Sky News discussion about weight loss pills this morning

[ffsarewedoingthis]

They’re going through the daily papers and as per usual, three thin women are saying the same things, “there’s no long term data” (incorrect, these drugs have been in use for decades), “people who don’t need them use them” (very rare, and we don’t ban things like alcohol because kids sometimes get hold of it), “there’s a pressure to take them” (no, there’s not, if anything it’s the opposite).

AIBU to be utterly fed up of this discourse? I’m on WLI and have been for the last two years. I’ve lost ten and a half stone. It has quite literally saved my life.

Why, when they’re having these discussions, do they never discuss the fact that being obese is much much worse than any potential side effects of these drugs? Why don’t they discuss that almost every study coming out has been overwhelmingly positive, with noted positive cardiac benefits? The benefits in terms of addiction etc., are known as well.

The news trying to put people off these drugs is scary, especially when it’s three women who have obviously never experienced what it’s like to be morbidly obese and feeling like you’re suffocating in your own body.

Not prescribed by a doctor 😂

A professional?

With all the relevant qualifications to make sound judgement when prescribing?

Yes and no, OP. The benefits to people who are obese are pretty clear, as you say -- and not just the fact that they lose weight, but the fact that these drugs make it clear that obesity has never been simply a psychological failing of the individual but something with genuine medical causes. You would hope these drugs remove not only the weight but the blame that people unfairly lay on the obese.

At the same time, both my SILs are now on GLPs. Neither of them has ever been seriously overweight, they just want to be slimmer. And I notice that DH, who is quite overweight, has not even considered GLPs. Aside from whether this is bad for them physically, I think this sort of thing is reinforcing unrealistic standards for women and eating disorders.

Compare the normalisation of Botox and injectibles. I worry that it's going to lead to a world where the rich always look young, and wrinkles are your own fault for not being richer or more willing to inject. As if we were all now in Hollywood competing to star in the new film.

But maybe I'm unreasonable. Arguably the advent of hair dyes in the 1930s did the same thing and we seem to have survived. Just... I think this is partly a feminist issue and we'd all be better off if we could accept that people, including women, come in various shapes and changing looks. So, while I think GLPs are a godsend for the truly medically overweight, they're not something I want to see put in the water supply.

Yet you’re coming off like it here. Maybe some WLI would help you?

Lovely tone, and so conducive to open discussion.

If you post misinformation it will be corrected.

Are you open to your own misinformation being corrected? You wrote:

I’m not really with you, I don’t know any medication a doctor prescribed routinely from blood pressure to statins and they do a full health check for everything. It jisy doesn’t happen. In addition in 40 yeats not one person has died due to the drugs, their safety record is stellar.

This was published 12 months ago:

Concerns grow as slimming injections tied to more than 100 UK fatalities

If you just google "deaths from weight loss injections" you will see multiple reports of various recent cases of horrible deaths in the UK alone, that were not just linked with WLI but directly caused by them.

These drugs have not been in use for 40 years. They were in development for a period of time before clinical trials began with humans, for use with diabetics. That was in 2005.

But I see the "conversation" has progressed and the thread is going in the usual way and has been for some time, so I shall not reply further as it has already devolved into a barrage of personal insults and accusations for the odd poster trying to say anything at all those on WLI don't wish to hear.

The gang of posters descending on chunkymonkey was really unpleasant to witness, but unfortunately there is no report button that would cover such.

I do love the naivety that some posters have about how other meds are prescribed. I barely see my doctor and have said before how meds have been prescribed for me with just an econsult, no appointmernt, nothing.

But other meds I am on long term, Ive had no review for them at all, no one is monitoring me.

