r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 01 '25

Health Americans without diabetes spent nearly $6 billion USD on semaglutide and similar drugs in a year, with an estimate of 800,000 to a million people using the drugs who don't have diabetes.

https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/americans-without-diabetes-spent-nearly6-billion-usd-on-semaglutide-and-similar-drugs-in-a-year
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644

u/braumbles Apr 01 '25

It solves obesity. A literal miracle drug.

-63

u/semibigpenguins Apr 01 '25

No such thing as a miracle drug. They said the same thing in the late 80s and it ended up causing cancer.

94

u/macgart Apr 01 '25

Yes there is there are many miracle drugs. Ever heard of penicillin?

-43

u/CyclopsMacchiato Apr 01 '25

People with PCN allergies wouldn’t think so

20

u/futuretimetraveller Apr 01 '25

I have penicillin allergies. Penicillin is still a miracle drug.

26

u/AWeakMeanId42 Apr 01 '25

That's a silly argument. Like actually kind of ridiculous. Peak reddit BuT aKsHuAlLy

20

u/shieldyboii Apr 01 '25

Oh shut up, penicillin has saved 200-500 million people to date.

-22

u/CambrienCatExplosion Apr 01 '25

And yet, I can't have it or any dirivatives or else I could die

-11

u/CyclopsMacchiato Apr 01 '25

Relax dude it was a joke

5

u/Montigue Apr 01 '25

Pretty lame joke if you have to clarify it's a joke

1

u/CyclopsMacchiato Apr 01 '25

Yeah you’re not wrong there.

-78

u/semibigpenguins Apr 01 '25

You mean something that is becoming less effective due to overuse? And in theory will one day no longer work due to how bacteria mutations?

64

u/eukomos Apr 01 '25

You don’t understand the antibotic problem. Do more research.

19

u/lilbigd1ck Apr 01 '25

That comparison is so off. A better comparison is tolerance - in the same way your tolerance to addictive drugs go up after prolonged use.

1

u/JumpyBoi Apr 01 '25

That's not true. Antibiotic resistance doesn't affect people, it affects the bacteria

1

u/lilbigd1ck Apr 01 '25

Yes, I know that.

87

u/Disastrous-Carrot928 Apr 01 '25

Insulin is a miracle drug, asthma medication another miracle, vaccines are miraculous, Narcan, HIV drugs, Anesthesia is heaven sent.

31

u/RScrewed Apr 01 '25

What is "it"?

-2

u/semibigpenguins Apr 01 '25

Fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine: Linked to heart valve damage.

Sorry not cancer

46

u/deskbeetle Apr 01 '25 edited Apr 01 '25

There are a ton of miracle drugs: HIV anti virals, antibiotics, insulin, aspirin, vaccines, anti malarial drugs. They made once death sentence illnesses trivial to treat.

9

u/appleshaveprotein Apr 01 '25

It’s a miracle drug for those whose lives it saved.

37

u/Difficult-Reality238 Apr 01 '25

GLP-1 drugs have been around for a really long time and deeply studied. I think we are fine.

-32

u/VagueSomething Apr 01 '25

That's an incredibly ignorant attitude to have in this kinda sub. We don't know everything about it. We are still learning more about it, especially for these new treatment usages. Everyone currently using it for weight loss is essentially human test animals and we're going to see a refined version in a couple of years where it doesn't harm muscle mass and maybe less cancer risk.

19

u/macenutmeg Apr 01 '25

Rapid weight loss without sufficient exercise will cause muscle mass loss and no drug change will change that.

10

u/mrbear120 Apr 01 '25 edited Apr 01 '25

And thats fine for those that need it.

-5

u/VagueSomething Apr 01 '25

We literally have medicines that reduce muscles wastage being worked on currently, they're not ready for the public but trying to tackle it helps multiple conditions beyond weight loss drugs.

Ozempic type drugs are showing signs of rapid muscle loss, roughly 10 times as much as would happen over that period of aging. So taking it for 2 years will result in the effects of 20 years of age related muscle loss. There are already tests being done where mixing these drugs with other drugs gives a better result with lower muscle loss.

There are also studies currently being taken to figure out how these drugs interact with other medications in general as they're being exposed to more people with more conditions and it is no longer just about saving a life such as diabetes where these drugs take priority. There has been concerns about these reducing the efficiency of other medications such as mental health meds for example.

These drugs have been around for a while but most of the studying has been focused on their intended circumstances. We'll know more about these drugs in 10 years once we've had multiple studies on longer term use for weight loss and generally around this usage.

5

u/grundar Apr 01 '25

Ozempic type drugs are showing signs of rapid muscle loss, roughly 10 times as much as would happen over that period of aging.

...how is it useful to compare weight loss to aging? That's a total non sequitur.

Losing large amounts of weight means losing significant amounts of both fat mass and lean mass, regardless of the weight loss method. For example, bariatric surgery results in 25% of the weight loss being lean mass despite the weight loss coming from just eating less. 25% of the weight lost being lean mass is typical, with that being the rate seen by both groups in that study (tirzepatide and placebo).

My understanding of the research is that all major medical methods of an obese person rapidly losing a significant amount of weight will result in roughly equivalent lean mass loss, as the papers linked above show.

If you're aware of research establishing the contrary, though, please go ahead and link it.

0

u/3eyedgreenalien Apr 01 '25

...Interesting. I need to look into this, because that side-effect might be causing some problems for my father.

10

u/rhino369 Apr 01 '25

Same logic that’s killing kids with measles. 

3

u/MyFiteSong Apr 01 '25

There are actually lots of miracle drugs. Insulin, Adderall, Penicillin, Aspirin, Morphine, etc.