"No free lunch" is a reasonable question to ask when evaluating medication, if it would improve the evolutionary fitness of the majority of people. I think this is behind some of the skepticism. If Ozempic is so great then how come our bodies don't just produce more GLP-1? How come we aren't like chimps, with eternally shredded bodies and cheese grater abs, provided we get the protein to support them?
I would guess that getting fat in times of plenty was a feature and not a bug in the ancestral environment, and that's why we get fat today, which is obvious if you think about it. Still, it means GLP-1 agonists are smacking into quick "is it bullshit?" heuristics for a lot of people.
The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; stimulants, which cause your heart to fail; parasitic intestinal worms, which can kill you but more importantly are just plain gross; and mitochondrial uncouplers, which set you on fire at a cellular level. That's a long history of miracle weight loss drugs which turn out to have horrible side effects. It's not reasonable to think GLP-1 is bad just because of other drugs with different mechanisms, but it certainly causes some skepticism anyway.
I would guess that getting fat in times of plenty was a feature and not a bug in the ancestral environment, and that's why we get fat today, which is obvious if you think about it. Still, it means GLP-1 agonists are smacking into quick "is it bullshit?" heuristics for a lot of people.
The second point I haven't seen discussed is that weight loss drugs prior to GLP-1 agonists include cigarettes, which (worst case) give you cancer; stimulants, which cause your heart to fail; parasitic intestinal worms, which can kill you but more importantly are just plain gross; and mitochondrial uncouplers, which set you on fire at a cellular level. That's a long history of miracle weight loss drugs which turn out to have horrible side effects. It's not reasonable to think GLP-1 is bad just because of other drugs with different mechanisms, but it certainly causes some skepticism anyway.