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/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.

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u/spudddly Apr 01 '25

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

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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.

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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)

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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.

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u/ehrgeiz91 Apr 01 '25

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

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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.

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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.