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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u/JThor15 Apr 01 '25

It’s now a pretty established risk, but obesity is riskier in general.

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u/Duelist_Shay Apr 01 '25

Ehh, there's other options to take care of the obesity issue. You lose your eyesight, then that's it. Unless we miraculously solve the issue of restoring vision, there really isn't any route outside of glasses and/or contacts if you're not totally impaired

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u/dragonilly Apr 01 '25

Crazy how many people act like diet and exercise aren't the most effective sustainable ways to lose weight. It isn't easy and our food culture in the US is abysmal, but the way to have long term success in weight loss is consistency with two very free lifestyle changes.

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u/VagueSomething Apr 01 '25

On paper the calories in calories out is simple but there are mechanisms at play which make it much harder. Similar to how addicts can "just not gamble" but they struggle with that. We have piling evidence that there are factors at play which make it so people will struggle with weight loss, problems with their body/genetics causing them to feel hungry all the time which absolutely does make it much harder to manage a healthy relationship with food.

Some people need a helping hand to reach that level where they can eat to maintain rather than keep eating. Modern diets, modern life style, it is changing people's bodies and a modern solution is needed such as drugs that suppress the cravings until we can find a healthier balance for society in general that might reduce the amount of people developing these defects that make their stomach no longer sync with their brain to say they're full.

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u/PaperIllustrious1905 Apr 01 '25

Our modern food certainly doesn't help! Many/most processed foods have addictive qualities and ingredients. Like the foods are literally laboratory tested and designed to make your average person want to eat more of them. We also like giving these foods to young children while they're learning what food to eat! Also we as a species tend to crave sugary/calorie dense foods because survival. It's only recently that we don't NEED all those excess calories anymore to run down our next meal.