"You lost the genetic lottery and I'm putting you on Ozempic to address your metabolic disorder"
My endocrinologist's response 2 years and 50lbs of weight loss ago. Since then every health marker has improved substantially, and with it clarity of thought and energy. Broad insurance coverage for these medications should be a slam dunk for insurers.
It's hugely encouraging that we're starting to see frontline medical practice step out of the frame of mind that this is a "willpower" issue. If GLP-1 analogs work against both food compulsions and alcohol/drug compulsions [1], this re-contextualizes metabolic disorders as another form of addiction.
People might want to wait at least a few years before the “large scale study” is completed. Tens of millions of people are about to begin
“ most common Ozempic side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and constipation. Serious Ozempic side effects include allergic reactions, changes in vision and pancreatitis. Ozempic has an FDA boxed warning for the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors.”
I think most people should wait, yes. There's a HUGE amount of pressure to get these things approved for weightloss. So most people can just wait and watch a year or two.
But to be clear, these drugs are already approved by the FDA for diabetes, so they've been studied heavily already for safety. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe diabetic people were intended to take this medication long-term. So it would have been studied and assessed for safety in that regime.
Really we're just waiting for studies specifically designed to measure efficacy on weight loss, and for the FDA to assess the specific risk-benefit balance of prescribing this medicine for weightloss. Seeing as how obesity is one of the leading causes of death in modern society, I wouldn't be surprised if the FDA is already leaning towards approving it if it passes efficacy. Which it most likely will; the diabetes studies reported something like 9 in 10 people losing something like 10-20% of their bodyweight? The signal was huge.
yup, I got most of those side effects causing me to give up on Ozempic. I might have been willing to eat like an anorexic[1] if my BG dropped to normal range but it didn't.
[1] not making light of anorexia. I mindfully chose that description because that drug will induce disordered eating patterns. I still have days where I refuse to eat because to my BG level and suppress hunger then binge because the hunger is overwhelming.
While this is a great first step to get populations help immediately, it creates a chronic need for these drugs. Gene therapy must come next to fix root cause.
Preface this by saying I have nothing against Ozempic, and its uses. But there are people (myself included) who do not believe for one second that there are people who if they actually watch what they eat and exercise, can't lose weight. Outside of extremely rare conditions, I don't believe that's possible. And yet so many people claim it. Just admit that you want a shortcut, there's nothing wrong with that.
The opioid crisis has taught me that some doctors will put you on drugs without a care in the world to the consequences. Not that hard to find one who will tell you what you want to hear.
Look at this thread. Everyone taking these drugs has some metabolic condition?
Are some people smarter than others? Do some people have better ability to sprint versus others? Do some people win the genetic lottery and have rich parents that can provide greater benefits to them than others?
If the answer to any of these questions is in fact yes, then is it possible that some people are hungrier than others?
Can you willpower your way through a job that is easy for others, yes. Can you willpower your way to a better sprinter, yes. Can you willpower your way to a million dollar net worth, yes. Can you willpower your way to eat less, yes again.
But to ignore that some people may need less willpower than others is a position that wreaks of entitlement and ignores the possibility that in so many ways we each are born with different strengths and weaknesses that impact our life. Nobody is denying willpower can help you overcome many obstacles, but if you could take a pill to make you instantly a millionaire, my guess is you would go that route versus willpower any day of the week.
> if you could take a pill to make you instantly a millionaire, my guess is you would go that route versus willpower any day of the week.
You are vastly underestimating the amount of people who don't believe in silver bullets or miracle pills, and you are certainly showing some (willful?) ignorance of all the history of drugs who got into the market and showed side-effects long after its introduction in the market.
>a pill to make you instantly a millionaire, my guess is you would go that route versus willpower any day of the week.
What a silly analogy. If I could take a pill to make me a millionaire, but it substantially increased my chance of a debilitating illness, no I would not take it.
Do you think that taking Ozempic is a free lunch? It might be...but I doubt it.
I don't have a metabolic condition, but I am on medications for a chronic condition that have "weight gain" as a side effect. I don't know why these medications cause weight gain, but I can tell you from experience that they do. I have to be very careful.
> Preface this by saying I have nothing against Ozempic, and its uses. But there are people (myself included) who do not believe for one second that there are people who if they actually watch what they eat and exercise, can't lose weight. Outside of extremely rare conditions, I don't believe that's possible. And yet so many people claim it. Just admit that you want a shortcut, there's nothing wrong with that.
