There’s gotta be negatives to this right?
Like, what are the side effects and long term consequences?
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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This is mostly anecdotal and I am not a medical doctor. In my small circle of family and friends, I know several people who have taken or are currently taking Wegovy and similar drugs for weight loss and/or diabetes like Mounjaro and Ozempic.
All of them have experienced severe nausea when starting on these drugs. After a few weeks/months of use along with figuring out what they can eat and how much they can eat, that tends to subside. However, any time they eat too much or eat too much of the wrong thing, it will make them sick.
Two people have ended up with complications. One ended up having to have their stomach pumped because their digestive system basically went into hibernation, food stayed in their stomach for too long, and it caused a whole bunch of problems. They were taking Ozempic.
The other person stopped taking Wegovy abruptly (insurance suddenly decided it would no longer pay and the stuff is otherwise prohibitively expensive) and ended up in the hospital due to severe intestinal pain that did not respond to any treatment. After about 4 - 6 months, they seem to be back to normal, though.
So, it’s an antidiabetic that can be injected subcutaneously in addition to orally, neat but why? Diabetes and pre-diabetes are known risk factors for atherosclerosis and heart disease, so the antidiabetic drug is being used for people that may or may not be diabetic but want to lose weight? Wouldn’t it have less risk for pancreatitis to do a weight loss coaching?
The point is that, for many people, no amount of telling them to eat less and exercise more will actually result in them doing it, and so given that reality, a drug that actually results in real change, even with moderate side effects, can still be a net positive.
To throw another example at you, high blood pressure can often be eliminated with cardiovascular exercise, and it's probably better to do that than to take a drug. But, if the person simply is not going to exercise, then the choice is to either give them a drug that resolves the problem or to not and have them walk around with hypertension.
Solutions that some people won't actually adhere to are not useful solutions to those people. You can criticize them, say they lack willpower, are lazy, or whatever else, and you might even be correct, but that doesn't change the medical facts of the situation.
high blood pressure can often be eliminated with cardiovascular exercise, and it’s probably better to do that than to take a drug.
I've read somewhere that people with high blood pressure taking a certain medication are more resistant to some cardio-vascular diseases compared to people with normal blood pressure not taking any pills. This might be a similar effect.
I should probably start saving these articles, for the purpose of backing my shitposts with original sources.
Yeah I suppose you have a point. I guess I’m not trying to criticize that approach but trying to understand why the article says this drug will “shift perspectives.” Are they implying that instead of waiting until a patient develops symptoms of heart disease, they will prescribe meds to help control weight? Is that not what is already happening now?
It would have less risk of many things to do weight coaching and traditional weight loss methods. These drugs are very hard on your body and their effect has a high chance of fucking up the neuro chemical system it affects so that, if stopped, you can basically feel like you are starving forever. From what I have read about it most doctors are not in support of this being used this way with the exception of obesity issues so bad that the long term damage cause by a life of using this class of drugs is still less damaging than the weight.
Drug that reversed condition known to cause heart problems reduces heart problems!
Seems a bit like correlation versus causation, no? We sure it's not just that morbidly obese people losing weight vastly reduces their chances of heart disease?