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.

To be honest, I don’t believe you. Mounjaro has only been in the UK for a year, so a lot of the early adopters haven’t yet reached their goal. Let alone reached their goal and had enough time to regain all the weight. You can only get this medication if you’re properly overweight eg obese BMI. I don’t think enough time has elapsed for someone to go from obese BMI to a BMI under 25, back to obese BMI. Especially if they started more recently.

Also this drug has been around for decades - in diabetics. So we already know the effects of long term use, its not a completely new product to the market.

Are people not concerned about the risk of thyroid cancer that comes with these medications? I have considered using this but the risk frankly terrifies me!

Weight loss injections are not designed to be a quick fix; the medication is designed to be a full, long term course of treatment to prevent obesity. The medication is prescribed to people who are obese to bring their BMI down to a healthy range, and keep it there. The maintenance is part of the treatment process. The full length of time on the treatment could be years.

If you are not obese, you don’t have a clinical need to be prescribed the medication. It’s really that simple. No one thinks you’ll die if you took the medication, but the medication isn’t approved in your use case. There hasn’t been clinical trials on the effects etc. So it’s more that the risk outweighs the benefit as legally you are not eligible for the injections- it’s not a contradiction as you suggest.

So my circumstances were work related stress - getting sexually harassed and now going through the employment tribunal process. I totally overate and used food to self soothe, it felt like the world was on my shoulders. I went from being slim to obese, and started taking the injections as soon as I became obese.

Whilst I had counselling/therapy for the work harassment and stress, I did touch on my weight but honestly the practitioners didn’t care. Neither did my GP. None of them offered any tangible support or advice there so I’m not sure what your expectations are vs what the NHS actually offers? You pretty much get told to drink more water and stop getting takeaways…that’s it.

By the time I come off the injections, I’ll be closer to a resolution to work (hopefully a settlement agreement) and a new job elsewhere so the source of stress is gone. But crucially not having the excess weight really helps my mind too - I’m not trapped in that cycle any more. I have been able to take control of my diet/weight/appearance at a time where I otherwise had no control.

Some people don’t have success with Wegovy but do with Mounjaro. I’m one of these. Also I gained weight the first month on MJ and only started losing at month 3. I have to be on a relatively high dose to lose, however I’m 8 months in and have gone from size 16-18 to 10-12.

I think a lot of the injectables plateau in effect eventually … they do remain effective but just not as good as from the get-go. Perhaps the body acclimates to them. Just my anecdotal experience in the US.

The information is already available. This medication isn’t new, it’s now licensed for weight loss after being used for diabetes for decades. So through its application in diabetics, we already know what the long term effects of this are, which is outlined on the patient advice leaflets for both weight loss patients and diabetic patients.

Every 5-10% of weight loss, the body plateaus until this new weight becomes the new normal, and weight loss resumes again. Rinse and repeat. This is true with any form of weight loss regardless of the method.

Ridiculous. It’s been around for decades. It’s well understood. It works.
You have a weird ‘punishment’ attitude. Sometimes drugs work. Antibiotics?

It's not quite decades. As I said the first licensed drug in this class was approved in the USA in 2005. Exenatide is technically a GIP, not a GLP-1. FDA approved Victoza (liraglutide), the first GLP-1 in 2010. Mounjaro, the newest med, is both and has only been approved since 2018. We do have reasonable evidence of safety here, but it's not decades, and for the weight loss specific effects and results we will need more time. Weight loss doses are frequently higher than diabetes doses. Original Ozempic approval was 0.5 - 1mg. There's now a 2mg dose, but the majority of diabetes patients aren't on it. Weight loss dose is 2.4mg max. Mounjaro is different; both Mounjaro and Zepbound go up to 15mg.

Sharon osbourne is lying about this. There is no way that WLI have made her unable to gain weight. She's had weight loss surgery in the past, and I would not be surprised if she had taken other much less safe routes to losing weight too. Money + access + celebrity extreme behaviour means her body is likely fucked from many medical interventions. But I guarantee it's not ozempic that is stopping her gaining weight.

Yes if you start at an obese BMI you can continue taking it when your BMI becomes normal. What you can't do is start taking the drugs at a normal BMI. If you've been obese your body is primed to get back to that obese state. Fat cells when you've been obese are damaged and prone to storing more fat than someone who has never been obese. That's why people who were obese to start with can continue taking it once they lose weight, but people who are healthy BMI can't start taking it. It's worth the risk for formerly obese people to prevent reverting to obesity.

interesting to cite evolution but ignore the evolutionary drivers towards obesity! Humans aren't the only animals who will get obese if they have access to excess quantities of low quality food. How many dogs do you see that are obese because their owners feed them vast quantities of human food? Many of us are programmed to overeat when we have the opportunity, and we live in an obesogenic society. Obesity is a function of evolutionary urges. It's society that has evolved beyond utility.

