effect is smaller than in mice, and requires some pretty drastic restrictions that aren't exactly pleasant.

The thing with ozempic is that is seems to do several things, most (all?) of them good for us in different ways. We probably just lucked out. It's not the only case - plenty of drugs do incredibly good things with only reasonable side effects. Antibiotics. Ibuprofen. Aspirin. Vitamin D.

A recent example - statins used to be seen as a tradeoff: you get better cardiovascular health, but some hepatotoxicity. Nope, it was wrong - they actually protect your liver. I think the official change came out this year, when I started them a couple of years ago I still found it framed as a side effect.

93po• 12 months ago

I've also seen info that i haven't verified that it seems to help with impulse control and executive functioning, so i imagine it would help reduce drug and alcohol consumption as well

dwroberts• 12 months ago

They address this and state that there is no reason to believe it wouldn’t also apply to the general population who do not have lipohypertrophy

GenBiot2• 12 months ago

However they have no evidence of this. While I would expect this to be the case (as a researcher of ageing epigenetics), this is entirely conjecture.

RataNova5• 12 months ago

The underlying mechanisms (reduced inflammation, improved fat distribution, better metabolic health) aren't unique to that group

tomxor2• 12 months ago

The underlying mechanisms (reduced inflammation, improved fat distribution, better metabolic health) aren't unique to that group

Those are causes, you can't just invert it (again) and call them mechanisms for anti-aging... Those things are side effects of obesity and diseases causing obesity, there is no evidence or reasonable basis here to suggest there would be any "anti-aging" effect in healthy people without those problems.

Similarly "Ozempic shows anti-gravity effect in humans!#11"... assuming you have unhealthy excess fat to lose.

some_random2• 12 months ago

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

jbentley1• 12 months ago

Naturally skinny people hate Ozempic for the same reason I know many talented engineers who hate AI coding.

kmeisthax• 12 months ago

As a talented engineer, I hate AI coding because it doesn't do what it says on the tin. If GLPs made people hallucinate weight loss that wasn't actually happening, I'd be angry about them too.

amelius• 12 months ago

It is not fun when your superpower becomes a commodity.

stronglikedan2• 12 months ago

I'd wager that you can only call an engineer talented if they know enough to hate AI coding.

zer00eyz• 12 months ago

I know many talented engineers who hate AI coding.

People whos primary skill is coding, hate AI coding. No talented engineer hates AI coding. The distinction is this: a coder knows how to use their tools, an engineer knows how to work with people, understands product, process, users, and knows how to use their tools.

Talented engineers hate the HYPE around AI. And those of us old enough to remember sigh and think "This is just dreamweaver all over again". It is ESB's with "drag and drop" workflow tools. AI is just another useful tool that a good engineer can pick up and put down where appropriate.

eddythompson80• 12 months ago

Thank you for your service

devmor• 12 months ago

I think those engineers don’t like you because you find unrelated subjects to justify your favorite scam.

Der_Einzige4• 12 months ago

Was waiting to see this comparison. Glad to see that meritocracy is becoming the pejorative it was always meant to be. Meritocrats are unironically bigots.

mensetmanusman3• 12 months ago

They are living rent free in your head, they really don’t care.

qgin• 12 months ago

There were even people who felt this way about anesthesia too. To survive in that era, they had to believe that suffering was somehow good for healing (or at least good spiritually) and talked about anesthesia as if it were cheating the natural god-given order.

readthenotes15• 12 months ago

Are you talking about MMother Teresa? She wasn't that long ago...

zoeysmithe2• 12 months ago

I think this might be revisionism. A lot of people feared early anesthesia because it was far more dangerous than today.

I also notice people will make note that 'eccentrics' from the 1940s-1950s hated air conditioning but it helps to understand it was a dangerous technology that regularly injured and killed people back then, especially in its earlier days the adults of that period were children during. AC didn't get safe until fairly recently in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It would catch fire or leak poison that killed people in their sleep. Some people just saw it as an unnecessary risk. Same with early fridges. When they leaked, that leak could be fatal as poison or explosion.

It wasnt until later that these technologies got safer and even now today, we consider full anesthesia a last resort and will always try to get away with local or twilight anesthesia because full anesthesia does regularly injure, disable, and kill people. Evolution didnt design us to be trivially "shut off" like this. Injecting us with substances like that will always come with risk.

In other words, a lot of those people weren't mindless luddites, but people who assessed their personal risk and said "nope, not worth it." I think that's perfectly fine.

I'd argue the revisionism of today and the ego justifications of the time were just that, ego protection. Its far easier to say "Well, I'm tough, I don't need that," then "I'm scared of that." The former is rewarded in our individualist capitalist society. The latter is vulnerability and honestly which is often only punished in a society like ours. We see it today with people with limited access and affordability to healthcare in the USA putting off care or engaging in various home remedies, alt-medicine, supplements, or conspiracy-culture-esque pharma drugs gotten cheaply via the gray market.

hollerith2• 12 months ago

The drug companies are very good at making new drugs with high profit potential look better than they are. I'm worried semaglutides are another fen-phen, Vioxx, Quaaludes, Trovafloxacin or OxyContin.

One thing to watch for is effect size: how big of an anti-aging effect does Ozempic confer relative to other good interventions? Were the subjects doing other solid anti-aging interventions like the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD)? If not, the 2 interventions might affect the same pathways with the result that if you are doing FMD, you get no additional benefit from Ozempic.

Fen-phen is particularly interesting here because people reported that not only did it help them lose weight, it gave them more willpower and changed their personalities for the better.

some_random2• 12 months ago

I think that's a completely reasonable concern to have, it doesn't seem to be the case wrt obesity but for the myriad of other potential effects it's important to keep in mind.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

Don't worry, GLP1 RAs are nothing like those other drugs. In fact I'd really challenge you to examine even one of the correlations there, the scale of research, use, known side effects, effectiveness is completely different.

The idea that people might only benefit from something like Ozempic a little if they were doing some other intervention before is irrelevant, because no one is doing those other interventions. Requiring people to suffer before providing useful, known-safe and well-researched medication is silly.

Medication is technology.

reverendjames• 12 months ago

Quaaludes should definitely make a comeback.

noah_buddy2• 12 months ago

Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat.

(From that perspective:)a miracle cure that allows someone to stop being fat is like an indulgence (in the Roman Catholic sense). It’s a cheat, a shortcut that allows the unworthy to reach a state they do not deserve.

My opinion is to wait long enough to validate there are no long term harms, but beyond that, yeah, adjust the priors, it could be a modern aspirin.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 12 months ago

My opinion is to wait long enough to validate there are no long term harms,

What's your threshold on that? How many years is "long enough"? Trying to calibrate my own sense of risk.

stronglikedan2• 12 months ago

Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat.

As an American with a sister with thyroid issues, I can say that is absolutely not true for the majority of Americans. People are mostly sympathetic to those who are not obvious slobs.

cm21875• 12 months ago

And also the idea that it is "easy" to lose weight is completely out of touch. If it was there wouldn't be millions of people trying hard, spending money on trying and failing for decades, and entire businesses addressing that.

RFK Jr's "let them eat less" is paradoxically the modern version of "let them eat cake"!

naravara• 12 months ago

The weight loss mechanism largely just comes from suppressing appetite though, so it still lines up with the penance for sin narrative. It’s not that different from wearing a hair-shirt and whipping yourself if you find yourself having lustful thoughts. Only instead of a whip you just feel kind of uncomfortable and nauseous if you eat too much.

thaumasiotes3• 12 months ago

Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat.

This is a strange thing to say. If you do something normal, and you end up in a normal state, why would that be a moral failing? There's no such thing as "overeating". Different people eat different amounts. The same person eats different amounts at different times.

(From that perspective:)a miracle cure that allows someone to stop being fat is like an indulgence (in the Roman Catholic sense). It’s a cheat, a shortcut that allows the unworthy to reach a state they do not deserve.

This is incoherent. If you believe that being fat is a sin, but that the things you do that make you fat are not sins, then a miracle cure that makes you thin removes the only sin you were committing. You can't be unworthy if you're not fat. In order for a miracle cure to be "cheating", it is necessary that the sin is in the behavior and not the result.

falcor84• 12 months ago

I'm not a Catholic, but wasn't the idea of an indulgence that God intentionally allowed an alternative path to redemption, such that if you buy an indulgence, you are (at least by their definition) worthy and deserving?

I always thought of this as essentially the same idea as with Civ allowing you different paths to victory.

Aurornis8• 12 months ago

Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat.

I feel like I've seen and heard more of the opposite: The trend is to avoiding anything that might make someone feel blame for arriving in their situation.

With obesity the trend is to blame some combination of "our food supply", trending science topics like microplastics or the microbiome, and genetics.

I've heard countless people explain to me that dieting doesn't work for them. It's not hard to find people claiming they ate <1000 calories per day and still gained weight. Even Eliezer Yudkowsky, a figurehead of the "rationalist" movement, has written about "metabolic disprivilege" and claimed that his genetics do not allow him to lose weight through dieting. This thinking runs deep.

