I worry this will be socialised as a wonder drug, when it may, like gastric banding wind up a phenomenally useful tool but one with caveats. Banding works. But it also can be thwarted by behaviour.
20% is huge. I have managed to reduce my longterm weight over a five to ten year period by 10% to 15% at best and have persisting issues in closing out some lingering weight. My partner is on near to starvation diet, concerned about micronutrients and bone loss and cannot shift weight easily on her current metabolism and activity levels, and we're both old and constrained for other reasons in exercise. We're in the overweight camp not obese or morbidly obese camp but would love not to be.
I do not want to be on a drug for weightloss but at a cost of some gastro intestinal discomfort for a window in time, to make a quantum leap down (and 20% is a significant amount) with consequent upsides to metabolic syndrome, fatty liver, hypertension, I would think about it.
I think it would depend on the long term metabolic results. Better diet and exercise almost always can make a difference, but the problem with large amounts of weight loss is the level of changes needed to maintain said weight loss.
The long term study on "The Biggest Loser" contestants has some interesting insights into this where contestants who lost lots of weight had slower metabolisms than other people in their same weight classes even years after losing the weight, whether they gained it all back or not.
In other words, a 150lbs person who never had to lose a lot of weight actually can eat more and work out less than a 150lbs person that lost 150lbs 5 years ago. Also, the resting burn rate was still lower in the contestants.
It's just a recipe for long term failure if your metabolism doesn't adjust and reset after weight loss.
No-one wants to be skinny fat, they want to be fit.
People obsess about the idea that you can't "outrun your diet" but neglect the fact that a sedentary person is at all sorts of risk regardless of their diet.
Obesity is a major cause of long term health issues in the US and other developed countries.
63% on the highest dose achieved a 20% body weight reduction. If you imagine morbidly obese people weighing in at 300, 400 lbs, that's 60-80 lbs of weight loss.
It's not, we'll do everything but the right thing, tax the shit out of junk food or straight up ban them. Fix the root cause, not the symptom
When I see families at the supermarket checking out with nothing but candies and processed junk food I die a little bit inside, the veggies aisle is 1/10th of the supermarket, the candies aisle is twice as big, the biscuit aisle too, the purposefully put colorful candies and junk food packages at children eyes level near the cash registers, &c.
We're selling them the addiction and now we're attempting to sell them the cure, it's not fantastic, it's vile
Feel free to explain me how, as we've clearly been stuck in this for a good 50+ year, the food industry lobby are more powerful than our governments.
From sugar to processed food, carcinogenic additives, alcohol, tobacco, it's not a secret, it's very well documented...
Selling shit that shaves of decades of your life is an utopia, controlling them is "authoritarianism"... I'm glad I have the will power to not fall into that but clearly the vast majority of the population doesn't, what are we waiting for ? 100% obesity rate ? our lifestyles and especially our diets are an insult to nature
"my body my choice" they will say, ok then fuck off of the public healthcare system because I'm not financing your slow suicide
I think this is very much an "it depends" thing - a lot [not all] of "caused by obesity" issues are really caused by behaviour that also results in obesity - I think that would be comorbidity? but I am not a doctor :D
That said I agree that something like this, assuming results hold, no drawbacks, etc could be very valuable, if nothing else just for increasing quality of life. But I could see that losing an initial chunk of weight also helping on the road to exercise (if you are extremely overweight exercise may not be an option).
If I can eat garbage food and take a pill to mitigate the impacts, I’ll do that! I enjoy garbage food. Pizza, wings, sushi, pho, Thai, whatever you want to call it. I don’t want to eat a Mediterranean diet in perpetuity.
If I can not exercise and take a pill to replicate the benefits of cardio and strength training, I’d also do that. I only have so many hours left to live, and I’d rather not spend it doing maintenance on my body.
Life is short. I want all the benefits without the costs (time, restraint), and if science can make it happen, shut up and take my money. To argue there’s a moral hazard here is…strange, if we have the capability and the side effects can be managed.
Hopefully I’m dead by then having lived an enjoyable life ;) my grandmother is in her 90s sitting around waiting to die. Healthy but mostly unable to do anything worth doing. Eats cookies and drinks coffee, watches TV, that’s it. Not for me!
Caloric surplus is not a new phenomenon, ancient Rome had obesity.
It’s definitely become much easier to gain a surplus with all this processed food but I just don’t see behaviors changing anytime soon, so anything that reduces the pressure on our health care systems is worth investigating.
20% is huge. I have managed to reduce my longterm weight over a five to ten year period by 10% to 15% at best and have persisting issues in closing out some lingering weight. My partner is on near to starvation diet, concerned about micronutrients and bone loss and cannot shift weight easily on her current metabolism and activity levels, and we're both old and constrained for other reasons in exercise. We're in the overweight camp not obese or morbidly obese camp but would love not to be.
I do not want to be on a drug for weightloss but at a cost of some gastro intestinal discomfort for a window in time, to make a quantum leap down (and 20% is a significant amount) with consequent upsides to metabolic syndrome, fatty liver, hypertension, I would think about it.