Yawn - the Panorama programme on Wegovy

[BrainInAJar]

Was interested to see this after they were sniffing around on here looking for victims, sorry, participants for their programme.

Well as predicted, the vibe of the programme is scare-mongering over the drug. Because it makes you feel sick (so?! no-one died of a little nausea) and you lose lean weight as well as fat (so the same as every other weight loss method then?) If you look at the potential side effects of paracetemol or basically ANY prescription drugs, you would never take anything!

I think people are scared because they assume all drugs you buy on the internet are dodgy and also because it's an injection rather than say a tablet or liquid.

This drug is a miracle for a lot of people and some side-effects pale into insignificance in comparison to an unhealthy, unhappy life and an early death due to obesity.

Hilariously they had a section recommending cutting carbs as a way to lose weight instead of taking these drugs. So that'll be those low carb diets that Panorama and other media vilified and scare-mongered over 20 years ago then and which are now mainstream, just like Wegovy will be in a few years!

At least the programme stopped short of painting folk buying the drug online as evil fat lazy folk stealing drugs from poor sufferers of diabetes as Ch4 did recently.

For people talking about tackling the root cause of obesity rather than treating with a drug - what if the root cause for a lot of obese people IS a hormonal imbalance that these drugs happen to treat perfectly? What if these drugs end up being like insulin for diabetics for a subset of obese people?

If you read the wegovy threads on here, no end of people taking it say "wow, this must be how it feels to be normal" - feeling full for a while after a decent sized meal rather than quickly craving more and more. It seems the drugs give them the support they need to stick to a weight loss programme, they don't just make the weight magically disappear.

All the scaremongering about losing muscle as well as fat, and weight-gain after stopping are the same for any weight loss programme that you could care to mention. The only real unanswered question is are these drugs safe to take over a longer period (seems so from limited diabetic evidence, but there are millions more taking them now), and how best can you support those who stop taking them after successful weight loss to help them keep the weight off.

Thats not a deep seated psychological reason, thats just liking something thats nice

We're not any different from people who arent overweight, they like it too

What about people who live in countries where there is far far lower levels of obesity, do their brains work differently to British people for some reason or dont they like eating food

Of course being busy and stressed is hard work and difficult but again we have cfreated a society where food is 'throwaway', too large, too available, too 'ready'

You're not speaking some sort of rocket science, so you dont need to keep up the snide about 'research', Im living it myself and have struggled with cravings myself for decades but making excuses about why people eat too much is half the problem.

There will be people who have specific disorders where their eating is absolutely out of control, beyond their control but for the majority it really is that over many years they have just eaten too much, too often of just normal meals, portions too big and yes, too many biscuits.

So a tool comes along which makes it easier to not have those cravings, to feel satiated on a smaller amount and lessen the cravings for the size of the food and if that works for someone and is suitable for them physically, thats great. Its far more healthy than being overweight for most people

Interesting, I’m on bupropion, which is supposed to up dopamine levels by blocking reabsorption. But this one is supposed to somehow dampen levels? Is it more that it naturally increases them? Curious, because I do think that dopamine plays a role for me in being sugar addicted.

I've lost almost a stone on it in a month and I wasn't overweight to begin with. Bloody love it.

@ContraflowSystem I think it distributes it more evenly so there isn’t the rush, so the dampen effect is that it isn’t giving you the big rush after eating something that would usually trigger the effects. Dopamine plays a huge role in modern life in our society

I finished watching and it was very boring. The dexa scan was fun though. It was a great visual for explaining why joint issues are more likely if someone is obese. They could have made the program far more interesting and in-depth. That GP in the West Country is seriously rocking the diet and lifestyle approach. If only more were like her.

I'm glad you're doing well with it, OP, but if other people are using the drug in an uninformed, unregulated way then it's really important to get the message out there about the risks. I'm sure you wouldn't want people to come to harm because they've only heard positive things.

This is particularly important for people who aren't taking it to treat life threatening obesity, but are barely overweight to start with and taking it for aesthetic reasons. The risk/benefit equation is different for them than it is for you.

There is no miracle drugs some just work better than others and side effects never become fully known until many years later after introduction, and can be
worse than the cure.