OK I'm convinced, weight-loss drugs are Incredible and will change the world

[AliceAbsolum]

DH has been on them for a couple of months and they've changed our lives for the better. He's an over eater/ mild binger and generally quite obsessed with food. Never managed to keep weight off.

Now he's happy, calm, doesn't think about food, eats like a 'normal person' and it's freed up so much space and joy in our lives.

Apparently in the future it'll be a pill you can either take that day or not, e.g. Most days but not Christmas day. Incredible!

Yes I know people get side effects and they don't work for everyone, etc. But I'm very impressed.
Apparently they also help alcoholics and other addicts as they work on the reward centre's of the brain. Amazing.

Is the Ozempic making contraception fail, or is it raising fertility?

Women with PCOS have known for years that metformin can improve your insulin resistance and increase your chances of pregnancy. Now, Ozempic may affect the absorption of oral contraception and yes patients should be advised of this and recommended to use an alternate method. But it may also be true that patients who weren't on contraception and thought they couldn't get pregnant did because these drugs improve fertility the way metformin does.

What an absolute loads of bollocks.
Idiots who don't use contraception get 'accidently' pregnant, the injection doesn't cause pregnancy.
What that will be is now the women have lost weight, some of their fertility issues may have resolved themselves and their bodies are able to conceive. If they're dumb enough to not take precautions that's on them, not the injections.

That’s actually so bad it’s embarrassing. Ozempic the fertility drug! Gets you pregnant without even trying. 😂

Also, if they're using it while on contraception it's their responsibility to research and check it doesn't have an adverse effect on their contraception. If there is no data to inform them, then don't take both together!

Another one for the bingo card methinks.
I've lost almost 4 stone since this time last year. Not a quick fix, around 2 pounds per week, which is the healthy rate.
My sleep apnoea has gone, my knees don't hurt, my high blood pressure is controlled (which it wasn't, even being on 2 drugs for it), my asthma has settled and I no longer need my steroid inhaler twice a day, and my laryngeal hypersensitivity has gone.
The naysayers are just pathetic and will never admit to us or themselves that overall, it's an amazing thing for us 'fatties', and yes, I believe they think we're cheating. Sod them all.

47 years old and single....so don't give a shit about the pregnant thing either x
It'll take an awful lot to convince me that using the injections to put me in a better position for my upcoming hip replacement, is wrong. I'll stick with the information given in the medication leaflet and my pharmacist, rather than people on the Internet whining about 'the youngsters', Lottie Moss, Sharon Osbourne, 'in the long term', ...
If I end up shitting out my gallbladder or coughing up my thyroid, it's my problem, wouldn't affect the negativity brigade in any way. Why so bothered? If you don't want to use the injections....just....don't!!!!
If you can't afford them, I feel for you, yes they're expensive, if you just don't want me to be slim like you, fuck you!!!

Reducing efficacy of the pill when you titrate up is already a listed side effect of Mounjaro. If people ignore that and don't use other contraceptives then I'd consider that a planned pregnancy.

No @SilenceInside, I do take my own advice 99% of the time, I have a tendency to binge, but I'm aware of it, and I know that regularly eating the kind of foods I've listed will result in weight gain and poor health. So I don't eat those foods, 99% of the time. As a result I'm not morbidly obese. As for saying people don't need to learn about nutrition Yes, yes they do. I see shopping trolleys full of crisps, white bread, pasta, pizza, oven chips, cakes, wine etc, and they aren't being pushed to the checkout by slim people.

@MarvellousMonsters so that's what you think someone like me buys, because I'm ignorant of nutrition?

Morbidly obese is quite a low bar. Many of us aren’t. I note you didn’t say you were slim, or a healthy weight. The drugs are available for people with a bmi of 27 with health conditions, or 30 without. To be morbidly obese your bmi needs to be 40 or over.

In the course of my work last week I heard a discussion about WLIs by people that would be in the position to prescribe them. I was horrified by their judgmental attitude and sheer ignorance - apparently WLIs are "cheating". I worry that gatekeepers with attitudes like this will put many people off.

That's so concerning
And completely unacceptable
Anyone who thinks like this has no business in treating patients

Because insulin is cheating, antihypertensives are cheating, antidepressants are cheating... Heck having an appendicectomy is cheating!

Such fools should either treat conditions or step away so others can

It doesn't even make sense. Even if it is "cheating" why is that a bad thing if it results in lots of healthier, slimmer, happier people?

But it's not cheating, in any way
It's treatment for a condition
And anyone who rejects that? I presume rejects all medical intervention

Oh, I agree it's not cheating, just so what if it was!

@Dietingfool

"I note you didn’t say you were slim, or a healthy weight. "

I'm 5'6" and weigh 67kg, at my heaviest I was 72kg. I'm not slim but I'm not an unhealthy weight either.

I have no idea what you buy, but I know what I see in supermarkets. I also know what makes me gain weight (bread, cake, pasta, rice, potato, chocolate, alcohol) and what helps me lose it (veg instead of rice pasta etc)

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/12/west-virginias-obesity-drug-experiment/680954/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

It's awful for the participants. The problem is absolutely exacerbated by the fact that in the USA, Zepbound and Wegovy cost $2K a month. But it's interesting how they say that even at a huge discount it wouldn't reduce health costs that much.

West Virginia is one of the poorest states, too. Absolutely appalling social determinants of health, and diet issues too. (There's a whole phenomenon called "Mountain Dew mouth" in Appalachia, and poor access to dental care makes it much worse.)

I don't understand how it's so insanely expensive in US. It's multiple times fully funded cost in uk. Their system seems like a complete rip off

The US healthcare system is very different from the UK's. Healthcare providers charge huge amounts of money for the drugs and services they provide because they know that most of those will get discounted to a fraction of the invoice cost by the time they get paid by the insurance companies. It's all creative accounting that does nothing but make lots of money for shareholders. For things like weightloss medication that insurance companies don't cover then the artificially inflated costs get passed directly to the consumer.

There's no price negotiation on a national level so pharmaceutical companies are free to charge whatever they want and they do. PBMs (pharmaceutical benefit managers) negotiate prices but they are still massively higher. The difference in price for cash vs. insurance can be much smaller than for a lot of visits and procedures.

Medicaid does not pay full price, but when George W. Bush added a drug benefit to medicare he banned CMS from negotiating prices. Biden started bringing that in, and capped the price of insulin specifically as the 3 big manufacturers (Lilly, Novo, and Sanofi) had been shown to jack it up substantially with no change in underlying market conditions.

That said, even my insurance's negotiated price is ridiculously high. Novo and Lilly are absolutely charging too much just for the sake of profit -- it's literally transformed the Danish economy.

Sadly, your typical benefits manager can't change any of these things.

Good to see you didn't read the article.