Re:Semaglutide like Ozempic burn visceral fat, don't just su...
by twelve40 on Friday August 23, 2024 @04:54AM
(#41327317)
The comment author has zero moralizing and zero denial of quality of life benefits, or any of this. They simply seem to say that if a person doesn't eliminate the root cause of their obesity, they will still continue to suffer from health damage (or maybe even more, tbd) despite the actual benefits of this pill - and this is not discussed, unlike the hyped-up benefits, which btw may mislead people to think that they shouldn't change now that their appetite+weight is magically reducing, and all-positive publicity also encourages people who have little need for this pill to hoard it and drive the price(profits) up.
A number of other things you mention are pretty subjective. It's just as hard for me to diet and exercise when I'm BMI 19 or BMI 25. In fact, that's true for 90+% of people, because everyone almost universally rebounds to bad habits, in all studies. This "power through a long-term health journey" is your whole life, always, there is no start or stop to this until we die or give up, even with this pill. The pill may help with the BMI part, but it obscures the fact that there is still very real health damage from bad diet and bad lifestyle no matter what your BMI or even visceral fat is.
First of all this is just blatantly disregarding the first order quality of life benefits, which is beyond inexcusable. These count as a perfectly legitimate rationale in and of themselves. Even a 'season' of improved quality of life needs to matter to those of us who value health and life.
But secondly, as a consequence of the above, it can dramatically shift the odds of maintaining good habits in a positive direction. It's easier to initiate and sustain momentum from a position of strength, of enjoying a benefit that's already in hand, than it is to try and summon the extraordinary willpower necessary to initiate and power through a long-term health journey. I don't see any reason to force people to take path that except for a confused desire to impose pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps moralizing.
Third, it appears to come with the benefit of moderating cravings for alcohol, which in and of itself is such a critical health benefit is that it could compensate for even quite serious side effects, if it had them.
Fourth, it does address root causes. Unlike a bariatric surgery or gastric sleeve, it is an intervention that impacts cravings and metabolic processes at their source. Different people are born with different exposures to the risks given our reward and addiction systems. Whatever our initial state we didn't "earn" that and once again I think it's confused moralizing true require people to essentially rewire their reward systems out of a subjective belief that that's more pure or doesn't itself come with negative consequences.
Fifth, it is a medicine and medicines involve tradeoffs. Being qualified to prescribe medicines involves being trained to think coherently about a trade-offs. If you're not trained, then ignoring benefits and focusing on negatives might feel like it's some form of enlightened skepticism. But it's just as much malpractice to ignore the benefits of medicine as it would be to ignore negative side effects. Even it's necessary to maintain a lifelong relationship with the specific form of medicated intervention, that can be a net positive trade-off for long-term quality of life.