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.

@Babadoobiedoo that's interesting data.

Wonder what the data would be if we sorted out the food industry and stopped supermarkets selling this garbage and all the chemical food. And if bread wasn't made of 80 ingredients. Etc etc

What disaster do you fear?

YANBU for feeling uneasy

YABU for judging how other people chose to lose weight

And this is quite helpful to explain why.

@User14March you either meet the criteria or you don’t. ‘Barely’ meeting the threshold is still meeting the threshold.

Even alcoholics have medication now which reduces the desire to drink. I don't recall when that even became a thing, because it seems to have been introduced without any big fuss and without people criticising medication saying why do they need that when they could just stop drinking!

@Babadoobiedoo true, I mean BMI 24-27 or so, bordering on overweight category at upper end. Not obese in other words.

All we need now is a pill that you can take instead of exercising!

@0sm0nthus I expect in pipeline :) but exercise can be fun especially if light on feet, IME.

You are still obese if you barely meet the criteria. I’d tipped into a bmi of 31 when I started. I’d had 6 months of calorie counting/protein target/weight training/10,000 steps trying and failing to lose.
I am doing the same on mounjaro, actively dieting.
What it’s enabled me to do is actually lose. It’s not falling off me I’m averaging 1.5lb a week but I’m losing. Who knew eating in a calorie deficit and exercising could actually work!

Sure, it is widely accepted that changes towards an obesogenic environment contribute to the obesity epidemic - all for someone sorting that out if they can. In the meantime, this is the world I live in, and glp-1s are one tool for counterbalancing that and helping many regain / maintain health. I wouldn’t demonise use of inhalers, which have surged due to decreasing air quality.

Unfortunately I don’t think we are going to turn the clock back 100 years on food and lifestyle - not that I think we would entirely want to.

It's what is going on in the body that is considered a disease. Things are malfunctioning, hormones are misfiring etc.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK572076/#:~:text=Obesity%20is%20a%20chronic%20disease,defective%20hormonal%20and%20immune%20system.

From the oxford dictionary
Disease -
a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that has a known cause and a distinctive group of symptoms, signs, or anatomical changes.

I think certain ethnicities can get prescribed at 27 as they are obese at that weight and need to be under 23 for healthy bmi and top end overweight plus some associated medical conditions can qualify.

@Bossladywood

To answer your question: The disasters I fear;

That it's too good to be true. That in 5 years we will be seeing increase in thyroid cancer or bowel issues or brain chemistry issues

That diabetics won't be able to get it

That children will not learn about nutrition and healthy food or sport... they don't need to bother now there is the drug.

That people will abuse it. 17 year old me would have wanted it (17 year old me thought 10 stone was disgusting and was friends with people that idolised Kate moss and starved themselves)

What happens when or if people want to come off it?

That we aren't tackling the real causes here... food industry as one major example

That we aren't tackling the cause of individual obesity eg stress, boredom, habit, time and money constraints.

That celebs are becoming the stars of this. The face of these drugs.

I could go on and on

Together with the millions of other medications that people take do you mean?

I am currently bmi 25 and on Wegovy, but I started at bmi 30+.

Many researchers expect this to be a long-term medication, where you move to a maintenance dose once you hit your target weight and basically stay on it indefinitely. Same as blood pressure meds or other diabetes meds - the evolving consensus is to treat obesity is a chronic condition, not one you solve and then move on from. If that does become the consensus then yes, there will be many more people at healthy-ish bmi taking these medications.

Seriously @User14March , you think a product that will replicate the benefits of exercise might be on the horizon?
(I think that's something which belongs in a different ball park tbh)

@0sm0nthus I’m no expert but are moving towards exercise ‘ hacks ‘ & everyone wants a quick fix.

That we aren't tackling the real causes here... food industry as one major example
@shellswirl, I dont disagree with you here . . . BUT surely the food industry profits will take a hit as fewer people buy their food like substances?

Fair point!
I guess there could be hacks for certain issues but I cant see us being able to mitigate the downsides of a sedentary lifestyle. Unless via genetic engineering?

I think in the future there is going to be a lot more emphasis on prevention and warning about the risk of becoming obese in the first place.

As it stands the message people have been getting is that it's always possible to lose weight at some point. But that does not appear to be true.

So I believe there will be a big focus on prevention and warning people to maintain a healthy weight because weight gain might not be reversible without lifelong medication.

But prevention efforts are not helping those who are currently obese.

@kkloo true, the emphasis on prevention & hopefully one day a universal cancer vaccine.

I've had an eating disorder since my teens, some respite but mostly non stop & I swear if these injections were available (& Affordable!) they would have done my body way less harm than the horror I've put myself through, that's not to say I want teens on them, it's like a Vape/Cigarette debate.... no winners really

OP, I do agree with nearly everything you have wrote so thank you for starting this thread.

