The blockbuster weight loss drug sold as Ozempic and Wegovy [has, on 21 March, gone] generic in countries that are home to 40 percent of the world’s population, significantly lowering the price of a costly medicine that had been largely unaffordable to nearly all but the wealthiest people. On Saturday, Novo Nordisk, the company that until now has had a monopoly on selling the drug, will lose patent protection in several of the world’s most populous countries. The first generic versions are expected to arrive in India as soon as this weekend. In the coming months, the generics are also expected to become available in China, Canada, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa.
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All diets and exercise are temporary if you abandon them.
isn’t it meant to be a permanent treatment?
no one says insulin is inefficient because diabetics die if they stop taking it.
Exactly. And these drugs were originally diabetes medications. And they don’t cure diabetes.
Not directly.
But borderline people who lose a lot of weight can sometimes get into the range of non-insulin-dependent life.
that’s type 2 and early stages.
i hope that my example made it clear I didn’t mean those cases.
Ozempic doesn’t do much for type 1. It was never approved for type 1.
I’m this particular comment thread, were talking insulin not Ozempic
the only reason they were diabetes meds was because obesity and high carb intake is the cause of most type 2 diabetes.
All these drugs do is trick the brain into thinking you just over ate.
Ibuprofen also doesn’t work, because my pain comes back after a while.
sorry but some people do say it’s inefficient and unfair. insulin is not free (not in all countries at least) and it’s extra effort and task management which is forced on people, some of them just because they were born with diabetes and never had a choice.
it’s like a tax for being born a certain way.
insulin is practically free to make, is about a couple $ per month without subsidies.
If you pay more than that it is a literal scam and people belong in jail.
No drug is inexpensive to make at GMP level.
I think you need to make permanent changes to lifestyle and eating to keep weight off. If you return to your old ways then the weight comes straight back on. Just like a crash diet.
This drug isn’t the solution: it’s a band-aid to give people more time to develop better habits.
Many people will not - sometimes they believe they can merely get back on the drug when their lifestyle starts killing themselves again.
The drug will drop the weight, though. But, like dialysis, it’s not a permanent treatment, nor is it a fix.
imo the fact the drug works as well as it does is more evidence that the problem is better conceptualized as physiological than psychological. If someone’s body insists to them, wrongly and chemically, that they are starving, that’s the real problem because making decisions with chemicals is what our brains do, and we evolved to have less direct agency over the things that most directly impact our survival.
I took Ozempic for awhile until I left the US it was amazing simply for the fact it just curbed my constant hunger. I was always ALWAYS hungry. I would literally eat til full and then still feel hungry. I went on a big diet for awhile to manage portions and generally eat healthier but the hunger just distracted me constantly and kept me from sleeping. I was on the diet for the better part of A year and I never got used to the portion sizes (I did get used to eating better food though)
then I finally started taking Ozempic and when the hunger started subsiding I felt so much better. My type II was able to be managed much more effectively so I actually had energy. I slept better, I worked better and could think clearer. It was actually life changing and I did start losing weight.
Now im in a country where its not as accessible if at all and even if it was available, I make so little money I probably cant afford it. I used my last two doses while I was here and then just went off it. The hunger is back and my blood sugar is back to being not so controlled. Im eating more because of the hunger and if I dont I get very grumpy and unpleasant to be around. Im tired and exhausted all the time. I am doing a little better than before because good healthy food is easier and cheaper to come by. Im also much much much more active whether I like it or not but it is keeping the pounds off so im definitely burning all the calories that I am eating at least but being so active and hungry is even more miserable.
The point is to help a person get used to eating a lot less, and when they hit their target weight, they can continue with their new eating habits.
But if you go back to the same eating habits that made you fat, you’re gonna get fat.
I’ve dropped 100 pounds over about 3 years (and still dropping), without any drugs, because I taught myself to get by with much smaller portions. Partially it came from eating only when hungry, not bored.
The other, possibly more important thing was using a distraction, so when I’m tempted to go see what’s in the fridge, I pick up my guitar instead. So I’ve lost a lot of weight, AND learned to play the guitar at the same time. Replacing a bad habit with a good one is very effective.
So you have to buy and take the drug FOREVER!!! Why do you think they went to the trouble to develop and release it?
I believe they work by lowering your appetite, generally leading to less eating, especially snacking.
Even liposuction, literally taking the fat out of the body, doesn’t result in permanent weight loss.
What do you expect a drug to do to make you skinny without it needing to become something you take regularly? If you want to lose weight permanently, you have to work for it, no matter which strategy you use.
What people want is the magic pill that they take once and they look like Cindy Crawford at 26 years old forever.
There are the structural things - removing parts of the intestine, installing restrictive bands around the stomach. One they haven’t talked about much that would probably work if we had the knowledge and bravery to try it would be physical modification of the brain, either by ablation or slightly less risky with neurostimulation (deep brain stimulation)…
https://karger.com/sfn/article-abstract/100/2/75/826710/Effectiveness-of-Deep-Brain-Stimulation-in
Both of them require a surgery and can have HUGE complications. Oh yeah and they are not a permanent solution, just as ozempic they just help to start developing better habits, you will regain weight after sometime if you don’t keep a better diet even with these procedures
Agreed. What most people don’t realize is that meds can, and do, have HUGE complications too.
Agreed. The structural solutions, including brain stim, give a significant period of opportunity for learning better habits - for people who actually want to lose the weight and keep it off it can get them “over the hump” into a pattern that doesn’t relapse. Just like opiate addiction, there are things that take significant time for your body/mind to get out of the habit with food, and any addictive behavior really.
Of course if you’re determined to live a life of gluttony, these things are all temporary - even more temporary than life itself.
You could just not assume that? It’s not about determination, as you said, it is an addiction. The root cause is not a food addiction, we literally need food to survive, but that root cause is different for every person and unless you are that same person you just don’t assume shit about intentions or determination.
There’s a large grey area between determination and uncontrollable addiction.
Very true. Some “diet aides” work well, some help a little, most barely work at all. Then there’s the influence of environment - how likely a gambling addict is to relapse can be strongly influenced by whether they live in Las Vegas or Salt Lake City. Heroin addicts in Seattle have a much harder time kicking the habit there than in Atlanta.
As for food, do you eat socially? In restaurants? My wife and I have started taking the “Senior Citizens’ discount” on restaurant food by simply ordering one entree and sharing it instead of overstuffing ourselves on separate dishes.
All these factors come into play, and still some people in the US are avoiding obesity, but not many - and IMO that’s down to the food / social / economic environment we live in here - it’s not healthy, but it is good for the medical business.
You sound bitter.
it acts like an appetite suppressant.