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Hair Loss Was Just the Start. Ozempic Users Are Also Reporting Nail Trouble

67 points · 73 comments · gumby

  1. krisroadruck · · focus · HN ↗
    Reporting on these drugs is so bad. Most of the benefits AND downsides they keep reporting are the same for any major rapid weight loss. Be it hair shedding or sleep apnea resolving. They keep acting like these are novel drug specific side effects rather than weight-loss related side effects.
    1. chis · · focus · HN ↗
      At this point it might legit be impossible for a side effect to be discovered that outweighs the immense health benefits of losing weight.

      It feels like people want there to be some horrible side effect to these drugs. Idk if it’s some moral objection to weight loss without discipline, or just general mistrust of big pharma.

      1. crooked-v · · focus · HN ↗
        It's absolutely the moral thing. Even on HN there are an endless number of people who treat the use of GLP-1s as a failure that must be publicly shamed.
        1. imustbeevil · · focus · HN ↗
          That's because people are recommending them for long term use, and treating them like some miracle cure, when the only affect is appetite suppression. If you are malnourished for years, you're just going to die. These things are useful for a few months if you really, really have no willpower and don't want to develop any. For anyone else (most people), it's much healthier to learn how to do difficult things.

          Yes, there absolutely is a sense of "it was hard for me, but I did it anyway, you should do the hard thing too". But that's not out of nowhere. Willpower is a muscle. If someone never exercises it, it's going to atrophy. It doesn't need to be shameful, but people who promote these things need to seriously consider the reality that most people's hunger is caused by something real, and just not being hungry does not solve any of those underlying problems.

          My mother is a little bit overweight, which is a problem of calories OUT being too low. She doesn't exercise enough. She doesn't have energy to exercise. That's a problem of calories IN being too low. She's taking a GLP-1 now to lose weight. It very exactly does not solve either of those issues. She has less energy. Most of the weight being lost is muscle mass. I think it's despicable that these things were rushed through the medical system. I don't think it's the layman's fault for being manipulated into thinking it's medicine.

          1. orwin · · focus · HN ↗
            Yeah, no. Willpower is more like a well that replenish with sleep, friends, family and a secure environment and that you use to do anything difficult. The harsher your life, the deeper you need to go to get water back.

            I lost now 42 kg from my heaviest (5 kg left to reach my ideal weight of 73 kg), the first 20 i absolutely needed eat less and to fight the hunger pangs (which are more painfull than ankle sprain due to my fucking grehlin receptor being whack), some medical help was needed anyway (i fasted for 5 days under medical supervision to reset my leptin levels, and stayed in ketosis for 3 month prior to that to reset my insulin resistance). 20 kg loss over 18 months. I thought exercise would be enough for the last 20, but i took 5 year to loose 5, and only a change in diet finally helped me go under 80.

            NGL, all that is very difficult if you have issues at home or in your life. My family might have individual flaws but as a unit we've been doing great since like 2006, and my income in 2019 when i started my weight loss was comfortable enough for me to have a great apartment, private medial help and a good overall social life.

            If people need GLP-1 to get back in track, they should absolutely go for it. I do think we should help them, once they are close to their optimal weight, to sever from GLP1 though, i've heard about the "rebound", imho it is way easier on the mind to eat as much as you use to than forcefully reduce your portions (your leptin/grehlin level were unfucked by GLP1, so your old eating habits are now only psychological, not hormonal)

          2. Elixir6419 · · focus · HN ↗
            There are a few things here. Developing willpower is a thing. Having depression or other mental health issue is another. It is easy to dismiss it as lack of willpower, but it is a bit more complicated.

            I also don't think you understand how living with kcal deficiency works on the long run. Have a look at the Minnesota starvation experiment. When in deficit for long the mind constantly goes to "what/when are we going to eat?" and it only gets worse from there. It becomes an obsession. It takes over everything. My understanding is that glp-1 reduces that.

            It also helps for people who have too much extra weight, or incapable (waiting for hip replacement, or the elderly) of exercising.

            I have been on diet and managed to go back to the target weight (lost around ~16% of bodyweight) but the food noise was real and constant. It is not a one off "I am not going to eat anymore" that was a decision to be made every minute until next meal came around. I do cycle 10-12 hour a week and the occasional footbal game but finding the deficit that is not causing the food noise is different for everyone.

          3. alexgieg · · focus · HN ↗
            That's common sense reasoning, which is to say, not based on anything scientific.

            GLP-1 is produced by the body to regulate and balance food consumption. People whose bodies produce less than the correct amount eat more because they feel a lot more hunger than people whose bodies are normal. Taking in GLP-1 drugs, if following medical advice, brings their level back to what it should have been all along, in which case most wouldn't have become obese at all.

            I'm such a case. Clinical exames never showed up any clear problem associated with weight gain, so for my entire life my obesity was linked by everyone, doctors included, to lack of willpower.

            I only discovered what my issue was when I took a genetic test and discovered that my DNA came with these lovely traits:

            * I feel more intense hunger than the average people, so I need to eat more than they do to feel satiated. If I eat the same amount a normal person does, I leave the table literally still hungry.

            * My body accumulates more fat than the average person, so even if I eat the same amount they do and keep constantly hungry, I accumulate some fat.

            * Caloric-reduction diets don't work for me. So the years and years I tried and tried them had little effect, and were mostly wasted effort.

            * Fat-reduction diets also don't work for me. Good thing I didn't lose time with those since everyone recommended me the useless caloric-reduction ones.

            * The only diet that has some effect for me is the Mediterranean one, which I didn't know about and no one had ever recommended.

            * Physical exercise has little effect for me, as I gain less muscle mass from it than the average person. So the years of walking and the many attempts at going to the gym were also mostly wasted effort.

            * And physical exercise causes more pain for me than it does for the average person, so all the time I was doing those, I was suffering more than most people while getting worse results then they do from it.

            If your genetics is normal on all those fronts, then sure, a bit of willpower fixes that. With that combo though, and fully not knowing you have any of that? Not a chance.

          4. busyant · · focus · HN ↗
            > when the only affect is appetite suppression

            You don't know this.

            > These things are useful for a few months

            You don't know this.

            > For anyone else (most people), it's much healthier to learn how to do difficult things.

            You don't know this.

            > Willpower is a muscle.

            I know you mean this in a figurative sense, but what exactly is "willpower"? There has to be a physical (and physiological) mechanism for "willpower", no?

            Do you believe that can be aberrant physiological conditions?

            I do. I also believe over-eating is a manifestation of some type of "aberrant" physiology.

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