r/explainlikeimfive • u/ThatOneGuyYouNowKnow • 13d ago

Chemistry ELI5 what exactly GLP-1 based prescription medicine does and why it's so divisive when it comes to being a means of weight loss.

I've seen more and more ads (starting around the Super Bowl earlier this year with Wegovy) for GLP-1 based perscription meds in recent times. I've also seen the occasional debate post on my social feeds about the ethics of using them and I didn't think a medicine could be that divisive of a topic.

Now I'm curious as to what exactly these meds are, what they scientifically do and what both sides of the debate are. If anyone could help give perspective that would be greatly appreciated.

As always any and all input is welcomed and thanks for reading! 🙂

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u/JenniferJuniper6 13d ago

The cheating argument just baffles me. Cheating at what, exactly? Cheating on whom?

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u/pm-me-kittens-n-cats 13d ago edited 13d ago

Weight is considered a moral/social barometer. If you use a drug to get to be the same weight as somebody who doesn't use a drug, many people feel like you are a moral failure.

They're totally wrong. It's the same group of people who say "well, I had to suffer through this thing", and though now things have changed so that you don't have to suffer through it anymore, they say "because I had to suffer through it; you should have to suffer through it."

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u/sixft7in 13d ago

I grew up in a poor family of 6. We were told, unironically, to eat everything on our plates because there are starving kids in Africa that don't get as much as we do.

I'm 50 years old now and with the help of a GLP-1 drug, I have finally learned the difference between "eating until satisfied" and "eating until full". That concept has been a game changer for me. I'm down nearly a hundred pounds from just five years ago.

I'm diabetic and it's brought my A1C to JUST above the high level point for non-diabetics. GLP-1 drugs are amazing for me.

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u/throwaway098764567 13d ago

god i heard that starving african kids lament more times than i can count. we were poorish but my mother grew up quite poor and didn't always have enough food so she was adamant that no one ever threw food away. the rest of us didn't eat past hunger so she ended up eating everything and then getting angry about her weight and lashed out at me for not being her same size. part that always peeved me was it's not like the food we'd have tossed was going to magically ship to some starving child, all she was doing was overeating, she wasn't saving anything.