My sibling, who has an addictive personality trait, required bariatric surgery after attempting for years to lose the weight (~120lbs overweight). Their doctor told them if they didn't lose the weight, it was going to kill them. Post surgery, they are in the best shape of their life. Insurance covered it, because they demonstrated they attempted all other options first. They simply can no longer overeat now due to the plumbing update.
But sure, laziness. Feelings over data. Shockingly common.
(these drugs were in clinical trials at the time their surgery was scheduled, and were inaccessible to them)
>But sure, laziness. Feelings over data. Shockingly common.
What point do you think you're proving here? Your sibling, with some rare condition, is anecdata.
Do you honestly think this is the common use case for Ozempic? Maybe you should try looking at the data. America has an obesity problem, and it isn't because there's widespread metabolic conditions. People eat too much and move too little. The use of this drug is 90% cosmetic. And, as I said, have at it. Elon using this drug was one of the first times I'd heard of it. Metabolic condition, of course.
This is no different than half the population having ADHD and being on stimulants. Or Quaaludes. Or whatever. It happens over and over.
America does have an obesity problem and you think it's willpower. Does that make sense? 41% of the population just can't will their way to a healthy BMI? You say my sibling has a "rare condition" while admitting America has an obesity problem? Does that sound rare?
I absolutely believe these drugs are a solution for genetic predisposition and a society that has engineered people into unhealthy lifestyles. Remember this comment when the next Pepsi semi trailer rolls by.
> This is no different than half the population having ADHD and being on stimulants. Or Quaaludes. Or whatever. It happens over and over.
I think we have different ideas of genetics and brain chemistry leading to outcomes.
>You say my sibling has a "rare condition" while admitting America has an obesity problem? Does that sound rare?
I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. I have no idea what was wrong with your sibling. But if you're telling me that they had a controlled diet and exercised and still became obese enough that it put their life at risk, I'd say that's a rare condition, yes. Do you think that is 41% of the population? How about 30%? 20%?
>America does have an obesity problem and you think it's willpower. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does make sense.
Dieting (and/or caloric restriction) is harder than not. Exercising is harder than not. I struggle with both myself. This is how the brain works. I'm sort of astounded that this is news to you.
Oh, and if I get to the point where Ozempic is useful to me, I'll take it. But I won't tell people I have a condition.
I agree with your general idea that America’s obesity problem is not generally genetic. It’s fairly recent, and much too recent for genetics to be a major factor.
But I disagree that it’s a willpower problem. It’s a society problem.
I moved from America to Europe and there is little obesity here — because you get daily exercise automatically by walking around (due to good city designs), and toxic food is illegal.
Compared to the standards in America where you walk to your car in the driveway (and that’s the extent of walking that your city provides), and none of the food in the grocery store is actually what the box says (because it’s all chemical imitations).
In Europe, there are no hurdles to overcome because you get good food and exercise automatically just by living there. In America, you can overcome the hurdles with willpower, but you shouldn’t need to in the first place, if society just created a healthier environment.
As you say exercising is hard. Passing up a burger or a piece of pie is hard too.
My question to you is this. Is it equally hard for everyone? I'd say no, for some people running (when not being chased) is fun and for others it's a chore. Some people really really like a piece of pie after dinner and some are mildly interested.
If you put some people in a place where they don't technically need to move more then getting up off the couch then they won't. If you can eat all you want some will really eat a lot and others won't.
I think the world we find ourselves in is one where in respect to food and exercise we're limited only by desire. You can say metabolic or whatever but it seems to me some people just have a higher bar to clear - and unless you know what that is for you and them it's hard to begrudge them wanting help.
What do I know. I just see someone who has an anecdote about it working and being downvoted just based on that (what else can the downvotes be about?).
Mostly though I care about what works. Not obsessing over whether the “true way” would have worked for them as well. Have they achieved their goals? Great, done.
> Just admit that you want a shortcut, there's nothing wrong with that.
If this is so inconsequential and all of that... then why are you obsessing over it? Literally what does it matter, lol? They did something that worked so their work is done. But, what, their next task is to do a confessional about their laziness or whatever to some random strangers?
This is so entitled that it has become farcical.
> Look at this thread. Everyone taking these drugs has some metabolic condition?
Are you surprised that a thread about X has a disproportionate amount of anecdotes about X? Threads on X don't attract a uniform sampling of the population.
