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.

I can't think of much apart from the pill that had such a BOOM though and we know that impacts water/wildlife.

Imagine all sea creatures suddenly stop eating.

That's a dystopian end-of-days John Wyndham novel right there.

I don't want to take it, I don't want ozempic face thanks or to end up looking like Sharon Osbourne, either.

I could afford it if I wanted it, but I don't. I'll spend my money on gym membership instead.

Everyone on it started clinically obese that's the criteria needed how is that hard to understand.

So true. I eat very little UPF, and find it more than possible to gain weight eating homemade sourdough bread with butter, and made- from-scratch veggie curries :(

But as I said upthread, my great grandma looked obese in the photos from 100 years ago, presumably on a diet of roast dinners and bread and butter, so... 🤷‍♀️

@Itsrainingten this is the point we're trying to make though.
If you have always been slim you can eat 1,300/ 1,500 calories and stay slim. Once you gain weight, that will not be enough to lose weight.
If you have never been significantly overweight you really have no business speaking about what keeps you slim, because it is not going to work for us.

You seem remarkably short on facts concerning efficacy once discontinued, and serious side-effects. I'll help you out here: the weight comes back on, often more than when started, and some of the serious side-effects remain.

I don't get these people that say they don't eat over 1000 calories and only eat natural unprocessed foods yet are still over weight. Apart from in a very small number of cases for underlying medical reasons, I just don't get how that can be true.

Calories are very easy to underestimate. But this just is not mathematically possible. This thread is full of people that insist they eat ultra healthy and exercise multiple times a week and only eat as much to feed a mouse. And therefore their ONLY option is the drugs.

@GiganticArkReadywithHottub surely if you're only eating 1300 calories a day then you'll be in starvation mode? Maybe that's part of the problem? And ok I'll mind my business but I think you'll find I'm not sitting in judgement here! The reason I'm interested is because of the effect it has on cravings. I'm ok with food but alcohol not so much. That's where my interest comes in

@JosiePosey you are so misinformed it’s actually a joke. GLP1 medications have been around since 1987, the year I was born, 37 years ago!! Maybe do some research before making such ridiculous comments. Being morbidly obese is a mental condition?! Wtf. Granted, some people have eating disorders but that doesn’t apply to everyone! I have Crohn’s disease, on heavy steroid treatment, and PCOS that makes me extremely insulin resistant. I don’t have a mental disorder, I am PHYSICALLY SICK. Sharon Osbourne is 71 years old. She looks old because she’s bloody old. I’m 37 and took Ozempic for a year, lost a good amount of weight and now get asked for ID when buying anything age restricted because I apparently don’t even look 25. No “Ozempic Face” here, thanks. I haven’t gained the weight back, I’ve switched to metformin to help my PCOS but yes, some people stay on Ozempic for life on a low maintenance dose. They don’t just wither away. Do you think people with T2 Diabetes are mentally ill too because T2 and Obesity are pretty much caused by the same things as I said in a previous comment on this post.

I've gone away and read more about the side effects and its deffo not for me. The stomach paralysis alone is enough for me to never want it. And fears over mental health... well we don't need that as a society.

There will be a bunch of people say "you do you hun" "mind your own business"

I'm not talking to you at an individual level, I'm talking about the wider effects on society. I don't care if your gp prescribed it for xyz reasons.

And I'd like to remind people this is a forum for debate.

For those that say "it's only for the obese" well that simply isn't true. We've seen on here you can obtain it by lying. And there will be a bunch of people that get it anyway. Eating disorder charities are genuinely concerned too.

Our societal level of increasing obesity is not sustainable and that's a pretty important point. If it was as simple as addressing with education, exercise and diet I reckon that might be evident by now. That you know it has worked well for individuals does not have a bearing on how effective it is at a society wide level. It could work, but it doesn't currently work.

Have you got figures for the amount of non obese using it?? I tried looking it up and couldn't find anything

Exactly this. When I was slim I could eat 2000 calories a day and remain slim. Now I’m fat, I can eat 1500 calories a day and not lose a pound. A body that has never been overweight is very different to a body that is obese and is trying to lose weight.

@OneTC

Presumably in a year or so there will be a huge number of people with bmi less than 30 using these drugs. They will have to because of you stop using it you pile most of the weight back on.

Doctors used to say that smoking was good for you. I wouldn't trust any studies into these drugs as there is so much money to be made from them. The government should simply increase tax on processed foods and ban chemicals like MSG.

How do you know any of that?

How do you know ‘they can diet instead’.

OP can you describe the ‘disaster’ you foresee?

@Lookingoutside please read the full thread, I've described my opinions and thoughts multiple times. And been shot down loads. Mainly from people that say dieting doesn't work. And obesity is more dangerous than any side effect of medicine of any impact it might have on certain groups (people with eating disorders, kids, diabetics)

@bigvig, you would still have cheese, cream, bread, butter, goose fat, homemade cake, chocolate... people will still get fat.