What's interesting about GLP-1 inhibitors is that they modulate the intake portion of the diet, which shatters these previous notions that some people had "metabolic disprivilege" and simply could not lose weight by reducing caloric intake. They just make it easier to reduce food intake.

trhway• 12 months ago

My opinion is to wait long enough to validate there are no long term harms, but beyond that, yeah, adjust the priors, it could be a modern aspirin.

it can be more than aspirin. Such an effect on glucose should, among other things, be affecting cancer, probably in a very positive way.

throwawaylaptop17• 12 months ago

You can be gluttonous and still thin. I eat 2 lbs of ground beef a day, with tons of cheese on it. For breakfast I have 6-8 eggs, with cheese. I have my morning coffee with heavy whipping cream. For desert, I whip up some of the heaving whipping cream and have it with frozen berries thawed out. It drives gfs nuts but they're too anti fat to try it.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

I agree with this take but want to add that once everyone is doing it, these opinions will change drastically and everyone will pretend like they were never against it.

Another interesting question is where do people go from there? What is the next signal of virtue, I wonder.

bjackman• 12 months ago

There's also a horseshoe effect here. At the other end are people who advocate for fat acceptance and see the GLP-1 drugs as another source of pressure to be thin. (Not everyone can take semaglutide etc without unpleasant side effects).

gameman144• 12 months ago

I think there's a justifiable fear/dread when things that used to demonstrate virtues no longer do so.

For instance, being in shape used to (usually) demonstrate discipline. Art or music used to demonstrate attention to craft and practice. Knowledge demonstrated time devoted to study.

This isn't to say that the world is worse with these advances (I'd be hopeless without search engines, and I am grateful that people get to live longer and healthier with semaglutide), but I think a little bit of mourning is understandable: what used to be the fruits of hard work are now a dime-a-dozen commodity.

throwaway60414• 12 months ago

being in shape used to (usually) demonstrate discipline.

Putting on weight may demonstrate a lack of discipline or awareness, but those losing weight should not be treated as only undisciplined. Scientific research shows that obesity changes the body in ways that actively work against you when you decide to lose weight. You may be able to loose the first pounds with "discipline", but it becomes increasingly harder the more you lose. Once you have lost a few pounds, the body actively works against you to get back to what it thinks should be the baseline.

Barrin92• 12 months ago

seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain

I mean, that's because that's literally what they need to believe. A majority of people has been brought up on an incredibly moralized account of human behavior, and if it turns out you can just pour some GLP-1 drugs into the drinking water and basically fix a whole bunch of issues it will become obvious that a therapeutic framing is the appropriate way to look at these things.

For people who live in a world of vices and sinners who have to swear off the devil, this throws a pretty big wrench into the whole story, it's much more than just a drug.

losvedir• 12 months ago

I think it's a similar thing to those who are morally invested in human overpopulation and not consuming resources for climate change reasons and such.

The techno-optimist GLP analogs like solving these things with clean energy and other modern marvels throws a wrench into that story.

astrange7• 12 months ago

I personally believe the theory that obesity in the US is caused by other things in the water supply[0], so adding GLP-1 inhibitors would cancel them out.

[0] obesity appears to be caused by moving downstream/to lower altitudes, and has increased in farm and lab animals at the same rates as humans.

cm21875• 12 months ago

I agree, and I am a consumer of those myself, which did absolute wonders. And of course I will assign vastly more weight to my own experience, than to the opinion of some random guy on the internet who only read about it.

However, we also need to be conscious that this is a very very big business, and given the size of the market, is happy to pour billions into some studies that will demonstrate that it has all the benefits in the world and cures everything. Addressing obesity is a humongous benefit in itself, and helps with all the medical conditions that result from it (which in balance makes most mild side effects irrelevant). I am a lot more skeptical about those dozens of claims that it improves X by Y% (often low single digit). Most medical studies in general are dodgy, show minor benefits on small samples in a massively multivariate environment, which more often than not are statistical noise carefully selected, when the approach don't have outright flaws or fraud.

jjice2• 12 months ago

I was kind of scared of these when Ozempic starting picking of steam for weight loss. I was worried that this would be having more negative effects. Turns out, generally speaking, if used with you doctor, these things are pretty safe, especially comparatively to some of the negatives of being overweight.

And then I saw some of the stories on HN about how it's changed peoples lives for the better. And then people in my life started taking it and singing its praises. I'm very bullish on GLP-1s now and I've very excited to see all the lives it improves. I'm not saying this thing is 100% miracle with no downsides, but this seems to be a generally large net positive.

It's a bit hard for me to comprehend how big of an impact this can have for someone since I've been very fortunate to never struggle with my weight, but I'm (slightly embarrassingly) tearing up writing this because of how many people I've seen have huge positive effects on their physical and mental health (due to body image).

radiofreeeuropa9• 12 months ago

It's great because we had no other way to address this problem at a population level. Not any realistic ones, anyway.

Like, I figured we were just never going to solve it, given the two possibilities were "radically re-engineer US culture such that moving to the US doesn't make previously-skinny people fatter" (with other countries heading the same direction as us needing to make similar moves, one supposes) or "find a miracle drug". Neither seemed likely. Turns out, decent odds we've managed the latter! Which was always the more likely of the two, but I still wouldn't have rated it as very likely.

matwood• 12 months ago

And not just weight loss, but the people I know on GLP-1's have also significantly cut back on alcohol. I think there are ongoing trials around GLP-1's and general addiction.

dawnerd2• 12 months ago

The same thing with keto. People will swear it's unhealthy but like, the alternative (outside of Ozempic and co) is being overweight...

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

We think obesity is basically going to be gone in <7 years. GLP1s don't work for everyone, and the side effects can be severe, but this these drugs are basically safe, and incredibly effective.

This is going to accelerate when every one and their mother (with industrial capacity) starts making generic Ozempic/Wegovy (Semaglutide) next year due to Canada's patent protection lapse[0].

https://glp1.guide/content/novo-nordisk-patent-protections-l...

mbac32768• 12 months ago

The skepticism people have towards metabolic dysregulation models of obesity is too much.

We know for a fact the inverse happens: girl starves herself for years to slim down to become a ballerina, eventually decides it's not worth it and tries to stop being so dangerously thin and... can't. She never feels hungry. Every time she eats she can only stomach a few bites before pushing it away. Just eat ice cream? Instant puke. She cannot gain weight no matter what.

Obviously she broke her metabolic system and she obviously did it through diet.

Yes it's possible for some skinny people to gain weight. But that doesn't mean every skinny person simply can decide to be fat just by eating. It's like climbing Mount Everest for some skinny people to put weight on, even if they really desperately want to.

I don't think the situation with obese people is all that different.

RataNova5• 12 months ago

There's still plenty to learn about long-term effects, but it's hard to ignore the sheer volume of real-world stories from people saying it gave them their lives back

DanielHB• 12 months ago

I have a friend using it and he said the worst thing (for him, he didn't have nausa/constipation/etc) is that food is not enjoyable anymore. He says he feels hungry, eats, doesn't feel full but doesn't want to eat anymore.

If he overeats he said he feels kinda bad (with heartburn the next day).

jart6• 12 months ago

It's far from being a miracle. People get fat because they have a broken endocrine system that refuses to burn calories and over aggressively digests food. Ozempic solves that by making your body only desire a few mouthfuls of food each day, but does nothing to actually fix your metabolism. Other better drugs are undergoing trials which will actually do that.

y-curious4• 12 months ago

I am one of those people to some extent. For me, it's the naturalistic fallacy I can't get over. I drink caffeine daily, but the idea of hijacking my hunger with an injectable induces dread. I would like to believe that there are no long-term side effects, but:

1. We have to trust the data of for-profit pharmaceutical companies and their trials. They are incentivized to produce optimistic results.

2. It's relatively new (insofar that a lot of people are taking it). Opiates were touted in a similar way until the other shoe dropped. There exists an undefined line in time where I would feel more comfortable.

3. It is/was made of a poison from an animal.

4. The extreme benefits are overwhelmingly in obese candidates. Keto is the same way; I tried it and it was not for me because I am not obese.

I'm actually open to any sort of evidence that will change my mind. No name calling please.

bobsmooth2• 12 months ago

It is/was made of a poison from an animal.

Caffeine is an insecticide.

ACCount362• 12 months ago

I'd trust for-profit pharmaceutical companies before I would trust "all chemicals are evil and bad" Facebook moms.

genewitch4• 12 months ago

every time in recorded human history when there's be a panacea or cure-all it's generally been snake-oil.

There are a lot of side effects, of this type of medicine - many which were not really prevalent when it was prescribed on-label.

smt883• 12 months ago

There are lots of miraculous, life-saving drugs that have minimal side effects and aren't snake oil.

Metformin, insulin, many vaccines, some statins, and some antibiotics are clearly on that list.

const_cast9• 12 months ago

every time in recorded human history when there's be a panacea or cure-all it's generally been snake-oil.