Obsessing over it? You asked a question on a forum, I answered it. How do you think this works?
>But, what, their next task is to do a confessional about their laziness or whatever to some random strangers?
You already did that, though.
>Are you surprised that a thread about X has a disproportionate amount of anecdotes about X?
I'm not surprised there are many people in this thread using Ozempic. It's a very popular drug. I am very surprised (and don't believe for a second) that all of these people have metabolic conditions, rather than a lack of willingness to diet.
And, yes, I'm laughing at the fact that you think doctor 1 (no financial gain for his advice) is dumb, but doctor 2 (much financial gain for prescribing the drug) is the one who has it all figured out.
> Obsessing over it? You asked a question on a forum, I answered it. How do you think this works?
Why are you preoccupied with how someone should “just admit it”? (You don't have to answer that. I'm rephrasing it.)
> You already did that, though.
My confessional is where?
Again, your continued interest in people's supposed character rather than their health outcomes is revealing.
> And, yes, I'm laughing at the fact that you think doctor 1 (no financial gain for his advice) is dumb, but doctor 2 (much financial gain for prescribing the drug) is the one who has it all figured out.
I haven't said that the first doctor is wrong. But I suspect that you have failed at reading user handles...
Do you even know what the words mean that you're using? This is a discussion board for discussing things. I have thousands of comments here.
>Again, your continued interest in people's supposed character rather than their health outcomes is revealing.
You have no idea what the long term consequences are of taking Ozempic. We do know the long term benefits of eating healthy and exercising. I'd say that is caring about health outcomes.
> Do you even know what the words mean that you're using?
I mean that you have an excessive concern with people's assumed motivations.
By the way, did you learn to read user handles since last time? I see you didn't follow up on your little attempted slights.
> You have no idea what the long term consequences are of taking Ozempic. We do know the long term benefits of eating healthy and exercising. I'd say that is caring about health outcomes.
This is a perfectly legitimate concern. And you did bring that up in your original comment. So I'll just leave it that.
That's awesome man. I've heard some really positive things about Ozempic.
Have you had any side effects?
Also if you could have lost the weight with diet and exercise, do you think you would have still wanted the drug knowing what you know now? I suppose there is a risk here that people will turn to the drug instead of sorting diet / amount of exercise. I think an argument could be made that now we have the drugs we "over prescribe" drugs like SSRIs and stimulants because it's often easier to "fix" the symptoms with drugs rather than address the root cause.
SSRIs being over prescribe is a dangerous myth that should not be repeated; it puts people at risk. The vast majority of people get on SSRIs as a last resort to save their lives.
I strongly disagree. I think what you're saying is dangerous, if anything. I speak from personal experience, but this isn't something I'm willing to take a strong position on or try to defend.
Even if you believe my comparison to SSRIs is inappropriate, I don't think it's controversial to suggest that the pharmaceuticals are often too quickly prescribed in the US. My question is perfectly valid.
I think we're seeing multiple factors with a kind of hideous synergy:
1) Decrease in physical activity (desk jobs, social media, games, an endless stream of entertainment).
2) Federal subsidies causing a glut of some foods.
3) Increased portion sizes on many things.
4) Forever chemicals, the PFASs, xenoestrogens, bisphenols in many things we touch or what touches our food, messing with our hormones.
5) Hormone-fed livestock for weight gain, does any of that pass on to us?
6) Supranormal stimulation: we're eating and drinking things designed to stimulate us at a level we just weren't evolved to deal with.
7) Real changes in food composition -- as an example, consider the shift from cane sugar to HFCS.
I think that's the most of them. So, imagine each one of them caused a teensy one percent change (caloric intake, increase in digestion efficiency, whatever). Well, that's 1.01 to the power of our seven different factors, or, if you would originally be stable at two thousand calories per day, an extra 144 calories per day. That's about a can of Coke. Doesn't sound like a lot.
However, that adds up to 52,596 extra calories per annum, or a fifteen pound gain. Hideous synergy.
Food got cheap, people got rich, and humans are designed to eat whatever they can see.
200,000 years of living feast to famine tells you "if can get calorically dense food, eat as much as you can, you'll need it later", except your lizard brain never gets the "there's no famine later" message because it's dumb.
Simplified to the point of stupidity. We have been rich for longer than that and wages have stagnated/flatlined compared to wealth creation since about the 80's.
And (as sibling comment says) people of more means (say upper-middle class) aren't more obese than poor people. It's more like the opposite.
