She also had weight loss surgery. I've heard some doctors warning such patients (because now you are) might have it work differently. But we don't know.

We do know people who have side effects are weeded out of the studies. But that doesn't happen when it's unleashed on the population. More and more, genetic differences seem to happen. And they are never tested for, even when known, like ALS and statins.

That's just poor medical practice.

Medical technology is able to accomplish some incredible things today, but when we use the population to test an approved drug due to the trial being designed to achieve successful approval, we are still living in the dark ages where lives have little value.

The thrill of losing weight - having your appetite under control, not constantly feeling hungry, not constantly THINKING about food - that seems to be such an overwhelming constant with the use of these drugs that they keep on taking them.

Those effects can be overcome by stress, such as with the acquaintance who stress-ate despite being on Ozempic while going through a serious health scare - that person regained some weight during the health scare, but was back to losing weight again after that was resolved.

The other acquaintance became nearly frantic that there was no Wegovy available in the right dosage at the local pharmacies - demand was so high that it would be a month or two before they would be able to fill the Rx. An online Rx service is filling the Rx though - it just might be a few days late getting there. But this is the person whose appetite suddenly ramps up a day before the next dose is due, so I have to hope that the extra couple of days it takes to arrive will be an eye opener as to what's going to happen after losing all the excess weight and being taken off the Wegovy - that it's better in the long run to stick to a diet that you can sustain

I think they're being blinded by how "easy" this is compared to any other diet they've ever done, but I also think they're both going to be very shocked at how difficult it is to maintain that weight loss once they reach whatever goal indicates that they no longer the drug.



They've both had good success with LC in the past, but not only does that involve "induction flu" (which requires some willpower not to give in to the carb cravings during that period), neither could stick to it permanently for different reasons.

The one person started to experience stomach aches when eating more than a tiny bit of meat. That person is currently doing Mediterranean (but without fish/seafood, because they hate fish and seafood), so basically vegetarian.

The other has a severe congenital immune deficiency , which means frequent illnesses that take several times longer to recover from than for most people (eating LC would help most individuals to have a stronger immune system - but LC can't do much when you basically have no immune system to begin with). Being so ill so frequently means no energy at all to prepare LC food during those illnesses, so even when buying/ordering the most LC friendly pre-fab or restaurant food available, there's still enough carbs sneaked in to throw them off, which works to make giving in to at least a little of the carbs on the side is too difficult to resist, because they've never been able to stay fully LC long enough to lose their taste for those carbs. Every time that this person went back to strict LC after an illness, there was once again a period of induction flu. I seriously doubt that the Wegovy weight loss will be sustainable for this person, but I don't know that LC will ever truly be sustainable in this person's case either, due to lack of energy and stamina due to the frequent illnesses. At least with Wegovy, the appetite is controlled by the medication, while on LC, the appetite is controlled by sticking to LC, which is not sustainable because of physical drain of frequent illnesses. I still think even this person would be better off on LC, but sticking to it properly is near impossible for them.

The one on Ozempic has seen some A1C improvement, which is one of the goals of the drug. I don't know how that improvement would compare to the A1C improvement on strict LC, but that's the person who can't eat much meat without having stomach aches. So Ozempic might be the better option.

(Yeah, I'm very concerned about both of them and the overall long term effects of these drugs)

I'm sympathetic to the challenge. It's how I wound up doing a lot of homemade whey protein smoothies and my keto "danish" which is 4 ounces of cream cheese and two eggs whisked together in a big cup and nuked. Microwave in minutes, satisfies for hours.

Here's The Hangry Woman, on Youtube, with an excellently detailed account of her own (positive) experience. I think this is a best-case scenario, and I'm glad she got it.



It helps to know she went into this with her doctor because she is dealing with Type 1 diabetes, as an adult. And by the way:



And this, from 2020:

Last night, in the local news slot (cheap ad rates) was a slick ad for a big, national personal injury attorney firm for weight loss drugs causing "stomach paralysis". Assuming the ad was placed in many regional markets, they are seeing dollar signs. Indicated they were investigating 400 cases in 45 states.