Why would WLI be so different?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10278447/

@ChunkyMonkey36 no one is laughing at anorexics, we are laughing at your position, it seems like clutching at straws. One percent of the population have eating disorders, not 10 percent, and that’s why the rules have tightened up, and gp’s notified, any drug which has a positive effect is abused, be it morphine, ketamine, or any opioid. We don’t make it almost impossible for those who need it to get it to protect gnr few, the measures are commensurate to the risk.

we all understand your focus is on the one percent snd you’re deeply concerned. We get this. Hopefully you can start to live calmly with your extreme levels of worry.

good luck with your weight loss journey, a bmi of 38 is a very significant health risk, you must be worried sick, and you’ve a long hard road in front of you and then maintenance, a life time of it, and I’m sure you can achieve it unlike the rest of us, who could not. For us, it is utterly fabulous to have a solution that gives us our health back.

I dunno, I know of three women in real life taking WLI that are all around my size - 5’7” and about 9stone. It’s worrying.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes those with pre-existing health issues are having appointments already. Which is wrong. If your proposal is only about people whose obesity complications are already serious enough to make them diabetic, you leave out a huge cohort of people who already risk or experience obesity complications but aren't getting medical input for them. Because you don't necessarily get monitoring for things like high blood pressure or cholesterol. The most I ever got was an occasional text from the GP offering Slimming World referrals, and I was an obese person with a high cholesterol measurement and borderline BP. It was only going one way.

What that means is that this argument needs explanation of where their monitoring appointments will come from, and why this is a better use of NHS resources than how they're being used now. Nobody who proposes this ever addresses that head on.

That’s fair enough - but really the answer is better obesity monitoring.

I had early fatty liver and was prediabetic when I presented at the doctors for something unrelated, had I not done that they’d both be getting worse currently.

There’s an obvious resource issue, but as we’re now at the point where obesity is recognised as an illness, better management of it would make sense.

Personally, I’d have no issue with that management involving the solution being managed too.

They wouldn’t, but thank you.

Ive also had colleagues who didnt know about the over 40 wellness check which is meant to be offered. Having then phoned their own GP they get told 'oh we dont do that here'

My GP does not have a well woman clinic or specialism, we're meant to see a particular GP for 'womens issues' as I was told, to find when I went to get HRT the first time she knew very very little about it and just asked me what I wanted. i Have never had a check up since, just on repeat, no monitoring nothing.

So I think what that takes us back to is, what's being suggested for obese people who don't currently receive NHS medical input, and if you want to bring them under the monitoring umbrella how is that resourced?

Because at the moment, I and others like me are content to manage our obesity risks through private providers. Us doing this means we're reducing the odds of needing NHS resources for obesity related complications.

At the expense of what? Cancer treatment? Schools, police? We don’t have an infinite pot of money,

and there is no way round the fact these are very safe drugs and the health outcome of those on them has significantly improved, and the overwhelming majority do not need to see their doctors to lose weight, no more than those on slimming world or keto

again though, it’s really lovely on you to be so focused on the one percent. Especially with such a hard journey ahead of you.

if it was me, I’d be full of resentment and envy if I had a bmi of 38 and was watching those around me become slim and healthy whilst I struggled, I’d certainly not be as magnanimous as you are, I’d be making random shite up and posting it trying to put people off and wishing they couldn’t get them so it wasn’t only me struggling.

but that’s just me, right.

Can you stop with the condescending comments about the “journey ahead”?

My journey is going perfectly fine, thank you.

I’m not struggling, and I may have a BMI of 38 but it was 42 7 weeks ago. If I’d wanted to use WLI to do that, I would have, as there’s no cost barrier here either.

I appreciate it’s difficult to get into your head, but some people just don’t want them, or feel they need them.

If you’re looking for a fanatical conversation about how everyone must go on WLI or they’re somehow struggling, or their experience is invalid, might I suggest the WLI board. Or therapy.

