I think this article by Betsy McKay in the Wall Street Journal about the new class of drugs including Wegovy and Mounjaro is confused. Here’s the meat of it:
The success of the powerful new class of diabetes and weight-loss drugs shows how important chemistry is to determining a person’s weight. The brain is the body’s chief chemist, regulating appetite and making it difficult for many people to shed pounds and keep them off. The brain determines how much fat it wants people to carry, according to years of research bolstered by the new drugs.
The amount is like a setting on a dial, or what many researchers call a “set point†or “defended fat mass.†The brain maintains the dial setting or set point by regulating how much a person eats. Ozempic, its sister drug Wegovy and another, Mounjaro, lower the dial setting, or set point, in effect by acting on the brain to reduce hunger and make a person feel full sooner, some obesity researchers say.
The new set point lasts as long as a patient is on the drug, they say. Patients who ate a lot before they started taking one of the drugs feel less hungry and fill up more quickly—sometimes after one slice of pizza when they once ate the whole pie.
“This is not about willpower or personal choice,†said Dr. Florencia Halperin, an endocrinologist and chief medical officer of Form, a virtual medical weight-loss clinic. “This is about your brain driving behaviors.â€
to which I respond so what? It’s easier for you to maintain a healthy weight than it is for me because your brain doesn’t send your body the wrong signals. That does not render it healthier for me to be overweight. It just means that it’s harder for me than it is for you. Life isn’t fair.
Furthermore, these drugs have all sorts of side effects possibly including pancreatitis, allergic reactions, kidney, stomach, and gallbladder problems, even some forms of cancer.
And there’s a distinction between serious obesity and losing five or ten pounds every so often. We have no idea what on again off again usage of these drugs will do on a longitudinal basis.
Taking drugs so you can avoid self-restraint is the very definition of gluttony. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins for a reason. That reason is that it reflects a relationship with material things that is disregulated, out of control.
Virtue is a habit. You cultivate the virtue of self-restraint by practicing it. If you don’t practice it, you won’t magically restrain yourself.
If self-restraint is the only option, then the obesity problem will continue to grow.
I think the obesity problem will continue to grow I also don’t think that drugs are a substitute for constructive behaviors although they may be useful in cases of extreme obesity.
I have had to be careful about what I ate for decades. If obesity is calculated by the weight in kilograms divided by the height in meters squared, I’m obese. I’m not shaped the way normal people are. My legs are shorter relative to the length of my torso. I’m compact and muscular. I’ve been measured as carrying about 15% body fat which I think explains why I’ve never been diagnosed as obese.
I also eat roughly 1,500 calories a day. If I ate more I’d gain weight.
If people engaged in ideal behaviors a lot of illness would go away. They dont. We can either try to treat them anyway or just let them suffer. We can try the third choice of encouraging them to engage in better behavior but we have a poor success record with this approach.
Steve
It’s all so intertwined that it’s been reported because Ozempic is so successful at suppressing the desire to eat, the result is severe depression as food avoidance is not optional for the brain and it’s endorphin cravings.
My experience has been that the most successful diet tools available contain nicotine.
Trade off I know.
IMO there’s another problem with them that I haven’t been able to explain properly. When appetite decreases it doesn’t necessarily mean you will eat what you need. You’ll eat what you want and what you want will not necessarily provide necessary nutrients. I expect that if those taking these new drugs don’t maintain rigorous diets we’ll soon start to see various deficiency diseases.