Can you also comment on the effect of serotonin in the guy using these drugs, and the (possibly misreported) effects of coming off these drugs and their increased associations with depression and suicidal ideation? I state that some of these may be fear mongering from certain parts but I wonder is there any peer review data to support these arguments. Thanks again
Hi John. It’s not something I have a lot of knowledge on. I would suggest a discussion with a clinician who is prescribing any serotonin modulators. Afraid I can’t be of assistance here.
The part that bothers me is that there is a long history of dangerous weight loss drugs being approved, and only withdrawn after the side-effects emerged in the general population. There are no other weight loss drugs approved in the EU because all the other drugs were withdrawn. That alone should make us more cautious and more critical about this class of drugs. Our love affair with weight loss blinds regulators, doctors and people in general to the risks.
Most of these semaglutatide trials have followed people for 68 weeks. There is very little evidence of the long term health impacts of either coming off the drug or continuing it for life. There was no follow up of the original trials on diabetics - I heard one of the doctors involved say 'no, we don't know what happened to those people'.
The landscape of obesity drugs has been a failure for sure but as with any medication phase 4 post marketing surveillance is in place. As with any therapy used at scale there will be side effects we only learn of in this phase which is why we must always be vigilant. As with any choice however, we can never have complete data, only enough for us to make a sensible choice.
Can you also comment on the effect of serotonin in the guy using these drugs, and the (possibly misreported) effects of coming off these drugs and their increased associations with depression and suicidal ideation? I state that some of these may be fear mongering from certain parts but I wonder is there any peer review data to support these arguments. Thanks again
Hi John. It’s not something I have a lot of knowledge on. I would suggest a discussion with a clinician who is prescribing any serotonin modulators. Afraid I can’t be of assistance here.
The part that bothers me is that there is a long history of dangerous weight loss drugs being approved, and only withdrawn after the side-effects emerged in the general population. There are no other weight loss drugs approved in the EU because all the other drugs were withdrawn. That alone should make us more cautious and more critical about this class of drugs. Our love affair with weight loss blinds regulators, doctors and people in general to the risks.
Most of these semaglutatide trials have followed people for 68 weeks. There is very little evidence of the long term health impacts of either coming off the drug or continuing it for life. There was no follow up of the original trials on diabetics - I heard one of the doctors involved say 'no, we don't know what happened to those people'.
The landscape of obesity drugs has been a failure for sure but as with any medication phase 4 post marketing surveillance is in place. As with any therapy used at scale there will be side effects we only learn of in this phase which is why we must always be vigilant. As with any choice however, we can never have complete data, only enough for us to make a sensible choice.