All these weight loss drugs... surely we are heading towards disaster?

[shellswirl]

So as we all know there are various weight loss drugs that have become very popular in recent months.

It seems like the whole of Hollywood is using it.

Even regular people are spending huge amounts of money on it from online pharmacies.

I get that these drugs might be useful for certain people with real medical conditions, but really a lot of people are using it as a quick fix to be thin.

With no consideration to side effects or future health. And without thinking about what happens when you stop it?

Surely the best way to lose weight involves no drugs. No fad diets. But exercising more, moving more, eating a balanced diet. Retraining your brain and finding food and exercise you enjoy.

I say this as an overweight person too! Surely there are other ways.

If every other person is taking these drugs won't there be a huge pool of people to monitor side effects etc?

Aibu to say the whole thing makes me feel very uneasy.

Seems they’re highly effective at preventing heart attacks, with or without weight loss.

The drugs have been tested like any drugs. Obesity is bad for health.

This is a useful article as it contains information from experts in obesity within the medical profession such as

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57419041.amp

Dr Abd Tahrani, a senior lecturer in obesity medicine at the University of Birmingham, says there are a lot of people who are "biologically pre-designed to conserve energy", which is stored as fat. He explains that signals from the hypothalamus - the part of the brain that controls appetite - bombard the person with feelings of hunger and a desire to eat, that are almost impossible to fight.

So even if the person successfully loses several stone by dieting, their body remembers its baseline weight and strives to return to it.

Also

Too many weight management programmes for those living with obesity begin with "moving more and eating less", which in reality is a prevention for obesity, not a cure.

"The number of people I've encountered in my 30-year career who've been able to go from morbid obesity, to normal weight, and sustain it by dieting alone - well I don't think I've ever met one. It's so hard to do."

To me it seems positive. We're in an obesity epidemic.

@Etincelle
Well said.
They don't just bring them out without years of testing.
Mounjaro is for type 2 diabetes..
It just so happens it helps you loose weight too.
Just like some people have anorexia...some people have the opposite.. it's a serious illness.
Slimming world has been scientifically proven to be more dangerous than mounjaro.

Yeah I agree, and I think it's a slippery slope. It's very sad that people feel they have to take DRUGS to lose weight.

And I'm not naming names, but I have seen a few celebrities who have had these kind of weight loss drugs, and they have lost weight, but they look so gaunt and skeletal, and much older than they actually are. I don't think for one second, that this speedy weight loss (powered by drugs) can possibly be any good for anyone long term.

Me too.

I think it's becoming a far-right conspiracy staple to wring your hands and deride weight loss injections, though. It's on the list with covid vaccines and face masks.

Why "DRUGS"?

Why not just type "medications" like a calm, sane person?

but really a lot of people are using it as a quick fix to be thin.

It's not a quick fix though is it. They aren't magic, you don't just inject them and wake up a week later having lost 10 stone. People still have to work hard, be careful with what they eat, exercise etc

My mother died aged 31 from obesity related conditions. Up to her late 30s she was healthy. Then weight crept on, things started failing and she developed diabetes which was uncontrollable.
Aged 30, I put on 3 stones in a year. I was eating 1360 calories a day maximum. I tried to cycle like I would previously but had no energy at all. Migraines were a daily occupancy. My hair started falling out, I got muscle wastage and I felt like I was dieing.
My GP was useless but eventually I got referred to an endocrinologist. They were very unhelpful until I mentioned my mother. By this point I was 32 and very obese. Eyebrows were raised and they took me seriously. They done a whole hormone profile and saw that my ovaries had given up, my cortisol was through the roof, my testerone double the highest range for a female, and I had insulin resistance. I was on the precipice of developing diabetes and going just like my mum. There's still no official diagnosis, 2 years on but I take a cocktail of drugs to manage things. HRT, metformin, various vitamins and supplements and I have found out I'm also protein deficient so my body doesn't seem to absorb as much from food as a normal person. It's a recipe for disaster essentially.
I lost 2 stone of the 5 I gained making lifestyle changes and the medication working. But I am still obese. I cannot lose the belly, fat upper arms and I want to feel healthy. I want to feel attractive. I don't want to be fat or be reminded that I am so much like my mother and am a ticking time bomb.
So I started mounjaro, out of my own pocket. I'm on my 3rd week and have lost 2.7kg in that time. The belly is disappearing. My cravings for sugar and waking up starving every day has gone.
I'm aware it's not a cure. I'm aware that I will need to stop it one day. But right now it's helping my form good habits and forcing me to rethink my lifestyle and diet whilst giving me the breathing space to do so.
I'm hoping it will stop lessen my risk of developing diabetes and maybe even let my body start it's own natural cycles again, giving me my fertility back.
Why is this something to be concerned about?