This is just the myth of the pleasure-button rat extrapolated to humans, which has been debunked in any case.
Also processed junk food got way more cheap and common and unhealthy right? almost everyone’s brain is wired to love sugar and salt, and we found good ways to hack that.
Food also got a lot more convenient at the same time it was being optimized toward a "bliss point" that would encourage you to always eat one more bite.
Americans in the middle income quintile already had easy access to more calories than they should eat in 1960. But boiling another pot of potatoes wasn't as fast or delicious as microwaving another frozen mini-pizza, so there were fewer temptations to overeat.
This is incredibly reductive. There have been several studies which have demonstrated that even with the same calorie intake and exercise levels, western adults still weigh more than their ancestors a few generations ago. It's unclear why, but there are a number of factors which may be involved, e.g. PFAs, increased stress/decreased sleep, changes in gut microbiomes, etc.
I wasn’t in horrible shape, but my BMI was juuuuuust high enough to get my insurer to cover Ozempic. I’ve dropped 20+ pounds since June, and am now at my ideal weight, or at least quite close to it. Pretty incredible. I hope that everyone soon gets the same access to these drugs that I’ve been able to enjoy. Seems like it would be a real public health revolution.
Addictive behavior is dramatically turned down while not affecting normal desires somehow. I've noticed this quite starkly, and my sister as well who tried it (a lifelong nail-biter who's since stopped).
It seems to fix my autoimmune condition as well, which is even more crazy. Hand and back pain gone, even the flare ups are largely minimized.
Finally, for some reason it fixes my sleep? I was an incredibly light sleeper who couldn't touch coffee because even a morning cup would interrupt my sleep. Now, I can drink coffee until noon and sleep like a baby.
Btw tizepatide works way better than semaglutide, in my experience.
In low doses it is quite useful, as is its cousin amphetamine. Luckily caffeine is even safer, possible net benefit to health, has been in wide use for thousands of years, and smells and tastes amazing.
I've heard lots of people who like the smell of coffee, I've never met anyone who's liked the taste of coffee the first time they drank it. There's a reason people put milk and sugar in it.
I actually wondered if you would reply this. You’re making an irrelevant point: coffee is the term for plain coffee or with a splash of milk / sugar. We don’t have a separate term, like we do lemons/lemonade. There’s no gotcha here.
That applies to lots of things. Most kids don’t like broccoli the first time they try it either. Tastebuds are adaptable. The effects are more important.
GLP-1 receptor agonists are game-changing for weight loss, but there is even broader applicability emerging for _addictions of all kinds_. [1] This is super hopeful both because of the applicability to alcoholism, etc, but also because of how this demonstrates the function of food addiction as a driving factor for weight issues.
Nothing in this article talks about the longer-term efficacy of weight loss drugs for the patients. I've heard some anecdotal evidence that they do work, but with some extremely gross side effects (I wouldn't be surprised if these drugs and the Delta diarrhea plane [1] are related).
> In the first half of this year, Danish GDP rose at a 1.7 percent annualized rate thanks to the contribution of Novo Nordisk, the drug maker responsible for anti-obesity blockbusters Ozempic and Wegovy. Without soaring production and profits at Novo Nordisk, Danish GDP would have shrunk by 0.3 percent.
Incredible.
While people are sharing anecdotes, I’ll add mine. My wife went on Wegovy in January — she’s lost over 50 pounds. (Having four kids really does a number on you.) She’s sick less often, she’s stopped complaining about her knees hurting, she’s more active. She looks like a different person!
All around, a huge win. I really pray there’s no long-term side-effects lurking for everybody who’s benefiting from these drugs.
Paul Ford was super early to call this out with his use of Mounjaro, & to expand the idea a little more too: that sci fi ideas of self modification in general are kind of arriving. And asking how and where that interacts with our idea of what drugs are; things that merely fix defects versus much more open toolkits. https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-m...
However it is more akin to the modern dystopian sci-fi than the bubbly and optimistic sci-fi of the 60's. The moment you stop taking the drugs you gain the weight back in pretty much a year unless you made significant lifestyle changes, which most don't because you lose so much weight without doing anything [1] So once you are on the dose you are pretty much hooked for life especially once you are over 60. Gaining 30+ lbs in such a short time is a recipe for a short life.
It's always sad seeing people who struggle with weight loss due to hormonal issues but I hope patients due their due diligence before going to a doctor for a quick solution that doesn't solve behavior that leads to obesity.
