>Nostrums

def: A medicine

>drugs work today

....

Seriously though, the problem is that, regardless of cause, we're fat and lazy. Throwing more drugs to take care of diabetes and heart disease is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I'm watching my boomer parents realize that medicine isn't going to help everything, and they are going to have to be accountable for their help. They've gotten much more physically active and lost weight because they are seeing that my grandfather's heart medication may be stopping the heart attacks but it isn't stopping his diabetes or inability to climb the stairs, and the gamut of surgeries are just making him more and more crippled. A pill won't solve our problems. It may solve the current health crises, but it won't stop the next one. Losing weight, eating better, and being active will solve the whole set of problems.

One problem afflicting us now is that people eat too much, consequently weigh too much, damage their health, and balloon healthcare expenses society-wide. If a pill can make people eat less, why reject it? If a medication solves a problem, it solves a problem. You can't say "X doesn't work" when X does, in fact, work, and then expect people to take you seriously.

You're adopting a moralizing stance here, one that says that gain without pain is illegitimate. This approach has broad appeal, but it just doesn't work. For decades people have been making the same argument you're making, and it hasn't worked. It's time we try something else.

> You can't say "X doesn't work" when X does, in fact, work, and then expect people to take you seriously. > You're adopting a moralizing stance here, one that says that gain without pain is illegitimate.

No, I'm saying that a pill won't solve the root problem. You make people skinny with a pill, you just end up with unhealthy, malnourished skinny people who insulin is all out of wack and who will still get heart attacks.

> For decades people have been making the same argument you're making, and it hasn't worked. It's time we try something else.

Are you suggesting that "throw a pill at it" hasn't been a solution for decades? We've had this belief that medical science can cure us of all our ills, and I think we are no realizing we can't. I've seen family members become shells of themselves after surgery after surgery causes them to lose as much as they got back. Pills always have trade offs, surgery always leaves scars. Maybe one day that'll be the case where a pill will solve all our problems, but it's not today.

Nevertheless, telling people they should eat better and exercise more does not convince them to do these things. The approach you're advocating does not work. What is your alternative? More of the same?

And throwing pills at it doesn't seem to help either - we've had weight loss pills for decades, unless THIS round is going to work.

Many of the most effective medications were banned due to medical risks --- for example, DNP. Efficacy isn't in doubt here; safety is. IMHO, given that all other public health interventions have failed, we should relax the safety constraints on these existing medications and mitigate the risks however we can. Demanding perfection in drug development has left us with nothing, and something is better than nothing.

"Acute oral exposure to DNP has resulted in increased basal metabolic rate, nausea, vomiting, sweating, dizziness, headache, and loss of weight. Chronic oral exposure to DNP can lead to the formation of cataracts and skin lesions and has caused effects on the bone marrow, central nervous system, and cardiovascular system.

...

Case reports have shown that an acute administration of 20–50 mg per kilogram of body weight in humans can be lethal. The lowest published fatal ingested dose is 4.3 mg/kg. Concerns about dangerous side-effects and rapidly developing cataracts resulted in DNP being discontinued in the United States by the end of 1938. DNP, however, continues to be used by some bodybuilders and athletes to rapidly lose body fat. Fatal overdoses include cases of accidental exposure, suicide, and excessive intentional exposure (overdose). The substance's use as a dieting aid has also led to a number of accidental fatalities."[1]

I would argue that's an entirely unsafe medication. That's not a drug that's short of perfection, it seems to be the sort of medication that will solve the obesity crises by actively killing people instead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol