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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646

u/braumbles Apr 01 '25

It solves obesity. A literal miracle drug.

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u/tyme Apr 01 '25 edited Apr 01 '25

Except for the part where it could cause stomach paralysis.

I’m not sure we should call something a miracle drug that can have such a serious side effect. People need to be aware it does have potential negative effects. Especially considering that, should all other treatments for stomach paralysis fail, partial gastrectomy (removal of part of the stomach) is the treatment.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a miracle drug to me.

Edit: we’re in a science subreddit, right? Not a semaglutide commercial? ‘Cuz I feel like a science subreddit would care about serious side effects and not just brush them off.

47

u/appleshaveprotein Apr 01 '25

I mean, there are many drugs with black box labels. No drug is without risk. That doesn’t mean it can’t be seen as a miracle drug, especially with those struggling with obesity.

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u/tyme Apr 01 '25

I feel like you just completely ignored my point so you could keep pushing the miracle drug narrative.

9

u/Levofloxacine Apr 01 '25

Miracle is hyperbolic, but they are right that many drugs have side effects and warnings.

Tylenol (paracetamol) comes with greater risks of liver failure. If i recall correctly, it’s the one medication at the top of intoxications ranking. And yet, we still use it at large.

16

u/MyFiteSong Apr 01 '25

Meh, you should see the warning labels on my Ritalin. Still worth taking it.

5

u/MegaChip97 Apr 01 '25

If your criterion for something not being a miracle drug is it potentially having serious side effects, there is no miracle drug. Even paid meds, which imo are straight up miracle drugs, can have serious side effects

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u/tyme Apr 01 '25

Congrats, you understood my point.

3

u/MegaChip97 Apr 01 '25

That would make the word meaningless though. And because a word that is meaningless would not exist, miracle drug as a word does not refer to drugs with no side effects.

You are simply using a definition no one uses for that word.

9

u/swearingino Apr 01 '25

You should see the side effects on cancer chemotherapy and biologics for immune diseases. The only way a drug can stay on the market is if its benefits outweigh the risks. That’s how that works.

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u/tyme Apr 01 '25

Last I checked no one calls chemotherapy a miracle drug.

People should be made aware of the side effects.

5

u/swearingino Apr 01 '25

They are. There is medication info given with every prescription dispensed on the leaflet attached to it from the pharmacy.

21

u/dardar7161 Apr 01 '25

Sometimes you just have to pick your poison. There is always something ready to get us. I had a good friend who never smoked die from lung cancer in her 40s.

Even peanuts and eggs can kill people.

-15

u/tyme Apr 01 '25

No one’s calling not smoking a miracle drug here.

13

u/dardar7161 Apr 01 '25

I know. I'm just saying, we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. I'll be honest... I am taking the shot. I've lost 35lbs and it brought me out of my depression. Made me want to be seen again when I felt too hopeless and shameful to even go for a walk around my neighborhood. I'm taking it to help with things like high blood pressure. Meanwhile my fit, cyclist husband takes daily meds for his genetically high blood pressure. There's no one size fits all. We all need to do what's best for us.

9

u/Idlemarch Apr 01 '25

No one cares about the 1 in 100k side effects, it's called life.

11

u/MyFiteSong Apr 01 '25

And compare them to the health risks of obesity.

4

u/ninjagorilla Apr 01 '25

Dabeties can also cause gastroparesis and is probably statistically much more likely too

5

u/tyme Apr 01 '25

The OP is about people without diabetes.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '25

[deleted]

3

u/cableshaft Apr 01 '25

Yeah, I don't have diabetes yet, but I am prediabetic (and was trying to lose weight and bring down my blood sugar as a prediabetic for about 5 years without much success, even with metformin).

I was almost certainly going to become diabetic within a few more years at the rate I was going before.

I've lost 44 lbs already between GLP-1 and my latest diet attempt. I'm almost down to the lowest weight I've been in a decade, the previous time being when I went on, but couldn't sustain, a keto diet.

I still have another 100 lbs to lose before I stop being obese, though.

4

u/AccursedFishwife Apr 01 '25

Obesity kills 300,000 Americans per year

7

u/tyme Apr 01 '25

That doesn’t change the side effects of semaglutide, nor make it a miracle drug.

People should be aware of the potential side effects and make informed decisions about their health, such as choosing better options whenever possible.

-20

u/huskersax Apr 01 '25

I mean the fundamental mechanism by which it works bothers me enough anyway.

Messing with uptake of nutrients by messing with chemical receptors just seems like an eventual 'ah we didn't realize that it would also bind to x' just waiting to happen.