Gosh, sorry I hit a nerve, no need for that reaction, I wasn’t being condescending, I had a bmi of 32 and couldn’t get the weight off so was empathising. I’m really glad you can do it, and no one, including myself suggested you take the drugs. We understand for you it’s not an option. And no one knows you so no one is invested in how you do it.

as said, good luck with the journey, I hope you succeed, you don’t need to be so prickly and reactive, it is an incredibly hard journey, to do it without help, impossible for many, as it’s not just getting it off, it’s doing it in a healthy manner, eating your protein, working out etc, irrelevant of the method you use, and then keeping it off. So recognising the mammothly difficult you’ve got ahead of you, which will be a lifetimes work is key.

for me it was mission impossible, the health impacts signficant. And it’s lovely to now have a bmi of 20, all health issues resolved, blood test results optimal; a clean and health diet, a fit and toned body, and no struggling, I maintain on a low dose and feel very lucky, as I guess you must too being one of the minority who can achieve it without medical help.

we all need to find what works for us, and should support each other as this is about health first and foremost.

So this wasn’t you being condescending or seeking a reaction:

if it was me, I’d be full of resentment and envy if I had a bmi of 38 and was watching those around me become slim and healthy whilst I struggled, I’d certainly not be as magnanimous as you are, I’d be making random shite up and posting it trying to put people off and wishing they couldn’t get them so it wasn’t only me struggling.

but that’s just me, right.

Okay.

That’s super believable, and doesn’t at all look like you dug for a reaction, received one, and then had the opportunity to gaslight and pretend it was an overreaction to nothing.

That fake innocence isn’t particularly convincing.

Crazy talk. This is exactly the sort of thing that GPs need to be doing.

Yes, I got the impression a lot of posters haven't realised how common it is for healthcare systems to rely significantly on self reporting. That's not going to change any time soon, because we have an ageing population and there isn't a magic appointments tree.

Hmmm, I can’t see that as you’re not struggling, it would only be condescending if you were, so it doesn’t make sense to feel it’s condescending.

I found it impossible to lose the weight, I had sleep apnea and high blood pressure, and poor insulin resistance, the drugs literally saved my life.

I have a friend who has a bmi of about 40, her resentment is off the scale, she can’t afford them, so says some horrificly bitter things. I can see that temptation for some people to do that ,

to be fair though I don’t tend to behave like that. But I’d find it so so hard having such a wonderful solution I can’t access, and struggling so hard.

but you’re not struggling and the weight is coming off, you’re doing fab and it’s just a personal choice for you, so no, not condescending at all. And you clearly aren’t concerned about the vast majority of people using them, just the one percent with eating disorders.

These drugs do have a stellar safety record - but they are not without risk and obviously the trials were not done/data not collected on people taking them when they are already a healthy weight or just a stone or so overweight. It’s pretty obviously when I look at a few of my family members/friends who are on them that they are not healthy. Their skin looks awful, they are extremely underweight and surviving on less than half the recommended calories for a person of their age/height/sex. We do need a certain amount of nutrients, fats, carbs and so on to survive - living on 600 calories a day when you have zero body fat is an eating disorder in any other scenario. I don’t think the drugs themselves are to blame, it’s the abuse of them that is leading people down the road of starvation in the pursuit of thinness, and making that much easier for a proportion of the population who have struggled with their weight at the ‘moderately overweight’ (according to BMI, which is flawed) level of the spectrum, and can now just not feel hunger making disordered eating physically more tolerable. I doubt that there is any research on this, and if/when there is there will need to be some regulation around these drugs. I saw Lily Allen in concert last week and she was so thin and frail it would
not surprise me if her body gives out in the next few years. Would that be a result of the drugs, abusing them, or of years of eating disorders - who knows but the availability of these is not helping.

Gosh that’s really sad for your relatives, have they been diagnosed with anorexia ? As you said that’s not the fault of the drugs. It’s sad they are so unwell.

lilly Allen has been the same size for years and years. Well before the meds became available its nothing to do with the meds, and I’m not a fan of picking on individual women and their potential issues.

No one is disputing anorexics exist, they always have done, they always will. It’s a mental health condition,

No, it’s not. They need to be doing actual work, seeing patients who need it.