That's just not true at all. Like, not even close.

Almost everything we've invented in medicine has been free. As in, little to no downsides and just makes things better. And not just in medicine - look around you, compare it to 100 years ago. A lot of stuff is safer, for free.

Think about infant mortality. We went from 1/4 100 years ago to 1/1000s. For free. Surely birth must be more painful now, right? No... we got rid of the pain too. Well surely mothers die more, right? No... They die orders of magnitude less too. Well surely the Vitamin K shot must have SOME downside? Pretty much no, it just pevents bleeding out.

op00to2• 12 months ago

Antibiotics?

c4ptnjack2• 12 months ago

Wouldn't the side effects, combined by the accompanying lifestyle changes key to making this medication most effective, show its not a panacea or cure-all? The fact there are these second order effects with such incredible impacts would lead me to believe its more mechanistic than magical with how much obesity effects all sorts of body systems

Petersipoi• 12 months ago

Just about every single adult woman in my wife's extended family is on Ozempic. None of them are obese at all. Or diabetic. They are all using it to "lose a few pounds" (we're talking like less than 20 pounds; Yes, as you might expect, there are some unrealistic beauty/success standards in my wife's family). So I think there are a lot of people who are annoyed by that, because of the message it sends to completely healthy-weight girls/young women who don't look like professional super models in a swimsuit.

Since we have young daughters, that aspect of Ozempic really bothers my wife. Though she would have no issue with obese/diabetic people using it to get healthy.

Personally I do think it is a miracle drug and I'm glad people are getting healthy because of it.

angmarsbane2• 12 months ago

I fall into the same category as your wife's extended family. I used it to get to the weight I feel most comfortable and I've gone back on it periodically (like after 5 weeks of work travel) to get back within 5 lbs of that weight (where I can manage the additional weight loss on my own).

When being fat becomes more of a deliberate choice (due to the drug accessibility) I do wonder how society and society's expectations Will change. Will women be even more pressured to "bounce back" during postpartum? Will the "baby fat" we only get to have during adolescence be eliminated and drop out of the shared experience of growing up?

There's also a lot of concern within the eating disorder community about the potential for abuse, because these drugs are so easy to get a hold of by lying on telehealth (could be argued that I've abused them by getting them when they're not truly necessary).

brcmthrowaway• 12 months ago

How does one get Ozempic without being overweight?

procaryote2• 12 months ago

To be fair, if you're an average height american woman (5'4"), the nominally healthy BMI range is just 37 pounds wide from 108 to 145 pounds, so 20 pounds can be pretty significant.

godshatter• 12 months ago

I'm not a fan because it's expensive and once you go off of the drug the weight comes back on (at least from what I've read). That's not a trade-off I want to take lightly.

There's also something to be said for gaining the discipline to do it yourself along the way, which may lead to keeping more of the weight off in the long run.

We also don't know what the long term side effects of it will be, if any.

I don't find any of that unreasonable to me. I'm saying this as a type-2 diabetic who could stand to lose a lot of weight.

Someone12343• 12 months ago

We also don't know what the long term side effects of it will be, if any.

The first GLP‑1 receptor agonist was commercially released in April 2005, meaning 20+ years. People who often repeat this: If 20-years, and tens of trials, isn't long enough to "know" then where is the line exactly?

Thalidomide by contrast was available for 4-years, Vioxx for 5-years, and Rezulin for 3-years by contrast.

There's also something to be said for gaining the discipline to do it yourself along the way, which may lead to keeping more of the weight off in the long run.

That doesn't work; we know it doesn't work both from small and large scale studies, and population evidence since 1970s. So you're promoting the same thing we've been doing, and failing at, for beyond all of my lifetime. Feels like a religious belief at this point, rather than following the data and what we know from it (i.e. that objectively does not work, and has never worked).

Is there something new you know that health experts haven't known as Obesity as increase up through 40.3%+ (with overweight being 73.6%+)?

jonny_eh2• 12 months ago

We also don't know what the long term side effects of it will be, if any.

What are the long term side effects of NOT taking it? The article implies it could be early death.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

I'm not a fan because it's expensive and once you go off of the drug the weight comes back on (at least from what I've read). That's not a trade-off I want to take lightly.

This isn't true

https://glp1.guide/content/do-people-regain-all-the-weight-l...

The rest of the incorrect points other people have basically covered, so won't repeat.

Is teaching the discipline lesson worth the shorter life people would live without this medication? Maybe we could find another way to teach people discipline that doesn't maintain a threat to their health?

I don't find any of that unreasonable to me. I'm saying this as a type-2 diabetic who could stand to lose a lot of weight.

Gonna be incredibly blunt, but talk to your doctor and get on GLP1s. Take a low dose if you want.

GLP1s are incredibly well researched and effective. Imagine dying of a heart attack early because you refused to properly research effective, low-risk medication that is being used by millions and recommended by professional organizations and doctors widely. Real Steve Jobs energy.

astrange7• 12 months ago

"Discipline" doesn't exist, or rather it's a feature of your brain and not something you can necessarily learn. GLP-1 inhibitors and stimulants (modafinil, amphetamine, etc) are drugs that literally give you "discipline".

Habits are something you can learn though, and having more discipline helps you form them.

lenerdenator• 12 months ago

There are people who are going to hate anything like that, because it makes a very difficult task (losing weight) significantly easier. And we hate it when the damned kids, what, with their Tok-Clock and deadass rizz, have it easier than we did back in the day.

That being said, the fact that we let our society in North America get to the point where something like semaglutides are such a huge deal is something to honestly hate, and I think some of the misdirected hate is really a hatred for that.

hinkley2• 12 months ago

You've got a crowd of people raised in a Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering, you've got people who feel this is a cheat where discipline should win out, and you have a bunch of people who are used to all easy solutions coming with either a bad lottery ticket or externalities on other people/the environment.

They can all agree that they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That said, we are at a point where people are overweight enough that getting exercise has its own risks, and taking a medication that allows you to be more active is likely to cancel out some of those downsides. As long as you do both I have no problem with people taking ozempic, mounjaro, etc.

I would prefer if we figured out what other than cultural changes is making everyone have symptoms of inflammatory dysfunctions. There is more than one thing going on. Processed foods, contamination, some microbe that doesn't culture in agar. And it's spreading to more of the world.

rglover4• 12 months ago

That said, we are at a point where people are overweight enough that getting exercise has its own risks, and taking a medication that allows you to be more active is likely to cancel out some of those downsides.

And yet we rarely ask or say "maybe I should just eat fewer calories?" Unless you have some other disorder that prevents normal bodily function, that does work (and would be viable I'd imagine for the majority of people being prescribed).

But it requires patience and discipline which are basically non-existent for the majority of the population.

ninwa• 12 months ago

I would prefer if we figured out what other than cultural changes is making everyone have symptoms of inflammatory dysfunctions.

I personally hope it's just cultural and sugar/hfcs. Because some alternatives might be grim to reckon with just from a humanistic/grief perspective: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34484127/

nomel3• 12 months ago

Calvinist society who think nothing good comes without suffering

Or, some of us older folks have been around long enough to understand that we are, in an uncontroversial and factual way, the long term medical trial, and long term effects found in that trial, along with the eventual market withdrawal, may not show up until 10 to 20 years later, creating a healthy distrust in the money/corporations behind the, sometimes outright crafted [1], early medical trials.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02299-w

Levitz• 12 months ago

You've also got the crowd who would argue that there's nothing wrong with being fat in the first place and that are scared of society pressing on this matter again after years of pushback.

grigri907• 12 months ago

That first paragraph could be the preamble to every conflict in my life and it would be evergreen

myvoiceismypass3• 12 months ago

This comment summarizes a lot of things I struggled to vocalize, thank you.

rglover4• 12 months ago

Well, considering that the drug was originally developed not for weight loss but for type 2 diabetes management, it's not terribly radical to be skeptical or outright dismissive of it as some miracle weight loss drug (even if that is a consistent side-effect).

The whole rush to get people on the thing feels like an opportunistic pharma grab (because it is). The outcome of those sorts of things is never in favor of the individual or their well being.

bsder• 12 months ago

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain.

Some of us also remember previous weight loss drugs which had similar levels of hype and later got pulled because of really bad side effects.

If I needed to lose 100+ pounds, I'd be at my doctor tomorrow asking for it. The side effects of 100+ pounds are way worse than anything semaglutide might cause.

For people who are using it to lose 10-20 pounds, the tradeoff isn't as clear.

I am cautiously optimistic and hope that semaglutide lives up to the hype. lots of people will benefit if it does.

aydyn• 12 months ago

find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain.

