Yes… if my doctor will approve it.
And here we are
Yeah your PCP needs to get with the program. Peter Attia had a lot of concerns at first, especially when he saw the body composition of his patients on GLP1 going to shit.
But he’s basically done a 180 when seeing all the health benefits, especially if you combined with resistance training and lots of protein.
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I don’t think which doctor it comes from is a big deal. Online prescription might also be covered. Also your doctor sucks. At 41 BMI you should absolutely be on these.
Yeah, well, Kaiser would like to havd a word with you. Its their doctors or nothing.
Sorry, not trying to be snarky. I am actually a bit of a Kaiser stan in general, but the gatekeeping they are doing here is pissing me off.
Kaiser must be under pressure not to prescribe this stuff. The downside of your doctor and your insurance company being the same entity. 41 BMI should be a lock.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KaiserPermanente/comments/1btogw0/getting_ozempic_through_socal_kaiser/
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Time to get eatin, boys
I can’t wait until we have a future where people are stuffing weights in their pockets to qualify for these drugs.
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100% this. Even though I’m guessing a cost benefit analysis would favor giving the drug over a longer term.
FWIW imo it is worth pushing/fighting for this. Meaningful change in this area will be literally life-extending, not to mention quality of life now and in the future. I don’t know how Kaiser works but I’m imagining there is some way to say “I am not satisfied with that answer” and push.
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Also this is 100% right. You need to be insistent and advocate for yourself sometimes.
According to the link I posted, you need to jump through a couple hoops with Kaiser to get on Ozempic, including trying other drugs first and taking some kind of class.
If he successfully jumps through the hoops, would he want to be on Zepbound instead or do we think it’s a wash?
Zepbound is better
Don’t know if kaiser does much zepbound prescription. I know they do bariatric surgery, because it’s probably currently cheaper amortized over 5-10 years than glp-1, but glp-1 are likely less risky and possibly more effective. I suspect Kaiser sees the possibility of every overweight person wanting a long term glp-1 prescription as an existential threat to their ongoing financial viability.
When I started Zepbound I was very mindful to make sure I was getting enough fiber, something I’ve never paid much attention to previously. Well, yesterday I learned that eating too much fiber can be as bad/worse as not eating enough. I will spare you the gory details, but heed my words - if I can spare someone the fate I suffered, it will be worthwhile.
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I stumbled on this presentation of the data from a paper that was published in NEJM by Eli Lilly. The paper, titled Tirzepatide for Obesity Treatment and Diabetes Prevention. Seems like really good results in a longer term study.
Conclusions: Three years of treatment with tirzepatide in persons with obesity and prediabetes resulted in substantial and sustained weight reduction and a markedly lower risk of progression to type 2 diabetes than that with placebo. (Funded by Eli Lilly; SURMOUNT-1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04184622.).
One thing I saw in the data were these timelines that even include a 17 week period of data at the end once people stop taking the drug.
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Here’s the paper, Nov. 2024 NEJM. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2410819 Based on all of the slides I think one would be forced to conclude that this is a “wonder drug.”
Interestingly, I’ve been on Ozempic for a year and have lost maybe 20 lbs (7% weight), even with 140 1-hour exercise sessions since May. However, I was doing some reading last week, and apparently about 25% of standard weight loss from just dieting is muscle loss. OTOH, I’ve been working hard to gain muscle and lose fat and am currently (for the past month) on a 2500-calorie diet with at least 170 g/day protein. (This is not a “difficult” diet, it’s intended to be doable for 6 months or more. I’m using the Macrofactor App for this, which is very good.)
I would have liked to have lost more weight so far, but all my metrics point to significant muscle gain, body recomposition, and health improvement. This is certainly achievable, and apparently one can weigh the same at a significant calorie deficit if one is losing fat and gaining muscle, mainly because the energy content of 1 kg of fat is 7700 cals, wheres the energy content of 1 kg of muscle is around 1800 cals. So, one could eat at a deficit and gain or maintain weight if one is both losing fat and gaining muscle. Here’s a long article on the subject by a PhD exercise scientist Can You Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at the Same Time? - MacroFactor
Wonder if Kennedy is going to fight against Medicare negotiating for glp-1 drugs, as he apparently does not like them and isn’t into all this medical science stuff.