I'm now reading a book called "Do you believe in magic"/ Paul Offit, it's on topic of alternative medicine.
In 70's there was a very popular (and bogus) cancer cure called Laetrile (Hygrogen Cyanide) that was pushed by some doctors and organizations. Horrible stuff that caused more damage than helped but too many people were trying to sell it as a magic cancer cure. Also there were coffee enemas...
My point is, if it's sold like a magic cure it potentially might be a bogus one? How many times humanity won the lottery prize and discovered something revolutionary like penecillin?
I have a tentative vision of a future where people having access to tools like these breaks the incentive for companies to make people addicts. If drugs free them from the tyranny of companies exploiting biological weaknesses to make people addicted to what they sell, people regain agency in so many aspects of their lives. Food, drink, drugs, media consumption, consumerism. There's a glimpse of a power structure being dismantled, and humanity being able to take a collective deep breath and think about what we actually want.
What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce?
Everything we do, even artistic expression etc is about gaining status, which is ultimately about reproductive success.
If we take away the addictive parts of life, which are actually designed for our survival, maybe all our motivation is gone to do anything?
I don’t have any answers, but I feel these types of interventions might have huge unforeseen circumstances. I’m still not sure we’ve processed as a species how to handle contraception. We might be heading to massive population collapse because of it. This might be good or bad, I’m not judging, but it’s a massive change in our fundamental workings as a species.
Maybe you should be mindful of the needle in your own eye? From atop your high horse. There are human weaknesses to be sure, but the power structure is money, armies, governments, corporation, not “hacking human weaknesses”—that we are helpless to stop the hacking of our “weakness” is just that propaganda itself toned down by one degree. That all it takes is for someone to inject some extra fat and salt into something and then we are powerless to resist.
It IS the case that they are doing this. But they are successful because of the sheer, massive scale of it all. Not because there are pleasure-buttons that they can just boop at will.
The perennial myth is this Skinner Box idea. But people don't just fall into that mold if you just give them a cheeseburger. They fall into it when the forces against them are overwhelming. Which is the case for the power structure.
(People self-regulate just fine in a healthy environment. They don't have to frickin' throw away all earthly temptation—people naturally have the ability to “delay gratification”. But the environment must be healthy. Thus it is wrong to say that people have “biological weaknesses”—people manifest biological weaknesses in unhealthy environments.)
The problem IS the power-structure itself. And as long as they exist they will just morph into something else to exploit us.
But technologists are often believers in these one-weird-tricks. But no drug will pull the wool from people's eyes—always “people” by the way, something other—in the sense that the power structure will just disappear with the disinfectant of illumination.
Of course these technologists/scientists are often better-off with the usual things that correlate with economic means (not education) like being more healthy. And thus it serves their self-aggrandizement to believe that poorer people can be manipulated by just promising them a slice of pizza—helpless to resist their “biological weakness”.
Not trying to single you out as this has been brought up in multiple comments in-thread, but I think this is apples-to-oranges. Diets work when followed. The problem is that the vast majority of people struggle to adhere to them. This drug aids in reducing the urge to eat, which reduces/eliminates the need for scrutiny over intake. It's "diet autopilot", which is why it's so powerful.
I don't think bringing up keto is terribly on-topic, but my experience with low-carb wasn't like that at all. Most low-carb isn't about miserly “calorie-counting” and willpower. It's about establishing a routine where you can comfortably just not-eat for those windows, which turned out to be easier for me than to stick to my previous eating schedule but eating (say) 20% less.
The ends are the same and the means are different. The metabolic actions between the two are similar. It's not an unfair comparison. One might have adverse longterm side effects and the other might not. This is something further study could help answer.
I mean that the reason you'd need semaglutide is that you can't keep to a diet. If you could keep to keto IF, you wouldn't need the drug in the first place. It's not option A or option B. It's "if A fails, fall back to B".
Not everyone knows of the potential metabolic benefits of keto IF including many practicing doctors. Some people might just opt for semaglutide if they hear of that first, which seems likely since Ozempic is trending in popular culture. What would be wrong with a study comparing the two exactly?
These GLP-1 drugs are going to have as significant an impact on humanity as antibiotics, and vaccines. History will look back at their invention as one of the key advances in medicine.
With the difference that it wasn't humanity that invented pathogens or viral infections, while the obesity pandemic is arguably a product of industries (Food, Pharma) that profit more from keeping our unhealthy lifestyle than providing a holistic solution.
Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not seriously be seen as a good thing.
3rd hand anecdote, but a friend who used Ozempic spoke to the psychological impact of seeing the cravings for food vanish that went beyond just the timeframe of the dose. A drug that effectively shuts off the compulsion helps demonstrate the disconnect between the desire and the need for food. She specifically called out that experiencing the absence of craving helped with willpower after the Ozempic dose was withdrawn.
1st hand anecdote: fasting one day per week has noticeably reduced any late-night cravings or my endless appetite for chocolate.
The experience of going through one whole day with only water/tea/coffee, feeling a hole in your stomach by early afternoon and seeing the hunger subside by bed time and lasting until the next afternoon also "demonstrate the disconnect between the desire and the need for food".
We did create transmission of diseases across the planet by sending explorers between continents. The same way we enabled COVID spread through international travel. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but yes as humans advance we both improve and worsen things. The hope is for a net positive for the human race, but I'll leave that topic alone as it is its own can of worms.
As far as taking them continuously, there are many chronic conditions that people take medication for life to resolve. For example high blood pressure, they put you on medication and its expected you will be on it for life, it isn't always solvable by any other means. Many other examples of chronic conditions which means ongoing medication must be taken.
What I think will be interesting is the higher order impacts to the major food companies. If enough people are on medication to disrupt the desire to eat sweets and highly processed foods, the incentive for the food companies is to try to find a way to bypass the effects of the medication.
>> Also, AFAIK these drugs always need to be taken continuously, if people stop taking them they return to whatever was their baseline levels. This can not be seriously be seen as a good thing.
I don't think it's true. Obesity increase hunger, prevent you to walk and/or exercise for long stretch of time (chaffed thighs, you don't want to experience it), and disturb your sleep which in turn increase your hunger.
It's easy to become obese when you're overweight and have bad eating habits, and it's very rare for people like me that were in very good shape at 18 to be clinically obese at 27 (it took a heart issue, then a badly broken ankle (4 years of rehab) to do it).
If the drug fix your food issues for 2 years, you're set imho.
As a European, please stop. I don't know why we have to be so petty towards Americans. There are kinder and more effective ways to make the point you're trying to make.
The only thing ironic here is that you probably wrote this from an iPhone.
I always feel weird calling myself "European". I only did that because the parent comment was doing a EU vs US thing. Plus, I'm British and we are probably the least European Europeans.
I'm saying that EU is again lagging in providing new effective treatment - just like they were with COVID vaccine because of beurocratic penny pinching.
So I'm praising the US fast adoption of an effective treatment.
If I may take a guess, your previous comment may be getting downvoted because people misread it as fat-shaming the U.S. (which is one of the world's leaders when it comes to being overweight). That's definitely how I read it the first time, having forgotten the kerfuffle the EU went through with the COVID vaccine.
Perhaps a joke, but it's a legitimate concern of a very complex topic. U.S. society has gone through a golden era of accepting that weight is often outside of people's control. All of us are addicted to something, it's just that people who are overweight were forced to wear their addictions for everyone to see and laugh at. And fact of the matter is, some people would happily choose to be overweight, just like some would choose to be skinny. Not all of our life choices have to be "perfect" (with respect to "ideal" health, which is its own complex set of variables). Just as some people like yourself have a range of desires for their partners. That's all healthy and normal diversity that we should celebrate.
But when we live in a world where people can easily choose what weight they want to be, will society revert to ostrasizing those that choose to live outside the "norm"? Or will this soceital shift persist. I certainly hope for the latter, but there is a genuine concern here.
Bioshock actually does a good job exploring this dystopia. In that world a chemical know as Adam allows, amongst other things, a whole host of cosmetic surgeries that were not possible before. Now everyone can be "beautiful". Just like these drugs will enable people to be
To quote the game:
> With genetic modifications, beauty is no longer a goal or even a virtue, it is a moral obligation. Do we force the healthy to live with the contagious? Do we mix the criminal with the law abiding? Then why are the plain allowed to mingle with the fair?!
My primary doctor's advice 4 years ago.
"You lost the genetic lottery and I'm putting you on Ozempic to address your metabolic disorder"
My endocrinologist's response 2 years and 50lbs of weight loss ago. Since then every health marker has improved substantially, and with it clarity of thought and energy. Broad insurance coverage for these medications should be a slam dunk for insurers.