Its just inductive reasoning. Most things are not free, let alone miracles. Nearly everything in life has a cost.

danielvaughn• 12 months ago

I’m in the cautiously optimistic camp. I’ve seen two people puke their guts out the day of their doses, but nausea isn’t so bad compared to the health consequences of being overweight.

jonny_eh2• 12 months ago

It’s the same people that hate vaccines, fluoride, and sugar substitutes. They feel like those interventions are too good to be true.

anitil4• 12 months ago

I see a similar hesitancy around anti-alcohol addition treatments like naltrexone. People almost _want_ it to be difficult to quit (or lose weight), like there should be some moral struggle associated with it

radicaldreamer• 12 months ago

Its the same root cause: they think alcoholism or alcohol dependency is a moral failing so there should be struggle and punishment to overcome it.

HWR_14• 12 months ago

In part that's because historically weight loss drugs have had nasty side effects that only become apparent after years of use.

diego_sandoval• 12 months ago

It's similar to the hate that some people have for SSRIs when they've never tried one.

myvoiceismypass3• 12 months ago

Apologies if this sounds argumentative but I would be super curious of the cross-section of people that are pro-semaglutides and also anti-vaccine. I am fascinated by that too! (And I trust that HN will share a lot of great datapoints)

mlyle• 12 months ago

I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable

Yah.. The track record for public health related items that have a really rapid uptake after release is not great.

strken4• 12 months ago

"No free lunch" is a reasonable question to ask when evaluating medication, if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people. I think this is behind some of the skepticism. If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1? How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them?

I would guess that getting fat in times of plenty was a feature and not a bug in the ancestral environment, and that's why we get fat today, which is obvious if you think about it. Still, it means GLP-1 agonists are smacking into quick "is it bullshit?" heuristics for a lot of people.

The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; stimulants, which cause your heart to fail; parasitic intestinal worms, which can kill you but more importantly are just plain gross; and mitochondrial uncouplers, which set you on fire at a cellular level. That's a long history of miracle weight loss drugs which turn out to have horrible side effects. It's not reasonable to think GLP-1 is bad just because of other drugs with different mechanisms, but it certainly causes some skepticism anyway.

rbranson• 12 months ago

none of the things you cited are “miracle weight loss drugs.” they are things people did to lose weight. these are the first class of drugs that actually cause people to lose weight.

throwup2386• 12 months ago

How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them?

There are several reasons: Chimps have a higher density of testosterone receptors with a higher sensitivity than humans. Compared to humans, they are essentially roided out all the time.

Humans are also hairless endurance hunters so we naturally have much larger fat reserves (15-25% of body weight vs <10% for chimps) in order to retain body heat and have enough energy to hunt prey till they collapse from exhaustion.

wraptile• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1

This strays too far into appeal to nature teritory. Evolution made us fit to reproduce not to age.

As for "no free lunch" - we do have a lot of that in medicine historically speaking: iodine salt, clean water, vitamins (C, D), iron supplements, hormone theraphy, vaccines. The field of medicine is no stranger to free lunch.

b800h• 12 months ago

The other side of this is related to morals. People learned self-discipline by having to moderate their diet. Replacing that challenge with an injection is another example of a world in which people are not challenged to grow as people, but merely go out and buy something to make themselves feel or look better.

WithinReason2• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

To store calories so you don't starve. This is a failure mode of evolution and there is in fact "free lunch" when we use technology to reoptimise our bodies to calorie abundance

Nesco4• 12 months ago

I am pretty sure uncouplers will make a come back. Just something a little more targeted and safer than good ol’ DNP

jxf• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

We don't know. But one early signal is that you lose an atypical combination of muscle mass and not just fat, which is not a good evolutionary adaptation if you are an endurance hunter.

https://healthcare.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2025/08/new-study-...

eru13• 12 months ago

The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; [...]

Nicotine works just fine as an appetite suppressant without the carcinogenic tar you get from burning tobacco leaves. Similar for other stimulants or stimulant-like substances.

But I agree that they get a bad reputation, despite actually working pretty well, and with manageable side-effects: not worse than what I've heard about the nausea people get on GLP-1 drugs, and much better than the health effects of obesity.

benchly2• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great, how come our bodies don't just...

While I agree with your sentiment, your argument here assumes the human body always makes intelligent decisions for itself. My obstructive sleep apnea would like a word. After it's done choking me awake, of course.

The body is a marvelous machine, but it is far from a perfect or intelligent design. We are lucky to have what we have, but expect operating mistakes.

highfrequency• 12 months ago

"No free lunch" is not good intuition for many biological processes. There has been near zero evolutionary pressure toward improvements that primarily manifest after age 60.

Separately, evolution took place in a very energy and calorie constrained environment which is very dissimilar to today's world. Many people do not feel spontaneous desire to fast or run laps even though these are clearly beneficial.

Fargren4• 12 months ago

if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people

Evolution led to the intelligence that led to creating Ozempic. Maybe that's the mechanism by which evolution is improving evolutionary fitness. The idea that what was created by man is not part of evolution is part of the naturalism fallacy; it's the false belief that the domain of nature stops at the doors of the lab.

fnord77• 12 months ago

"no free lunch" usually boils down to violating some law of thermodynamics.

since we're preventing the body from adding excess potential energy to the system, I don't think this is violating any no-free-lunch rules.

AngryData• 12 months ago

I agree with you overall, but humans atrophying muscle away so rapidly, and also building muscle so quickly, is fairly unique to humans so im not sure there has to be a downside to being shredded all the time like a gorilla through some sort of medical treatment in the future. We certainly haven't figured that out now, but I wouldn't be surprised if some gene therapy and chemical cocktail couldn't allow it safely someday. From everything ive seen it seems to be just a calorie saving adaptation so more energy can go to the brain. And perhaps make more varied and specialized living strategies, made possible thanks to our brain, more efficient by not supporting large muscle groups we don't always need.

Of course maybe its not possible, but it is the default for pretty much every other animal so its not like it is trying something completely outrageous like trying to eliminate sleep.

lo_zamoyski5• 12 months ago

cheese grater abs

Washboard abs?

jart6• 12 months ago

It only makes sense if you understand that everyone is being poisoned, and this is the cure.

VeejayRampay• 12 months ago

that's not why we get fat

we get fat because of the american diet, priori to which people in the world were actually not that fat

the lack of fermented food, the epidemics of ultra-processed, ultra-rich and grotesquely fat and sugary food is why people have gotten fat, which is a relatively recent phenomenon (and which is not as widespread in culture that resist the American diet the most like the French and the Japanese)

wkat42422• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

Because our bodies have been tuned to deal with food shortages for hundreds of thousands of years. Now we live in an age of abundance but our bodies still try to harvest each calorie they can get.

If this continues we might evolve to no longer store surplus calories as fat. Though I doubt it because the age people die from overweight related issues is way after the age most people have kids at.

But I imagine that soon we will be able to directly tune some of that evolutionary bagage that no longer applies, by gene modification.

gniv• 12 months ago

This blog post by Derek Thompson answered a lot of questions for me: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-...

In particular it seems Ozempic has anti-inflamatory effects which could explain a lot of these non-weight-loss-related results.

tomrod3• 12 months ago

our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1

Dominant subgroups in a species are dominant because their parents survived that last set of pressures (external death inducements) at a higher rate than other subgroups -- but won't necessarily see the same results with the current set.

Even 90 years ago, there was significant loss of life due to famine, so selection was towards people who could efficiently gain and store calories in a biological Keynesian strategy. Now we have the opposite problem -- abundance of life-sustaining food produced for cheap but good quality food is expensive (in the US -- many other parts of the world have their quality food cheaper but I digress). So there hasn't been enough pressure (external-induced death) for GLP-1.

As a species with a remarkable ability to modify its environment to suit our purposes, body response to disease is just another thing to modify.

physPop• 12 months ago

Because over the course of a billion years of history, evolutionary pressures essentially end after child-rearing ages.

jghn• 12 months ago

if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people

The issue with this logic is that evolution tends to find local, not global, maxima

sumeno4• 12 months ago

If not having cancer is so great why don't our bodies just not make cancer cells?

Weight loss aids are given far more scrutiny because people wrongly view it as a moral failing

api• 12 months ago

Natural selection optimizes for long term survival of genes. Humans are probably long-lived because we have high maintenance offspring and a survival strategy built around communicating culture, but this only necessitates survival through 2-3 generations worth of time. Anything beyond that won't be selected for.

Same with health, etc. A bio professor once said "life doesn't work perfectly, it just works." There's a lot left on the table because evolution optimizes for the median case over time.

paulcole2• 12 months ago

If insulin is so great why does my pancreas simply not produce it?

JumpCrisscross10• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

Idk, why can’t we synthesise vitamin C? Why do we have a bent oesophagus prone to choking and heads bigger than womena’ hips?

We weren’t intelligently designed. To the degree we were optimised for anything it isn’t the modern environment. A lot of pushback against medicine in general seems to derive from an underlying belief in an innate perfection of human biology.

random3• 12 months ago

I'm one of those watching on the side, wishing there would be a holistic, aggregated, view on all pros/cons that highlight each results statistical relevance as well (in particular it'd be great to understand test samples).