I’m not sure you’re right about this.

I’m wary about the long-term effects of the injections, which is why I haven’t tried them. I was very, very tempted to but I read the data and decided there were too many unknown quantities. So I take a great interest in anything that’s published about the results. As @knitnerd90 says, these drugs are still relatively new and the diabetic body and the non-diabetic body are extremely different at a metabolic/endocrine level so care does need to be taken when assuming safety.

Some of the latest reports suggest that a small proportion of users will struggle to regain weight once they stop the injections. My recollection was 5% of users? I might be wrong on that but I think it was around that figure.

So it certainly seems to be a risk for some people, albeit a minority.

Other reports recently released are suggesting that the injections have a protective cardiac effect, which is great.

There have been quite a few other speculative reports released recently, suggesting a variety of different effects that are just being discovered. Some good, some bad.

However, I think all of this just underlines the point that the doctors clearly don’t actually know what these injections do to the non-diabetic body. If these drugs were so safe and well-established, then doctors wouldn’t be constantly discovering new effects - both good and bad.

I understand why people choose to take them, and I sincerely hope that any negatives go on to be shown to be neglible. That would be great.

I just think sticking your fingers in your ears and claiming that everything is wonderful isn’t a helpful approach. There is clearly a lot of unknowns with these drugs - eg/there has been 15,000+ cases requiring hospital treatment as a result of the injections. Given the vast number of people now taking them, that’s still a low number, but the risk is there. And definitely not helped by some clinics who aren’t following robust prescribing guidelines.

I think it’s completely understandable that someone might look at the risks, consider the risks of being overweight, and decide that the weight loss injections are the least risky. Absolutely. But let’s not pretend that they’re this magic solution that’s risk-free and doctors know everything about these drugs - because they very obviously don’t.

I know what you mean. Part of the world is starving, whilst part of the world is eating to excess and needing meds to counteract that. We humans have really messed up.

Why are you focusing on this and not on the way that drugs are grown and carried around the world so that people can't have fulfilling lives?

People probably said the same thing about the contraceptive pill in the 60s.

A lifelong pig, I started recently. I've cut.out snacking, unprecedented for me. Meals out, I still manage but get full much easier. Usually take half home in a doggy bag so get 2 meals for the price of 1.

Wait 5, 10 years then come back

As a former binge eater/ heavy snacker i could easily spend £100 + in a month on unhealthy/ excess foods

Absolutely life changing.

I've lost 5 stone since March on mounjaro and am the healthiest I've ever been in my life. I've also been able to gain lean muscle in the process.

My chronic migraines have reduced dramatically, my ADHD symptoms are more manageable.

My SIL conceived her much wanted first baby on mounjaro after 5 years of fertility issues, she's convinced the mounjaro had a hand in that. I have seen other people report similar.

Absolute miracle drug 🙂

If these drugs were so safe and well-established, then doctors wouldn’t be constantly discovering new effects - both good and bad

🤣🤣🤣🤣 So, in the last year alone I can think of several ‘safety updates’ for medicines based on new safety information/data, being for medicines that have been around and very commonly used for 50 odd years, and I’m not talking due to new uses. It’s common. Your rationale is really floored. You would however expect there to be a substantial growth in understanding in the immediate to near medium post marketing phase (as opposed to phase 3 clin trials which is what approval to use initially is generally based on). Once medicines are released it’s a huge explosion in numbers from clin trial information and you will get a lot more information from an expanded population but it’s really unusual for it to be of such an extent that a medicine would be withdrawn, far more likely that it will have a few warnings/precautions whacked on it that rule certain groups out when it comes to prescribing.

I hadn't understood the MLM side of desperately trying to get other people to use your referral codes. I thought we had really strict laws around advertising medication in this country? But now we've got people with a vested interest in talking up progress and downplaying side effects to friends/followers for financial gain (cheaper drugs for themselves)

This feels wildly unethical to me.

It’s been life changing for me. I weighed 21st 2lbs in July. Weighed in this morning at 14st 13. On track to reach my goal weight of 11st 7lbs by the spring.

The food noise went for a long time but seems to have crept back in, which honestly I think is a good thing as I’m needing to exercise will power: I plan to stay on a maintenance dose for at least a year, maybe two, and then give it a go coming off of it. If the weight starts to go back on I will not hesitate to stay in it for the rest of my life. The health benefits have been incredible.

And it sounds like you'd relish watching people pay it.