The Problematic Arrival of Anti-Obesity Drugs

ThatRobGuy · Jan 27, 2023

Fantine said:
Call me pro-choice on this med.

Ultimately that should be the case. I'm not in favor of forcing an obese person to do anything about their weight (unless the situation arises where I'm being forced to pay for their healthcare)

However, the people who would be candidates for this type of drug (but don't want to do it) need to realize that there are 4 possible truths/options:
1) You can exercise & diet and lose some of the weight.
2) You can pursue bariatric surgery and hope you're in the 42% that don't regain weight.
3) You can take this pill to assist with weight loss if you're not inclined to do option 1 or 2.
4) You can do none of those and undoubtedly have a health problems and die early.

There's no magic 5th option in which: they change absolutely nothing, everyone else is forced to go along with the "healthy at any size" acceptance movement, and doctors are expected to coddle them and have to refrain from telling the harsh truth (or otherwise be accused of "fat shaming"), and that it somehow becomes a reality.

People can recite the "healthy at any size" slogan as many times as they want, people saying it, and everyone else pretending to go along with it, isn't going to make it true.

Pommer · Jan 27, 2023

Fantine said:
I know people who have had the gastric sleeve oper. ation in which 80% of their stomach is removed. One is continually ill.

A childhood friend had a bypass and became an alcoholic since she could eat so little. She died of kidney failure.

My sister had a bypass and now has pancreatic insufficiency.

If only there had been a drug these desperate people would be alive and well.

Call me pro-choice on this med.

If it actually works and is safe…it may become the “Soma” of our times (for you kids, I’ll be gone soon).
The Government would save bundles on healthcare if their could keep ~~the herd~~ it’s citizens healthier, and lowering the rates of obesity would be a veritable boon, for such an endeavor.

Oh it would be FREE and mandatory. Yes, interesting times!

timothyu · Jan 27, 2023

I'm sure they will try it on an increasingly obese military first.

variant · Jan 28, 2023

wing2000 said:
...of course, that's the message Big Pharma has always pushed....take a pill if you don't have the will power to modify one's behavior.

Most people don't.

Granting people access to easier results without extra work (efficiency) is one of the main reasons we congregate in society's in the first place though.

What you gain is always a trade off though. In this case it is a trade of personal autonomy and self determination for an easier solution to ones problems. Which again, is the usual trade off in society.

It gets much more interesting if we could come up with a pill that would increase your will power to modify ones behavior.

ThatRobGuy · Jan 29, 2023

variant said:
Most people don't.

Granting people access to easier results without extra work (efficiency) is one of the main reasons we congregate in society's in the first place though.

What you gain is always a trade off though. In this case it is a trade of personal autonomy and self determination for an easier solution to ones problems. Which again, is the usual trade off in society.

It gets much more interesting if we could come up with a pill that would increase your will power to modify ones behavior.

It's a strategy of necessity in many ways with regards to functioning in society.
(especially if certain services are expected to be provided by the governing institutions)

Everything from healthcare to education to military.

While "working harder for something" has been propped up as a virtue and anything less is pejoratively referred to as "taking the easy way", there are some things where the easy way is better and there's little to be gained by letting everyone else do something "the hard way". (apart from a small sense of accomplishment for the small percentage of people who are capable of doing it "the hard way")

One of the examples I gave was education.

Sure, we could leave every generation to their own devices in figuring out different aspects of science and mathematics in efforts of rediscovering algebraic concepts (the hard way), and that may feel good for the small percentage who could do that from scratch. However, the easy way is using the data and information that's been collected over hundreds and hundreds of years, and having qualified instructors who can impart that on people effectively so that they don't have to start from square one.

variant · Jan 29, 2023

ThatRobGuy said:
It's a strategy of necessity in many ways with regards to functioning in society.
(especially if certain services are expected to be provided by the governing institutions)

Everything from healthcare to education to military.

While "working harder for something" has been propped up as a virtue and anything less is pejoratively referred to as "taking the easy way", there are some things where the easy way is better and there's little to be gained by letting everyone else do something "the hard way". (apart from a small sense of accomplishment for the small percentage of people who are capable of doing it "the hard way")

One of the examples I gave was education.

Sure, we could leave every generation to their own devices in figuring out different aspects of science and mathematics in efforts of rediscovering algebraic concepts (the hard way), and that may feel good for the small percentage who could do that from scratch. However, the easy way is using the data and information that's been collected over hundreds and hundreds of years, and having qualified instructors who can impart that on people effectively so that they don't have to start from square one.

Framing is important here.

It isn't in any way virtuous to take a harder path in many situations.

People might choose to for their own reasons and values but it's not automatic.

In my business dealings I certainly wouldn't propose less efficient or more costly solutions to my problems unless I saw some longer term goal or benefit, or do things myself that other people are set up to do more efficiently than the drain on my time or resources.

The long term goal with self determination via will power is a valid one in terms of how we eat and treat our own bodies, but we're talking about a skill that many people try at and fail for decades and over entire lifetimes.