On the natural evolution. I think it's best to think of it as a proces, with optimal state being a limit (e.g. in time, in total population), but especially in a changing environment. So, as it became easier to procure/produce fats or sugars there can be local sub-optimal states. So, in this framework, th "how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?" question, can be answered with the fact that it's possible that we just haven't adapted yet. If we end up back to previous availability.— e.g. we lose farm land and "starve" again it would end up being the right evolutionary speed, if not, those that naturally produce more, may end up becomign majoritary.

The bottom line is that natural evolution is a long term process that's adapting things to long term changes and "long" here can mean many generations.

In a sense, philsophically, I wonder what prevents our own "changes" to be just a natural evolution of the natural evolution— i.e. a "conscious" evolution.

CyanLite2• 12 months ago

Our bodies haven’t evolved yet to produce more GLP-1 because until recently (~70 years ago) malnutrition and hunger had been one of the top killers of humans. Frankly put, we weren’t designed to live this long.

We’re designed to consume calories and store those calories indefinitely to meet short term needs, rather than lifelong health.

But we weren’t also designed to consume microplastics, artificial sweeteners, or flavors designed in a laboratory. Yet here we are. And it’s quite probable those things contribute to obesity.

427728277• 12 months ago

If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1? How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them?

Evolution favored this level of GLP1, then we invented agriculture, and cooking, and bliss points. Now it’s far easier to ingest massive numbers of calories in ways that our old world systems can’t properly signal against. Evolution hasn’t caught up and maybe never will.

loeg6• 12 months ago

"No free lunch" is a reasonable question to ask when evaluating medication, if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people. I think this is behind some of the skepticism. If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1?

We can do science and technology on timescales vastly faster than evolution. "Why didn't evolution do it?" is just a very irrelevant question.

The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; stimulants, which cause your heart to fail; parasitic intestinal worms, which can kill you but more importantly are just plain gross; and mitochondrial uncouplers, which set you on fire at a cellular level. That's a long history of miracle weight loss drugs which turn out to have horrible side effects.

Cigarettes, parasitic worms, and 2,4-DNP were never medications.

elzbardico3• 12 months ago

"No free lunch" is a heuristic, a useful one most of the time, just that.

But it is not a hard nature law such as the speed of light in vacuum.

djtango2• 12 months ago

I studied chemistry at university and my master's was in medicinal chemistry.

My main takeaway was that "chemicals = bad" is a better heuristic for a starting point where you then look for exceptions or accept them as the last resort after exhausting other options.

Would you let AI loose on the software of your airplanes or nuclear power plants? Medicine is like a sensible idea that should be ok but is hard to rein in and localise to just the area of effect, we hope that it only makes the change we ask from it but we ultimately can't really say with certainty that it isn't also doing something else

I'm actually generally more surprised that people are so trusting of taking medicines and pop pills like they're candy

anal_reactor3• 12 months ago

I think Ozempic is just a symbol of what modern life looks like. Obesity is a problem that 100% could be solved with a cultural shift (see Japan), but instead we decide to use medicine. It's like, humanity at large grew such big brains because there was evolutionary pressure to be intelligent, but now we're using intelligence to remove that pressure. Which would make sense if we redirected that intelligence to something else, but we don't.

I think the reason why we don't see aliens is that intelligent life isn't sustainable long-term, and there's a long list of reasons why intelligence leads to self-destruction.

rvba• 12 months ago

Sure, a lot of problems could be solved with a cultural shift, but most people are in a rat race to survive

And those in politics are not interested in change since because (the cynical part starts here) they are selected / sponsored by billionaires who own the media, or go to politics as a job and not to help anyone but themselves

On a side note storing fat to feed the brain in case of bad times makes sense. In the past there were no convinience stores, nor refridgerators

Fargren4• 12 months ago

The way Japan "solves" obesity is quite cruel on those it does not work for. Overweight natives are not treated kindly. I think creating a medicine to make this easier is a moral good, and a sign of kindness and intelligence. Hopefully the aliens also agree.

Cthulhu_2• 12 months ago

Some studies have shown people just drop back to their old habits when they stop, and that long-term use isn't good (pancreas, kidneys, etc). It's life changing for some, but like any medication, it shouldn't be used casually.

RataNova5• 12 months ago

Part of it probably stems from how fast they went mainstream, especially with the weight loss hype

arkh• 12 months ago

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain.

There have been some scandals about "miracle drugs" which bad effects have been found only years after being on the market. And side effects can be crazy: I use D2 agonists which works wonder to handle a prolactinoma (like shrinking a tumor with a simple pill every 2 weeks wonder), side effects of this kind of medication can be different addictions (sex, gambling, purchasing etc.) which is always fun when you're one in a thousands to get it.

ggm• 12 months ago

I think you've got to the nub of it. I worry about e.g. gall stones risk in 10y. But, friends worry it shows a lack of moral fibre or something. They aren't the same kind of worry. One is paranoia about past drug emerging issues and the other is tied up in belief eg poor addicts own their own fate, fat people should htf and eat less, depression isn't real... it's usually a short path to "I don't want to have socialised medicine for poor and old people"

lm284694• 12 months ago

It's a tool, like anti antidepressants. When used right and in the good settings they can be amazing, when used as a magical pill without treating the underlying issues and not understanding its mechanism of action you're in trouble.

I know people who used anti depressants for a few weeks, while going to therapy and fixing their shit, they were out of trouble in less than 6 months. But I also know people who've been basically been taking pills for their entire adult life with absolutely no sign of getting better, the pills just make them cope slightly with their shitty routine/job/&c. while completely destroying their body and making them numb to everything. Same for ozempic, I know people who think you just swallow the pill and that's it, they still have horrendous diets, drink 800cal stabucks "coffee", snacks on sweets all day long, and they're actually gaining weight...

Another good example would be sleeping pills, take them once a year to fix your jetlag and they're amazing. Take them for 10 years because you can't fix your routineof watching tv shows in bed until 1am and "need" pills to fall asleep quickly, you'll just fuck up your circadian rhythm for good and it'll be 10 times harder to get out of the cycle

If you truly want to fix your shit virtually any tool is good, but if you just want a magic pill without putting any work you're doomed, the main issue is that it's advertised and sold as a magic pill

RivieraKid2• 12 months ago

It can result in a loss of relative status or self-esteem for the people who are fit. If I'm fit thanks to some combination of genetics and lifestyle, this fact is probably a source of my self-esteem, it's something that makes me better than most people in a certain aspect.

gadders• 12 months ago

I don't think it is unequivocally a good thing, but it is probably significantly less bad for you than being morbidly obese.

sjw9876• 12 months ago

I think it's because their use comes across for many users as lazy. It reflects poorly on peoples state of discipline and willpower. I wouldn't judge somebody morbidly obese using these to get down to a lower weight to healthily exercise and eat less. But I definitely judge people who are taking these who are only marginally overweight or actually normal weight.

Imagine kids that want to eat chicken nuggets and sweets and don't want to do any exercise because it's hard or makes them briefly uncomfortable. Then apply that image to people over the age of 10.

When I started gaining weight in the past, I changed my diet (permanently up to this point) and got set on a fitness path. These things greatly improved my life and improved my outlook on life. Somebody who just grabs an injection isn't getting that same change in outlook. They're just handling the symptoms instead of addressing the root cause.

wkat42422• 12 months ago

Yeah they are often the people that don't understand overweight because it's an issue they don't have. They view it as an easy out. Which it is but the harder solution is much more difficult for some people.

It's the same with people without mental illness. They often have this "just don't be depressed" attitude.

tomxor2• 12 months ago

I find it amusing that a pretty large group of people need to believe it's some kind of elixir of youth.

Did you read the abstract? It "reduces aging" in a highly selective group of people with accelerated aging from secondary effects of obesity.

people with HIV-associated lipohypertrophy disease, a condition characterized by excess fat accumulation and accelerated cellular aging

What's next? "Ozempic shows anti-gravity effects in humans"?

Yes it makes you less hungry, no that's not a solution to the underlying issue of economically induced, nationwide shit nutrition and the enevitble overeating and health issues that ensue.. it's a dodgy crutch.

glenstein• 12 months ago

and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain.

I've seen the same thing and it's simultaneously depressing and fascinating. I think it's a variation of the just world hypothesis. People think in terms of narratives, and so if something bad happened, there must be some moral or reason that rationalizes it. And if something's just good, there must be some catch or hidden secret.

So we can't have a conversation about the positive effects of ozempic without people coming in by the droves speculating that it's part of some hidden trade-off. Because it feels like doing that even without evidence counts as informed skepticism.

koliber3• 12 months ago

I was one of them, and changed my mind. Ozempic seemed like too much of a wonder drug. Being conditioned that some things just seem too good to be true I avoided it for many years. But as the number of years passed and the amount of evidence of ill effects remained steady, the scale flipped and I got enough assurance that it's not just brilliant marketing or malicious evidence hiding. I guess that I would like to define myself as "cautiously optimistic" but in the back of my mind it seemed like there was something there that was not being revealed.