@BusyMummy001 thank you.
I have a host of autoimmune conditions. The steriods over twenty years made me obese. I gave up alcohol two years ago and have lost five stone. I still need to lose three stone and have been considering these drugs. My friend lost four stone going from a 18 to a 12.

I don't have an older face now but my neck has gone. I prefer that to being obese. I'm 58 and spent twenty years being really fat on drugs to control my RA. I remember my first consultant appointment post partum I was a 16.i ended up a size 24.
The new drug I take can make you hungry but I have lost all interest. I barely eat. I have never liked snacks having spent twenty three years as a veggie.

Addiction is real in obese people. My poison was alcohol and the cheese that went with it. I eat/drink neither now.
Therapy played a big part. Trauma too.
Obesity is still used as a stick to beat us.
I've had to change user name over the years due to abuse on MN. I was costing the NHS etc.
The implication fat people are stupid just doesn't go away. Yet I work at a very high level.
We don't deny addicts methadone, why should we deny semglutide if someone meets the criteria?

I am still in two minds purely because take so much medication.

@shellswirl your fears are simultaneously the drugs are 'too good to be true and there will be an increase in thyroid cancer, bowel issues or brain chemistry issues" AND that "diabetics won't be able to get it"?

Why would you want diabetics to get such a terrible drug that will cause them such harm in the future? Do you hate diabetics?

Or do you think that the drugs somehow know that the person taking them is a diabetic and therefore will only treat their illness and save the nasty side effects for the stupid, lazy, fat people who take the drug to treat their obesity?

Could you explain your critical thinking here please? It's just that I'm on Mounjaro and don't have diabetes but now I'm worried that in the future I'm going to get thyroid cancer, bowel issues and altered brain chemistry because I'm taking the drug. It's my fatness you see, it makes me very stupid and unable to find the evidence to show that these drugs will give me dreadful side effects in the future that somehow miraculously don't effect those who take the drug to treat their diabetes.

I'm very anxious about this, so I will wait for your response

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

Re the likelihood of regaining the weight when stopping. Studies (hundreds of them) show that 80-90% of people who lose a considerable amount of weight (ie starting weight in obesity range) via TRADITIONAL diets will regain some/all of the weight they lost, usually within 2 years.

The stats for Semaglutide and Liraglutide are significantly lower - the attached recent study (published Jan 2024) followed 20,200 subjects (ie its a huge study), states:

“We found that 17.7% of these patients regained all the weight they had lost or even exceeded their initial weight. However, a majority (56.2%) of patients either remained around the same weight they were at when stopping the medication or continued to lose additional weight”.

https://www.epicresearch.org/articles/many-patients-maintain-weight-loss-a-year-after-stopping-semaglutide-and-liraglutide#

One of the main issues they're talking about now is that with Ozempic you primarily lose muscle not fat which causes all sorts of problems. Then there's the 'ozempic face' which would be enough to put me off without all the myriad of other side effects. Jillian Michaels was talking about it recently. That she's helped thousands of obese people lose the weight and none of them had that drastic facial result that you get from ozempic

that somehow miraculously don't effect those who take the drug to treat their diabetes.

The dose for weightloss is more than double the maximum weekly dose, and up to four times the usual weekly dose, used for diabetes.

Also, because of worldwide demand, many are getting it from compounding pharmacies, and taking even higher doses, unwittingly.

Don't pretend that you're worried about peoples mental health when taking this drug because it is extremely disingenuous, you don't seem to care about peoples mental health who have tried and tried and tried to lose weight and failed, and who now are using this drug or want to use it. You keep insisting they should just keep doing it alone, even though their chances of success are tiny.

Eating disorder charities are worried about everything, I'm in Ireland and we had a long running TV show that focused on healthy eating and exercise and tried to get a lot of community involved and they expressed concern about that too because it triggers some people. So even the advice that you yourself advocate is triggering for those with eating disorders. They also said that it doesn't even work anyway 😅

And it doesn't. Most of the leaders from the previous years shows all put the weight back on!

https://www.independent.ie/news/eating-disorders-association-criticises-operation-transformation-over-dieting-culture/41212515.html

I’ve lost 4.5st, am 55, and have another 1.5st to go. No Ozempic face. In fact, I look mid to late forties now.

Everyone saying there has been no progrees through diet and exercise over the last how many years, or reduction in T2 etc, the NHS is still pushing the 1/2 or 1/4 plate of carbs or whatever they tell people.

If they advocated cutting carbs, and living in a low carb/keto state, they might get somewhere naturally.

And for everyone saying the injections cut noise, decrease hunger, allow you to eat less, you get all that if you get through the first 1-2 weeks of keto/low carb. But you need will-power for the first week or so.