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Comment by SamoyedFurFluff | Hacker News Reader

How long is the research info ozempic and other hormonal weight loss drugs? Remember the last miracle drug that went to the market for weight loss had to be retracted for killing people or damaging their hearts to the tune of over 10 billion dollars in damages paid out.

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Drugs acting on GLP-1 (ozempic), GIP, and glucagon receptors are largely shown to help hearts and cardiovascular health specifically (and independently of weight loss). They also improve lipid profiles (HDL/LDL), and have a multitude of other benefits.

Whether they, for example, increase the rate of glial brain cancer ... they really haven't been out long enough to know.

While I am not saying that this drug is definitely safe, I think the fact that Fen-phen turned out to be more dangerous doesn't really implicate these new drugs because while the desired outcome is the same, the class and type of drugs seem to be entirely different. My understanding is that fen-phen is a stimulant and increased blood pressure and heart rate. It also includes some other drugs that affect serotonin levels.

These new drugs are peptide analogs that affect your body's digestion and how it deals with sugar and fat production and insulin.

These types of medications have been around since the 2000s, semaglutide (ozempic) specifically since 2012.

At least in this case GLP-1 antagonists have been in clinical use for diabetes since around 2010

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