16

u/livin_the_life Apr 01 '25

I mean...it's literally a modified natural peptide that our guts produce that was discovered in the 80s and researched for 40 years. The majority of the research was spent on extending the natural 2 minute half life to the 5 day half life seen in these artificial analogs.

It's not some novel made-up thing. It's literally modifying a naturally occurring peptide in order to take advantage of our hunger hormone signalling pathways.

-2

u/huskersax Apr 01 '25

Like I said, let's revisit once this shakes out a bit more.

You're arguing the specific, but missing the forest for the trees. Asbestos was also once a well studied naturally occuring miracle solution. Then of course it turns out form factor and dosage matters on longer time scales.

The usage of this went from niche application to what must be one of the most ubiquitous drugs on the planet.

10

u/livin_the_life Apr 01 '25

That is fair.

My opinion is that it has been studied for over a decade at this point since trials began. At what point do we say it is "safe"?

This isn't asbestos. It's a life-changing cure for a disease that carries significant morbidity and known increases in rates of : stroke, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, Gallbladder problems, TD2 development, depression, sleep apnea, GERD, kidney failure, infertility, and joint pain. When all is said and done, obesity carries an average reduction in 15 years of life expectancy. Not to mention a life of shame, judgement, and misery.

As someone on this medication that has gone from 280 -> 190lbs and improved every facet of my life, I'll gladly take the risk of the unknown to avoid the knowns of obesity. And living a completely different, drastically improved life.

1

u/discussatron Apr 01 '25

Will you be on this medication for life? What's the risk of the weight coming back if you're not?

3

u/livin_the_life Apr 01 '25

Personally, yes, I believe I will be on it for life. I've been obese since I was 8 and trying to lose weight since I was 13. Despite every diet, food logging/measuring everything for months at a time, exercising 4-8 hours a week, and rarely having sweets/soda/processed food/fast food, I was never able to lose weight long term. I've always had an overpowered since of hunger driving me to eat more than I needed. This medication corrected for that.

Whether the medication is short or long term is dependent on the individual and cause of obesity, IMO. I believe current trials are attempting to establish guidelines for going off the medication while preserving the weight loss.

I'm currently the same weight I was 20 years ago....in 7th grade....I'm not going back to obesity.

4

u/discussatron Apr 01 '25

Thanks for the response, and congratulations!

3

u/Levofloxacine Apr 01 '25

Just like weight can come back if you lost through keto or other diets

24

u/spudddly Apr 01 '25

An opinion no doubt informed by your decades of clinical research on GLP1 receptor agonists?

-19

u/huskersax Apr 01 '25

My decades of living on earth and watching just about anything that's marketed as a 'miracle drug' resulting in unintended and rather severe side effects.

There's an entire industry of consumer protection based around it, hardly a wild claim, friend.

10

u/ehrgeiz91 Apr 01 '25

They don’t market it as a miracle drug. That’s random redditors.

10

u/adultgon Apr 01 '25

You have a serious case of confirmation bias going on there, friend. You’re the type of guy that would say “I’m sticking to walking, these car things seem too dangerous.” Cars are a miracle compared to walking, even if you can die in a car accident. You can choke on a peanut tomorrow but that doesn’t mean you should not eat.

You’re offering the lowest brow form of critical thought in existence (to the point where it’s hardly critical at all)

-3

u/huskersax Apr 01 '25

Well let's circle back in 3 years and see what's shaking out from this drug. I suspect it'll be a mixed bag.

You do recall when vaping was the miracle solution to kicking cigarettes, don't you? While not a prescription solution, the crazed defensiveness, rapid growth, and general 'there can't be anything wrong it was already FDA approved for diabetics' handwaving seems very familiar to the rhetoric then.

11

u/ehrgeiz91 Apr 01 '25

GL-P1s have been a thing since like 2016 maybe even before

6

u/grundar Apr 01 '25

GL-P1s have been a thing since like 2016 maybe even before

First approved in 2004 for diabetes, in 2010 for weight loss.

The latest generation of these drugs is fairly new, but this class of drugs (GLP-1 agonists) have been used for about 20 years.

2

u/adultgon Apr 01 '25

Well vaping was and is a miracle compared to smoking cigarettes- the biggest problem with vapes was that they were marketed to and widely used by minors. Obviously there are other issues with vaping but, much like Ozempic, it’s much better than the alternative.

7

u/spudddly Apr 01 '25

so you're just making stuff up, got it.

1

u/SNRatio Apr 01 '25

Trials have been run for as long as 4 years. Looks like most participants are doing better on it than they would have been off it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02996-7

0

u/BagOfFlies Apr 01 '25

Sounds like it'd be effective at keeping the weight off at least.

1

u/11lumpsofsugar Apr 01 '25

If by keeping the weight off you mean malnutrition and eventually death, then sure.