logoalt Hacker News

jyscaotoday at 12:46 AM5 repliesview on HN

When Ozempic started making the rounds in the news with glowing reviews, my instincts told me there likely was some long term negative effective that wasn't immediately apparent yet.

If something sounds good too good to be true, it usually is.


Replies

julianeontoday at 4:35 AM

You do have to factor in the (probable) cost of not using Ozempic, aka keeping the pounds on. It may be imprecise, but as an example, if a person was likely to die within 10 years at their current weight, any bad effects beyond the 10 year mark have to be heavily discounted.

show 1 reply
vundercindtoday at 2:14 AM

At the very least, we should expect to see the same kinds of downsides you’d see for anyone who managed to eat way, way less and lose weight at a multiple-pounds-per-week rate for weeks and weeks on end without taking a drug to do it. They’d be truly miraculous if they achieved their results without even the same cost as doing the same thing without the drug.

m463today at 5:29 AM

On the other hand, being overweight takes years off your life:

"Specifically, we found that BMIs from 40 to 44 were associated with 6.5 years of life lost, but this increased to 8.9 for BMIs from 45 to 49, 9.8 for BMIs from 50 to 54, and 13.7 for BMIs from 55 to 59."

I think for some people the roi is measurable and reasonable.

https://irp.nih.gov/blog/post/2020/01/extreme-obesity-shaves...

show 1 reply
echoangletoday at 5:30 AM

> If something sounds good too good to be true, it usually is.

You mean like antibiotics? Or vaccines?

show 1 reply
monero-xmrtoday at 2:17 AM

No one seems to remember Fen Phen or its stratospheric rise and fall https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine

show 2 replies