I don't think anyone believes that you will take one dose, and be 10 stone lighter the following week FFS. 🙄

But it's a sad situation we are in, when people have to take DRUGS to lose weight!

It's definitely my healthier to stay slim/lose weight through healthy diet and exercise. Sadly a lot of people can't manage this. Look around you.

Yeah, everyone's buying them so diabetics can't get a hold of them.

No they are not.

Morunjaro is specifically made for weightloss only, no diabetic is ever prescribed this for diabetes. It's not taking anything away from any one.

It's also a sad situation we are in when we live in a world of addictive lab made fast food that is more of a drug than a source of nourishment.

Those medications are revolutionary. Just like vaccines, antidepressants, and others that came before and largely helped to combat deadly diseases.
If it helps people to slim down and maintain a healthy weight, with all the health benefits and improved length and quality of life, then YES FUCKING PLEASE, I say 🙌

Jesus.

The world is filled with fat shamers. You can't open a newspaper without seeing Obesity Crisis! headlines.

Some people are using well-tested medication to help them to better their health. And they're still being shamed.

I'm embarrassed to be obese. I wish I wasn't. I wish I could improve my health and well-being without medication. But I can't. I've tried. I've tried really hard.

I'm researching these meds to see if they'd be suitable for me. It's not an easy decision. If I do go ahead, I'll likely keep it secret because of the shame.

The ignorance and prejudice on this issue is enormous.
There is a difference between being overweight and really fat, so much that it impacts your health both mental and physical.
There is huge resistance to see obesity as a complex medical issue which for many, many people it 100% is.
Food addiction as a means of coping with psychological and physical pain is real.
The thing is that society finds fat disgusting, lazy, dirty, less than. It is viewed in a way that other addictions are not and it is easy to judge fat people because our addiction is always visible.
Weight loss medication and surgery are the only thing to really help people with serious weight problems and I am sure this branch of medicine will develop further in the future.
As for it being a “quick fix” what utter bollocks. It’s not a magic wand plus 99% of people have to self fund weight loss injections as they are rarer than gold dust via the NHS and take years to access even if you were to try.
Clearly society has no empathy or understanding of the facts and science of the issue and would prefer to see fat people suitably punished by being left to manage this complex health problem themselves.
If diet and exercise advice worked for everyone then there would be no fat people. We are not stupid and public shaming is not helpful, nor do I think it is meant to be. I think some people just enjoy having a group to look down upon and no matter how shit you are you can always feel better by thinking Well at least I am not fat.
Bog off with your uneducated judgements.

I wonder if the true answer for a lot of people is in the food we eat. There is so much processed muck. We've been conditioned to eat it. Go to the supermarket and there's thousands of things wrapped in plastic, in boxes with weird ingredients.

100 years ago food was simple. Grains, meat, fruit, veg...

If I was "president of the world" I would tackle the food industry. And educate kids better. I wound also invest more money in sports. The uk has bloody awful track record for investing in sports compared to counties like the USA and australia.

These medications are not the answer in my mind.

Medications have their place for sure but in my mind they are for things we don't have a solution for already. And in this case there are other viable solutions.

Too many people are miserable because of obesity so I think they’re a good thing if they’re used to help reset attitudes to food and diet. I don’t think they should be a longterm solution.

I took Saxenda for three months in 2022. It helped break the cycle of yoyo dieting, binging and purging that I’d been on since I was 11. It cancelled out all food noise and genuinely changed my appetite completely. I started eating one meal a day and was able to continue doing that after I came off it. I have since lost 6.5 stone and still going. It changed my life and I have absolutely no regrets about taking it. Without it I would have been morbidly obese for the rest of my life.

I'm only wary of them because there's no data on the long term (10/20 year) impact that they might have. But we do know that obesity does have long term health implications so it's a balance of risk really.

I’m uneasy about the hype surrounding them as some kind of miracle cure, what happens when you stop? I think they probably have their place for someone who is very morbidly obese and at risk of dying early but for people just a stone or so overweight (or a few lbs in celeb land) I don’t think the risks are worth it.
And yes the fact diabetics can’t get hold of them is dreadful.

I have to say @Gazelda I'm more scared of obesity for the nastiness it attracts than I am worried about what the health implications would be. Which is nuts, but it reflects our society's demented nastiness towards fat people.

I've gained two stubborn stone since sustaining a spinal injury and I'm aware it could spiral further. The layers of attitudinal shame about overweight really don't help.

Anyway, I sympathise and good luck with your efforts.

Also there aren’t other “viable solutions”. A cursory google will tell you that the only other long term solution that genuinely helps people
lose weight and keep it off is surgery. In the vast majority of cases, nothing else works.

You are not being unreasonable at all.

What I find disturbing is the amount of money being diverted/invested by companies (like my employer) to manufacture weight loss drugs which is being taken away from research into diseases which are not primarily caused by society.
At some level I actually find it obscene.