When prescribed for blood sugar control, it still is a drug that further slows stomach emptying, for diabetes, a disease which also does this. I'm not surprised there are problems with people when this condition slows to a dangerous point.

So if all that sugar hangs around in the stomach longer instead of passing through to be absorbed by the intestines, what happens in the stomach - does it cause fermentation & gas? or feed any cancerous cells?

Here's Johns Hopkins on gastroparesis:



It sounds like a serious condition. There's natural ways of affecting stomach emptying, with fiber slowing it down and sugar speeding it up. But inducing it unnaturally doesn't seem like a good idea.

It's my thought that a drug "should" help mimic a healthy state, both to help create such a state in the patient's mind and body, and get the patient off the drug because they can do it themselves with its help.

But that's not what this seems to be doing.

Jenny Craig declared bankrupcy and gets bought by Nutri-system. Rumor has it that they will become a tele-medicine portal with included meals and programs.

Which makes sense because drugs are the way the corporations want to go, and the way an overwhelming number of struggling people think is the right way.

I understand. The people talking about the upsides are rapturous. They never think about food and they sleep better and being free of constantly thinking about food is worth the price!

I believe them. There will always be a slice of the population who can't get past their feelings to grapple with the facts. I know those feelings of starvation and torment. But I like the way I fixed mine so much better.

And -- of course -- heard nothing but warnings about the way I've been eating since 2003. But not many peeps from the professionals whose practice consists of Standard of Care. Which is not as soothing as it sounds...

People are bellyflopping into something I regard as actually dangerous. Simply from understanding the bio-mechanics involved. They are eating less of their junky diet. That is a start, but can also be an END.

My personal health research keeps turning up more need for vitamins that the RDA doesn't cover. And if we increase it, people will pop a pill instead of eating "deadly" animal products.

All while "bio-availability eating" was my health strategy which has paid off the most.

If I didn't experience it happening I wouldn't believe it.

Here's an even "huger" question! Where and how was a knock-off semiglutide made? Is it safe and effective? Despite serious side effects from even the regulated Pharma produced medication, people are now buying cheap imitation Ozempic from dicey on-line compound pharmacies.

Inside the gold rush to sell cheaper imitations of Ozempic

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...ding-pharmacies

While our system is bad enough, the unregulated horrors of such, like the "stem cell clinics," are worse.

They found a drug that blocks the same agonist. I'm sure any of the failed ones are licensable for cheap? (Couldn't read the article.)

I get 10 "gifts to share" a month. Trying the link again:

https://wapo.st/46dYzDS

Starts:

[Mods - I don't know whether this should really be discussed in a different thread - if it's not appropriate to continue discussing here, can it be moved?]

Just an update on what's going on with the two friends doing semaglutide:

The friend with the severely suppressed immune system just finished a month on the 2nd strength of Wegovy, saying it did nothing at all to suppress her appetite - she lost no weight at all, and in fact gained a couple pounds during the last week or two. She had trouble getting the drug last month, but was finally able to get it from a different location of her usual drug store, so one assumes it was legit and not a fake product. But the weather was really hot at the time, which makes me wonder if it had been stored at the correct temperature during all phases of shipment.

So the current Rx is the 3rd strength, and she's finally noticed a difference in appetite. She was even hoping it would make her feel nauseous, just because then she wouldn't want to eat. (She's already dependent on the drug to suppress her appetite - Does this sound like a red flag issue to anyone else?! I'm trying to figure out how to address this tactfully - or whether to mention it to her at all.)

In addition to that, both friends (one on Wegovy, the other on Ozempic) are so thrilled with the diet they're able to eat - their opinion on it seems to be mostly based on being allowed to eat so much in the way of carbs.