If someone offers them an alternative to that struggle why would I jump to harshly judge them? I don't have to live in their body or live with their decisions. It strikes me as the kind of disrespectful moralizing that most people hate that completely forgets about the persons experience likely being different from ones own.

The real problem here of course is that people feel the need to look a certain way, and that society at large treats people who don't fit the ideal body poorly.

timothyu · Jan 29, 2023

As usual the industry seeks to treat, not address cause.

variant · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu said:
As usual the industry seeks to treat, not address cause.

Well at least part of the cause is that the human body wasn't made for the kinds of food we eat or the environment of modern society.

Nor does it deal with the cause of modern idealistic body expectations being increased while actual physical activity is on the decline.

I don't think that's their job though.

There are plenty of gyms, nutritionists, psychologists, philosophers, scientists and churches and an entire self help industry out there that have failed to "treat the cause".

So, now there are doctors and pills to treat the condition.

timothyu · Jan 29, 2023

variant said:
There are plenty of gyms, nutritionists, psychologists, philosophers, scientists and churches and an entire self help industry out there that have failed to "treat the cause".

So, now there are doctors and pills to treat the condition.

As long as the economy thrives, there will always be those for the parasites to feed off of.

variant · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu said:
As long as the economy thrives, there will always be those for the parasites to feed off of.

Parasites? Hardly, fulfilling peoples needs is what everyone does in the economy, how moral their actions have to do with what those actions are.

Economically this particular problem is lucrative for both those treating it and those making it worse.

If anything, developing a drug that treats it might be problematic competition for all those non working treatments, and a boon to the junk food industry.

timothyu · Jan 29, 2023

Either way they are both feeding off the people who are stuck in a system that makes them vulnerable.

variant · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu said:
Either way they are both feeding off the people who are stuck in a system that makes them vulnerable.

Genuinely trying to help people with their problems isn't parasitic.

Hosts of jobs are neutral. For instance I can't really blame the dairyman that there is so much cheese available that people can get fat.

timothyu · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu · Jan 29, 2023

variant said:
Genuinely trying to help people with their problems isn't parasitic.

Genuinely using the system to profit, otherwise the cause would be addressed and dealt with, but that might not be profitable.

variant · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu said:
Genuinely using the system to profit, otherwise the cause would be addressed and dealt with, but that might not be profitable.

You're expecting that all problems have practical solutions in all cases.

But yeah, it would have to be profitable, otherwise, how do we pay people to do it?

Desk trauma · Jan 29, 2023

timothyu said:
A skill it seems no longer passed on down to the next generations.

What skill, stopping time to allow people to put in more hours reading than a human life span can cover?

ThatRobGuy · Jan 30, 2023

timothyu said:
As usual the industry seeks to treat, not address cause.

For certain issues, treatment is the best approach (at least in the short term) as the cause may be something that's "too far gone" to correct in the timeline that would lead to critical outcomes.

For instance, if a 66 year old is obese, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and with blood sugar issues...

We know what the cause is...sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. But even if you target the cause, are you going to be able to have enough time to reverse the damage "naturally" before the person is at serious risk of something like a heart attack or stroke?

It's not as if a person who's been doing damage to their body for decades can go on a magic "cleansing diet" for a month and be back to ship shape.

timothyu · Jan 30, 2023

ThatRobGuy said:
For certain issues, treatment is the best approach (at least in the short term) as the cause may be something that's "too far gone" to correct in the timeline that would lead to critical outcomes.

That is the same thinking that forced incomplete testing for vaccines upon us yet as time goes by the truth emerges.

timothyu · Jan 30, 2023

ThatRobGuy said:
We know what the cause is...sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. But even if you target the cause, are you going to be able to have enough time to reverse the damage "naturally" before the person is at serious risk of something like a heart attack or stroke?

So we seek magic methods to reverse almost instantly what took decades to accomplish? Desperation is a great salesman.

ThatRobGuy · Jan 30, 2023

timothyu said:
So we seek magic methods to reverse almost instantly what took decades to accomplish? Desperation is a great salesman.

Magic implies that we don't know how it works.

The effect of certain drugs aren't magic, we know they address some of the aspects that could mean immediate danger, and we know how they do it.

If a person has serious blood pressure issues or blood sugar issues, the meds people take for that aren't "magic" and nobody is implying that they are. But they will remove the immediate danger that could happen by doing nothing.

An obese person in their 60's who's a few weeks away from a heart attack doesn't have the luxury of waiting 2 years to reap the benefits of a drastic diet change, nor do they have the option of strenuous exercise at the gym (as that itself could cause a heart attack for a person in their situation)

All drugs come with risks, however for certain people in certain situations, certain drugs have pros that greatly outweigh the cons.

Evidence of that is the increasing lifespans of Americans despite the fact that dietary and exercise habits have gotten worse.

The Problematic Arrival of Anti-Obesity Drugs

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