I've been taking it for a few months now and it really does seem like a wonder drug. All the benefits I needed without any noticeable drawbacks. It's weirdly good.

wolfi1• 12 months ago

Is the term "biological age" even well defined?

sharkjacobs2• 12 months ago

Presumably it is in the narrow context of the study, since they need something they can consistently measure and compare

The researchers used epigenetic clocks to assess biological aging - sophisticated tools that identify patterns of DNA methylation, chemical tags that affect gene activity and shift predictably with age

sharkjacobs2• 12 months ago

I think you're very correct to identify the gulf between what the average MedPath headline reader understands "biological age" to mean, and the very specific chemical tags being measured and reported

lysecret• 12 months ago

It’s so fascinating that we just keep on finding more positive effects.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

We also like to keep track of all the bad ones too[0] (tl;dr they're actually pretty reasonable).

It's amazing what lowering inflation, reducing body weight can do to the body. It's almost becoming irrelevant that GLP1 Receptor Agonists were originally for type 2 diabetes (i.e. reducing HbA1c) -- the effects are profound. Kidney health, heart health, overall health, longer lives -- all for the low low cost of gastrointestinal problems (which can be serious, especially if dehydrated).

[0] https://glp1.guide/content/are-glp1-side-effects-all-the-sam...

mensetmanusman3• 12 months ago

They are all downstream from obesity; so it’s obvious from that standpoint since obesity is so dangerous.

sjw9876• 12 months ago

It's fascinating that many of the benefits are the same benefits as just losing weight in general.

JumpCrisscross10• 12 months ago

many of the benefits are the same benefits as just losing weight in general

Many, but not all. Losing weight through diet and exercise has no effect on alcoholism, for example.

thurn• 12 months ago

Are we close to having generic semaglutides e.g. available in India? Or locked into high prices for the foreseeable future?

Someone12343• 12 months ago

Generic Semaglutide is already produced on a massive scale throughout the world. However, it is unlawful to import and sell and will remain so until 2032 in the USA.

In other markets, where it is under patent, it is significantly cheaper than the $500/month or more in the US currently. For example in the UK it is roughly $150/month USD privately (i.e. not through the NHS).

In China it will be out of patent within two years.

readthenotes15• 12 months ago

Iirc, that pricing will change in the US as Trump will require that the price of drugs to Medicaid patients must match or be less than that of any other developed nation.

Since about 1/4 of the people in the US are on medicaid, close to 90 million, that means the drug manufacturers will probably raise the price for everyone else in the US because they got to get their profits somehow...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-pr...

radiofreeeuropa9• 12 months ago

There's a whole little online subculture of people in the US importing the precursors and making it themselves at home for dirt-cheap.

I gather it's extremely easy and basically fool-proof, as far as producing the desired drug and not producing some other, undesired drug. Much easier than, say, home-brewing beer. The risk is all in contamination, which presents a vector for infection.

[EDIT] I don't mean to downplay the risks or suggest people go do this, only to highlight that there's enough demand for this that we're well into "life, uh, finds a way" territory, and also just how lucky (assuming these hold up as no-brainers to take for a large proportion of the population) we are that these things are so incredibly cheap and simple to make, if you take the patents out of the picture.

sonicggg• 12 months ago

It has always been available

neves3• 12 months ago

Be very cautious with these miracle drug headlines. There's a strong financial incentive to highlight only the good news.

My mother, a healthy and active 87-year-old, started taking Ozempic because she was overweight and her doctor was impressed by the drug’s supposed miracles. She ended up suffering from severe intestinal motility issues, went through a lot of pain, and had to be admitted to the ICU.

The long-term systemic effects of these drugs are still largely unknown.

jorts• 12 months ago

Haven’t these types of drugs been in use for ~15 years?

throw-qqqqq• 12 months ago

Haven’t these types of drugs been in use for ~15 years?

The predecessor of semaglutide, liraglutide has been sold since 1998. GLP-1 has been studied since the 70s. The first human was injected with GLP-1 agonists in 1993 IIRC.

jsbg2• 12 months ago

The long-term systemic effects of these drugs are still largely unknown.

The long term effects of obesity are very well known though and unlikely to be better than any still unknown negative effect semaglutide might have.

bobsmooth2• 12 months ago

You don't think her being 87 might have something to do with her complications?

XorNot5• 12 months ago

Well also short term complications don't imply long term complications.

If you're allergic to peanuts it doesn't mean everyone is going to suffer some huge medical crisis from peanuts in 20 years.

neves3• 12 months ago

It is a well Mongolian effect of Ozempic.

She stopped using the drug and the problems disappeared.

Der_Einzige4• 12 months ago

Maybe don’t give them to grandma? Idk man but at 87 anything that happens might as well have been the grim reaper deciding it was their time.

jsbg2• 12 months ago

Doesn't biological age normally go down with weight loss? Is it just a corollary of the off-label effects of the drug?

anitil4• 12 months ago

I was wondering a similar thing - even as simple as wear-and-tear on your joints, hips and back is less as a smaller bodyweight. I notice I even look younger at a lower bodyweight (up to a point)

radicalriddler• 12 months ago

It's not that it's going down, the article suggests that it slows.

If I lose 20 kilo's, my "biological age" might go down 2 years, but that doesn't mean it's "slowed"

GenBiot2• 12 months ago

Slowing in this context means going down. Basically they look at 'age acceleration', I.e. how old are you epigentically compared to chronologically. They saw a reduction of several years in this measure over a much shorter period, basically meaning their epigenetic ages went down.

Although one of the clocks they used, DunedinPACE, only looks at pace of ageing, so in that case you can only infer that it slowed (as you do not get an 'epigenetic age' figure from DunedinPACE).

HocusLocus2• 12 months ago

I guess maybe I'm one of the few who consider "reversing 3.1 biological years" to be a personal insult. Something that polled well in a group of pre-kindergarteners. What happened, some statistical bloodwork metric was tortured to produce such a claim? A mouse population survived the lab a little longer?

tzs• 12 months ago

Here's an article that answers your question [1]. It in the second bullet point near the top.

[1] https://trial.medpath.com/news/5c43f09ebb6d0f8e/ozempic-show...

HocusLocus2• 12 months ago

Yes, epigenetic clocks discovered in 2010 and even the researcher who discovered them might feel insulted by the phrase of a prescription drug declaring "reverse biological aging 3.1 years"

charlie0• 12 months ago

It it ozempic specifically or just the side effect of eating less (which also has tons of evidence for extending life)?

getpost• 12 months ago

In a recent podcast[0], Ben Bikman explained some of background and pitfalls of GLP-1 drugs. When the drugs were first prescribed, dosages were much smaller than the dosages now prescribed for weight loss. Microdosing might be a better and safer strategy.

The podcast is only 3 hours long! The GLP-1 discussion starts at 2:09:53.

[0] https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/ben-bikman

EDIT: ycopilotFYT version https://www.cofyt.app/search/dr-ben-bikman-how-to-reverse-in...

Dah00n• 12 months ago

Only 3 hours!

scrozart• 12 months ago

Lots of anecdotes and opinions in the thread. Read the post and the science.

heraldgeezer• 12 months ago

Fasting is good. I do it without medicines and crap. 24h-48h fast. Skip meals. BMI back to 19 and it feels GOOOOD BABYYY.

burnt-resistor• 12 months ago

It's not GLP-1's in particular, it's protective effects of manifold evolutionary adaptations to semi-regular caloric deficits. Cancer and CHD go way, way up with Westernized diets.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

Note that these results probably apply to Mounjaro/Zepbound as well, because they are the most effective GLP1s on the market right now:

https://glp1.guide/content/semaglutide-vs-tirzepatide-clinic...

My bet is on the reduction in inflammation -- it's a notoriously beneficial positive side effect of GLP1 Receptor Agonists, along with the obvious reduction in weight or HbA1c.

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

If you think Ozempic (Semaglutide) is good, Retatrutide is going to blow it out of the water:

https://glp1.guide/content/a-new-glp1-retatrutide/

Currently the only people experimenting with it are the underground gray market peptide enthusiasts (you can find them on reddit and elsewhere), but the results are quite intense.

[EDIT] Just to be clear, gray market Retatrutide is illegal, I'm not encouraging you to buy it or do even take GLP1s in general. The point is that we have a preview of anecdata from people (with obviously high risk tolerance) taking this drug.

toomuchtodo3• 12 months ago

What's the difficulty level of obtaining Retatrutide through non traditional channels?

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

It's completely illegal -- the drug is not for sale, obviously is not FDA approved, and is not manufactured anywhere, the only safe/legal way to get it is a via an ongoing trial:

https://trials.lilly.com/en-US/trial/580035

As one might imagine though, capitalism found a way. A LOT of compounding pharmacies are now very good at manufacturing GLP1s (not necessarily the case that the knowledge transfers, but I imagine networks/knowledge sharing groups do), so gray market has sprung up to supply adventurous people with Retatrutide.

biosboiii• 12 months ago

difficulty level: google search

gavinray3• 12 months ago

Quite easy, a single Google search

That will show you peptide sellers though with prices x10 higher than getting it directly from manufacturers in China

mmmpetrichor• 12 months ago

No need for trials, just inject it now!