Like you I think we are going down the wrong path with this one.

We have an obesity crisis. The reasons are complicated but a part of it is that people eat a huge amount of ultra processed food (it's not food!) and less and less actual real food. Our bodies do not like this UPF and it tells us this by weight gain and all the other health issues that happen when we fuel our bodies with 'crap' rather than nutritious real food.

In my thirties (many years ago now) my husband and I embarked on a healthy eating exercise. It started because I wanted to lose weight as going on a once in a lifetime holiday. We basically ate salad, fruit, vegetables, fish, chicken and all the good stuff. We eliminated all the bad stuff. I lost the weight I wanted to lose. However other things began to happen. I had more energy, my skin was better, my hair was shinier, my nails grew quicker. My optician was amazed when I went for my regular check up that my eyes appeared to have 'healed themselves' and I no longer needed contact lenses. In my thirties my vision had improved. It was clearly something he did not see often or at all. I can only attribute this to going from eating processed food to eating exceptionally well.

So yes I looked better and cured my obesity but much more than that happened.

I agree what you have said rather than fix the problem at source we are encouraging people to keep eating this processed rubbish and then at the end of it pop a pill. Great perhaps they will be thin but their bodies will still be lacking vitamins and nutrients and overall unhealthy.

You made a very good comparison of antidepressants.
You are depressed they give you antidepressants and so you feel better but it does not address the source of the issue. For that you need therapy which is much harder work and takes much longer. Far easier to take the pills and ignore the issue. (I speak from personal experience here, abusive childhood, lifelong depression and anxiety)

You are fat, they give you diet pills so you are thin but it does not fix the fact your body is not being fueled properly.

I get it. Life is difficult and complicated and busy. People have horrible jobs, long commutes, kids, relationship problems, dying relatives. Far easier to eat a frozen pizza that chop up some vegetables. Again I speak from personal experience (last 5 years of life looking after someone who was dying and my weight ballooned by about 5 stone due to stress, exhaustion, depression and just eating to comfort myself). I started this year to try and look after myself better. Cut out all ready meals. Start reading the packets and boxes to see what you are actually eating. More fruit, more vegetables. I haven't increased my exercise at all. I don't do anything apart from walk dog and housework and gardening etc.

I am still eating I reckon around 2200 calories a day. I'm not really counting but I am eating decent portions and not hungry.

I am changing my mindset from 'a box of icecream isn't looking after yourself or a treat'. A box of icecream is a box of sugar and chemicals that poison you and make the food manufacturers rich and you ill. A treat is a punnet of waitrose organic raspberries which taste delicious and provide my body with something it needs.

It's not always easy. At the start I craved icecream like a drug addict but as time goes on I am finding food is becoming less important to me. I think about it less. When I'm hungry I find something to eat and try and make it something decent. I've lost my taste for sweet stuff. The ben and jerry icecream I ate last week was decidely disappointing. This must be because my taste buds have changed.

I am still overweight. I still have about 3 stone to lose. One thing I know though after watching all the documentaries on UPF. It's literal shit. Not food. The food manufacturers must be laughing their way to the bank at us 'mugs' being taken in with their bullshit advertising. This thought is really helping me stay away from UPF.

I take on board that lots of the posters have said they are exercising, trying to eat better AND take the weight loss drug. However like you I think it's better to work with mother nature and do it the old fashioned way.

It's a complicated subject and I can definately see the attraction of taking a pill and getting thin that way.

Good thread.

@TheRiddle it’s very possible, especially as a menopausal and post menopausal woman, to avoid all UPF & eat well & watch the scales edge forever upwards & to become obese.

Some of these concerns are more rational than others:

potential for misuse - will exist with any medication. You have children with t1d misusing insulin to a lose weight, for example. Sleeping pills, pain meds, all have valid therapeutic application but also potential for misuse - guardrails and restricting are in place that correspond to the potential implications of misuse, and some medications are more tightly controlled than others.

unknown risks - there will always be unknowns with any medication, including long established medications. On balance we have to trust regulatory authorities to evaluate the data assess the risk/benefit ratio. There are also processes in place that ensure continued study of these drugs post approval.

supply issues - this was temporary and has largely been addressed? Manufacturers want to sell as much as possible, so are highly incentivised to sort this out.

coming off treatment - you can? You are likely to regain the weight to a similar degree to those that lose via diet and exercise. Long term weight loss is hard, maybe impossible for many people, and there is increasing on senses that obesity should be managed like a chronic condition

not 📌 the underlying causes - why can’t we do both? The causes are multi factorial and complex - much of it isn’t really understood. We aren’t going to change society overnight and might never fully address all of the root causes. so why can’t we use everything available to ameliorate the problems?

celebs promoting it - who cares? Celebs have health conditions too, and regularly become the face of drugs. Toni Braxton and lupus, Kim Kardashian and morning sickness.