They're on a combination of "My Plate" and a version of the Mediterranean diet that specifies exactly how much you are to eat of various foods and which ones are forbidden for reasons I haven't quite figured out yet (the premise of the location and era the diet supposedly comes from, is the rationale for those restrictions, but as someone who grew up on farms during that decade, even if not in that location, it makes no sense to me to claim that certain foods were simply not available at all).

So the plate is half veggies and fruits (veggies can be mostly starch/sugar: potatoes and corn count as veggies, so feel free to fill half the plate with either one of those. Or you could do that entire half of the plate in fruit), 1/4 grains (whole grains), and 1/4 protein (meat and beans are treated as if they are exactly the same nutritionally).

Neither of them can stomach the idea of red meat of any kind on the semaglutide, so they're mostly eating beans, with the one occasionally eating fish/seafood, and I think she had a little bit of chicken once or twice in the last 2 months.)

They're pretty thrilled with their diets, claiming that they feel "more nourished" than any other diet they've been on. I'm not sure how that can be if semaglutide slows stomach emptying to slow sugar absorption - surely it slows micro-nutrient absorption as well. Maybe feeling "more nourished" is just based on how long they feel full - which is purely a function of the drug slowing stomach emptying.(The slowed stomach emptying has resulted in constant constipation - another issue. But apparently none of these issues are enough of a problem to consider stopping the drug, as long as they're increasing dosage/losing weight)

My concerns for their long term well-being on the semaglutide drugs continues.

Thanks for the link, JEY! It confirms many of my thoughts, such as using the "active" ingredient in a different formulation. Which suggests their Ozempic, etc, formulations have some ingredients which likely moderate the side effects from it. After all test subjects with side effects reactions were already weeded out, it's important to understand. But... doesn't that already drop the randomization by not letting them be part of the performance record?

That's an advantage of FDA trials: it does ensure that, short-term, the least possibly damaging form of the drug is what gets loose among the population. Working with such large numbers means such a precaution is a bare minimum when it comes to altering working components of our bodies.

My deepest angle on drug trials, and the one that makes me so very cautious about accepting any drug without some research, is where the studies end. Releasing it to the public IS the long-term trial, and it's not supervised or encouraged the way an actual drug trial is.

Personally, I think all these tests and procedures and "screenings" people are constantly encouraged to get might have as much bad effect as good, if not considered on an individual basis. People joke about the prep for colonoscopies, for instance, but it deranged DH's metabolism for a month, all told.

Regulations try to block ways to get around the high cost of testing new drugs and procedures. There have been terrible results even with sensible precautions, like what we now know about the long term use of steroid drugs. It's magic for symptoms, but lets the degenerative process continue. In the end, the person is worse off than if they had never been treated.

That's the kind of sideways thinking that Calianna is talking about here:



I've seen a lot of weight loss diets that make a point of including a lot of fiber and starch. People with chronic overeating have distorted signals about what makes them feel "full." From what I've seen online, high volume food works for many of them. Shredded iceberg instead of rice, those kinds of things.

But real food with high satiety, like meat or dairy, will work, with much less food volume. That is a scenario I experienced, after years of low carb. And I was someone for whom eating all this nutritious food, as low carb encourages, was a revelation. But my illness has taught me that digesting all that healthy food takes a lot of energy, all by itself.

People have been encouraged to think animal foods are dangerous. But being vegan makes sense to them. That's not thought. That's not realizing how much you've been marketed to constantly, to think in such a non-intuitive way. Our ancestors partnered with dogs 50,000 years ago, and it wasn't about digging up more starchy roots. It was about hunting.

In fact, my research indicates that part of the "hygenic food" movement, which started at the turn of the 19th century ( and later generated millions of Something In Aspic recipe cards all over North America,) was the scientific acknowledgement that traditional, gentle, "sick foods" like soup were easier on the digestion. Fiber was banished from the American diet.

But if I eat that way now, people act like I'm sharing tips on growing a second head. We're all trapped in culture, and it helps to know what and how much