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

I'm incredibly interested -- it's just not legal yet, and the drug is in trials by Eli Lilly:

https://trials.lilly.com/en-US/trial/580035

Just to be very explicit here, my profit incentive is selling newsletter subscriptions not selling drugs, if that was the worry.

The thing is that we just won't get any high quality data from the official trials for a very long time, but it looks like it's going to be even better than Tirzepatide which is the current king.

Outside of being simply well-researched, the best thing about GLP1s is that they are safe enough to be taken by millions of people (and they are) -- so anecdata is valuable. It's valuable to know what the "first adopters" are doing and what they're finding and what trends show up there.

[EDIT] Maybe I'm reading the comment wrong -- to answer with good intent assumed, I think GLP1s are basically the answer to obesity on any reasonable time frame.

GLP1s not the answer we wanted (most people would have preferred better food ingredient regulation, more people choosing healhtier lifestyles, etc), but it's the solution we're getting, it seems like.

Right now the only thing I think most can do to help this wave along (unless you're a drug manufacturer, insurer, or politician) is to share as much information as possible on positive and negative side effects, how the drugs work, why they work, etc.

[EDIT2] - Clearly there was no positive intent. I guess it's my own fault I took the time to seriously respond.

The original comment (now edited) was a question about me seeming like a disinterested third party and asking why I am discussing a gray market drug.

chhxdjsj• 12 months ago

Why use something which appears to have very similar results to tirzepatide/mounjaro but hasn’t been used by tens of millions on people without obvious issues like tirzep?

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

Well there's no reason, except it's even more effective.

And 100%, using Retatrutide right now is illegal/not a good idea. It is super risky.

That said, anecdata from people with that risk tolerance is certainly worth looking at.

bethekind• 12 months ago

If Eli Lily is the only producer, how is the gray market being supplied? This makes no sense...

That being said, I'm waiting for oral GLP1 agonists. Injections are a hassle and gray market ones even more so

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

If Eli Lily is the only producer, how is the gray market being supplied? This makes no sense...

It turns out enterprising chemists and pharmacists are capable of reverse engineering.

I don't think it's that hard to figure out how someone might do it -- imagine having to reverse engineer food you've received, given many samples. Imagine some of those samples might have "fallen off the back of a truck".

That being said, I'm waiting for oral GLP1 agonists. Injections are a hassle and gray market ones even more so

This is really going to be the second leg of adoption and will catapult GLP1s even further IMO. Rybelsus has not really seen a ton of popularity compared to the injections. That said, Orforglipron is Eli Lilly's upcoming oral GLP1 and it looks to have really good results:

https://glp1.guide/content/updates-from-maritide-orforglipro...

RataNova5• 12 months ago

The gray market stuff makes me nervous

gavinray3• 12 months ago

I've used Retatrutide and wasn't that impressed

I used 5mg/wk

(Have used Semaglutide, Tirzepatide, and Retatrutide. For Sema/Tirz, I've had both RX and grey market.)

glp1guide17• 12 months ago

Interesting -- would love to hear anything more you have to share! The research numbers would suggest that Reta was top, results wise.

Any other significant differences you felt/noticed? Also, do you find Tirz to be an imiprovement over Sema?

p1dda• 12 months ago

Please stop with these obvious pharma ads, nobody needs to take Ozempic! Change your lifestyle and most importantly: STOP EATING JUNK FOOD

drcode• 12 months ago

But junk food is fun: Maybe we can eat junk food, have fun in life, and still be reasonably healthy, with the help of science

(and if glps don't work well enough to allow this, then maybe the next medicine in the pipeline)

recursive• 12 months ago

The drug just makes you eat less.

chilldsgn2• 12 months ago

It really puzzles me how people would just pop a pill instead of make some lifestyle changes. Maybe it's just my personality type, but it disturbs me how most people just want something quick and easy instead of doing the actual work and becoming overall better via a real learning journey by struggling through changing bad habits.

But whatever, they do whatever works for them! I don't like pharma.

BirAdam• 12 months ago

Addiction is quite real, and food companies turned it into an art. For some people, quitting an addiction is easy. For others, it’s super hard.

It’s easy to say “make better habits,” but at this point, Ozempic has likely saved more lives than AA.

aaronbaugher• 12 months ago

Because when people say "just make some lifestyle changes," "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Being fat really, really sucks, so most fat people have tried to make lifestyle changes, but they've gotten a lot of bad advice over the past half-century. They've cut back on fat, especially healthy animal fats, because that's what the government/medical/nutritional complex said to do, replacing them with "healthy grains," and only gotten fatter. They've tried to trim calories or portion sizes, which is difficult and ineffective for a lot of reasons. They've tried so-called weight-loss products promoted by corporations with millions to spend pushing them. They've thrown themselves into exercise plans, and while exercise is great for a lot of reasons, it doesn't have much effect on weight loss.

Even when they go outside the mainstream and try something that can actually work, like cutting carbs or fasting, it's difficult because losing weight isn't just the reverse of gaining weight. Fat cells aren't just buckets that fat falls into and can fall out of. Once energy is stored in the form of fat, it has to be burned to be removed, which requires a different set of hormones and enzymes than storing it did. Maintaining that metabolic mix generally requires an enormous amount of willpower, not just some lifestyle tweaks. People who have plenty of willpower to succeed in other areas of life like career or relationships can be defeated by it.

I don't like big pharma either, and I'm losing weight (slowly) with fasting rather than trying these drugs. But it's hard to blame people for using them, if it's a temporary fix and they're going to maintain their new weight through diet. I'm skeptical that it'll go that way for many, but I suppose there's hope.

wpm2• 12 months ago

Oh fuck why didn’t we think of that!?

You’re so smart!

shlant6• 12 months ago

it's good we have so many geniuses in these comments solving the obesity epidemic! if only they spoke up sooner :(

stephenhandley• 12 months ago

I guess Ozempic face is what "anti-aging" looks like? Nothing to see there lol. The backlash on GLP-1s is gonna make thalidomide look like penicillin.

anovikov3• 12 months ago

I know why people hate Ozempic. It is because it devaluates struggle and voids moral superiority of those who did keep themselves from becoming obese by self-restriction before: now these people feel like fools because all of a sudden, everyone is becoming slim, and the advantage of being slim disappears. They naturally question how is it fair. Well, life's not fair.

IncreasePosts• 12 months ago

I hate ozempic because I have no reason to be prescribed it and if it has these anti aging effects or improves self control with other vices, I'm missing out and the ex-fatties will all live longer than me

anovikov3• 12 months ago

Sadly it seems to have very little effect in these domains on non-overweight people. In studies, on large groups, Ozempic helps people quit drinking a lot better than it helps quitting smoking - because alcoholics tend to be overweight but smokers tend to be skinny. The higher was someone's BMI, the more pronounced are ALL of the semaglutide effects, even those not apparently associated with weight at all.

alistairSH3• 12 months ago

As noted in the article, and in some other posts here, the effects are seen in patients who are overweight or have diabetes (and thus generally qualify for Ozempic). None of the studies I've skimmed indicate Ozempic is directly slowing aging or whatever else - it's all a knock-on effect from weight loss and calorie restriction.

IE, if you can self-restrict, you get the same benefits. You just have to deal with that little voice in your head that keeps yelling "feed me a pizza!!!" (at least that's what mine usually says).

But, yeah, I hear ya, I wouldn't mind doing a few months at a low dose to get my body fat % back down near 10%, but I'm nowhere near "needing" the drug and the only way I'm getting a prescription is probably through a shady online doctor.

woile• 12 months ago

That's if people think obesity is just the individual's fault. In nutrition there's a distinction between psychology factors, the environment (called the obesogenic environment), genetics, social factors, etc. If you live in the US it must be really hard to avoid being overloaded by food, so I think the real angry group of people will be companies, not being able to force people to eat more, I welcome that!

anovikov3• 12 months ago

Non-overweight people of course think this way, who will deny oneself a virtue?

chickenzzzzu• 12 months ago

I just started taking zepbound and I went from binge eating 2-3 times a day to eating half a meal overnight.

I've already lost 12 pounds (6% of my bodyweight) in a week, which is definitely too much, but I was full of salt. I basically pickled myself.

The side effects are quite stark. My stomach feels paralyzed. I became anorexic (again) overnight

RataNova5• 12 months ago

Worth noting: the anti-aging effects may be a byproduct of improved metabolic and inflammatory profiles, not magic cellular rejuvenation

qiine• 12 months ago

the only thing I want to know actually

ap996• 12 months ago

This, like much of the pharmaceutical approach to well-being, is treating symptoms and not the problem.

Metabolic dysfunction? Fix the metabolism.

Poor understanding of nutrition? Fix the understanding.

Lack of emotional or self-control? Fix the discipline.

Obesity is largely NOT an acute symptom and does not need an acute solution.

If you don't fix the underlying problem you will have weight issues your whole life (because it only gets worse with age).

And that means a lifelong ozempic customer.

dan-robertson• 12 months ago

Is it possible to avoid having the same discussion every time anything related to Ozempic comes up?

sjw9876• 12 months ago

It's an important discussion. We should all be aiming to do better. Instead we're just lowering the standards for everything.

Only the morbidly obese should be using these drugs to get down to a healthy enough (overweight) level to lose the rest with sensible discipline, healthy/less eating (mostly this), and exercise (less this, but important for the mind, strength and cardio).

Discipline and basic understanding of nutrition and fitness are important life skills. At some point everybody should be developing them. If people can't be arsed doing that and we give easy shortcuts for everything in life, what's the point in being alive?

This argument comes up time and time again because it's common sense, yet people always seem to want to ignore it because deep down they are being lazy and undisciplined.

briangriffinfan• 12 months ago

My manfriend is on ozempic and he always complains about how it makes him alternate between constipation and diahrrea. So it was funny to me to see it become a meme.

soulofmischief2• 12 months ago

Wow, I didn't realize the solution to all my problems is just to fix them. The answer was staring me right in the face the entire time.

While I'm at it, I should also not take ADHD medication and instead just fix my mutated dopamine circuitry.

a5c114• 12 months ago

You don't quite understand the meaning of "symptom" and "illness", do you?

Obesity - symptom. Usually the illness is a bad diet, lack of movement, or very rarely some serious health condition. Instead of targeting obesity, fix your habits or see a doctor to see why your body accumulates excessive amounts of fat.

Dopamine issues, lack of concentration, etc. - symptoms. The illness is ADHD. By taking medicines you are targeting illness, which is correct. Targeting symptoms would be me standing behind you with a metal pipe and hitting you every time you lose focus.

ap996• 12 months ago

Not all problems, but yes too much fat is one of those problems that's easier to fix.

simiones• 12 months ago

Metabolic dysfunction? Fix the metabolism.

What specific diagnosis is a "metabolic dysfunction", and how is it fixable?

niklasbuschmann• 12 months ago

You really believe that skinny people are just more disciplined than obese? I would highly doubt that most skinny people actively try to keep their weight down, it‘s just how they are.

wpm2• 12 months ago

Wow gosh you’re just so smart, no one thought of or tried anything like that before!

rpunkfu• 12 months ago

I believe that while your points are valid, they play a much more important role than merely serving as a tool for someone who doesn't want to delve deeper into the problem.

I don't think being on Ozempic for an extended period is a good idea. This isn't because it's unhealthy, but because people often become leaner while still consuming unhealthy food. The difference is that they now exclusively eatthat unhealthy food, in good case bit less of it (based on my observations of people I know who are using it).

However, there is a significant benefit to Ozempic. For individuals struggling with self-control and obesity, it can help them reach a better starting point quickly. When someone is obese, every day matters. The sooner they lose weight, the more likely they are to feel motivated to take the next steps: moving more, exercising, and avoiding unhealthy food, as they won't want to waste the hard work they put into their workouts.

ap996• 12 months ago

The problem I have with ozempic is that it's a bandaid on a deep wound.

If I can take ozempic, eat poorly (just less volume), and still lose weight then my and most people's lazy brain will say keep doing what you're doing.

When people get off ozempic they go back to the larger volume eating, and gain weight back which is mostly fat.

It's the epitome of a pharma solution: quick results, don't address underlying issues, hook the customer for life.

beeforpork• 12 months ago

Just a quick check list for better understanding of the placement of the study: Is this the first study of its kind? The only one? Is it medically and scientifically sound and well-documented? Does it apply to people without (HIV-associated) lipohypertrophy? Is the effect temporary, i.e., what happens when drug use is terminated? Does it cure the lipohypertrophy or is this a life-long disease that needs medication? How are TruDiagnostic and Novo Nordisk related to each other either generally or concerning this study?

a5c114• 12 months ago

Basically everything that can be improved by exercising and maintaining a healthy diet.

tomhow• 12 months ago

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44809189 and marked it off topic.

gcanyon• 12 months ago

The article says nothing about whether they controlled for the associated weight loss. That would still be interesting, but less surprising.

Roark66• 12 months ago

This is all nice and all, but how can they tell these benefits are from ozempic or actual calorie restriction? Were talking about people that suffer from hiv induced bad fat distribution. I assume this means they have conditions such as fatty liver etc. Simple calorie restriction will improve their life.

The study would have to do the exact same calorie restriction for both groups. One on ozempic, one without. Then if one group showed benefits that would he clear.

Even if the mechanism was something like they were stressed less by hunger.

Ozempic/semaglutide is great stuff, but it has same dangers as calorie restriction. If you don't watch carefully what you eat (increase protein, supplement with micronutrients) you can become deffiecient and end up in a very unhealthy place.

Damogran62• 12 months ago

GLP-1, amongst other things, _enables_ the calorie restriction. It takes away the noise and tendency to overeat.

wosined• 12 months ago

Where is the link to the study.

BobbyTables22• 12 months ago

Just wish there weren’t so many false “studies” promoting benefits of medications that have none. Only slightly better than 1800s snake oil…

Would be darkly hilarious if the financial cost of semaglutides is what actually contributes to the weight loss.

Ozempic is currently the NVIDIA of the pharmaceutical industry.

JumpCrisscross10• 12 months ago

Only slightly better than 1800s snake oil

In the same vein folks were disputing the validity of vitamin C until WWII [1].

There is no shortcut to science. You have to weigh the evidence. Currently, the evidence in favour of GLP-1 agonists is overwhelmingly positive.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23183299/

paulcole2• 12 months ago

Just wish there weren’t so many false “studies” promoting benefits of medications that have none

What’s an example of such a study?

BobbyTables22• 11 months ago

How about “Phenylephrine”?

It’s nearly 100 years old and widely used after Pseudoephedrine was more restricted so people couldn’t make meth as easily.

Yet, studies not conducted by pharmaceutical manufacturers find it mostly ineffective. Of course, the drug companies publish studies showing it to be effective…

Have you ever taken each (not together)? I’ve never heard someone say Phenylephrine did anything for them. Anecdotally, it’s utterly useless for me…

I suspect drug companies didn’t want restriction of Pseudoephedrine to decrease sales, so they pushed crap forward to maintain revenue.

(Yes, it still isn’t all that hard to get Pseudoephedrine, but one can’t just pick it off the shelf — a significant mental barrier)

PeterStuer• 12 months ago

It works because people feel 'full' sooner. They do still try to overeat, but feel they can't (and yes, there is habituation as they try day in day out). I'm pretty sure the food industry has been working on a neutralizing agent to add to their preparations since day 1, so the 'victory' wont last.

As for longer term consequences? Who knows?

shlant6• 12 months ago

it's clear you have a personal bone to pick because your comment is so off base

sameesh• 12 months ago

It sounds like the researchers failed to compare their semaglutide group to a calorie-controlled placebo group. The beneficial changes noted in the semaglutide group could very well be due to reduced calorie diet, rather than a specific effect of the drug itself.

This is why people end up skeptical of academic types and science publications.

eirikbakke• 12 months ago

This is a weird (possibly AI-generated?) summary of an article pre-print that is not even cited on the page. I think it's this one: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.09.25331038v...

Best to wait for the final, peer reviewed version of the article.

ACV001• 12 months ago

bullshit to increase sales

koliber3• 12 months ago

I'm curious how they measured the biological age. My trainer has a scale that measures biological age and it seems very correlated with weight. When I weight less I am biologically younger, and vice versa. Ozempic does a good job at aiding weight loss, so I am wondering if this is a large contributor to the effect they saw.

roody15• 12 months ago

Reduced calories also associated with anti aging effects ?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9042193/

Maybe related with Ozempic?

Oceoss• 12 months ago

Be careful when you read 'anti-aging' it's very often just clickbait

tracker12• 12 months ago

In my experience it also showed gastroparesis and fecal vomiting over the course of a couple years. Coming off meant the feeling of starvation 24/7 for about 11 months before starting to get better, and 1.5 years off the medication now, I'm still having digestive issues.

Went back to keto (mostly carnivore) in May and a few pounds away from 50# down from my max weight, managed to cut way back on insulin (some days not needing any).

Overall, I wish I'd never heard of Trulicity or Ozempic. I didn't lose weight on them, and the seriously messed me up. The negative effects of coming off are pretty bad on their own on top.

declan_roberts2• 12 months ago

You have fecal vomiting and stayed on the drug for years?

tracker12• 12 months ago

It's not like it started a day after I first took the drug, my gastro issues got worse over the course of the time I was on it. I didn't know it was being caused by it. I was literally seeing 3 doctors over the gastro issues... wasn't until the lawsuit against Trulicity that I put it together and stopped taking it.

But sure, it's MY fault I didn't figure out what several doctors didn't over the course of that second-third year or so.

smeeger• 12 months ago

literally every time i turn around there is another convincing case study indicating that everyone should be taking ozempic. when they work the bugs out of ozempic it will truly be awesome

Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

Related Stories