Comment by xnx
Comment by xnx 4 days ago
This is a great "free" feature in a wearable. I wonder how many years are left before Ozempic-like drugs make sleep apnea a rarity.
Comment by xnx 4 days ago
This is a great "free" feature in a wearable. I wonder how many years are left before Ozempic-like drugs make sleep apnea a rarity.
But it’s not that rare in non-obese people, I think is the point. Obesity is certainly a risk factor.
When I arrived at the sleep clinic with a BMI of 22, the first thing they told me was: there are lots of people with sleep apnea who have a healthy weight, including children.
The notion that sleep apnea is generally caused by weight needs to die. People also conveniently forget that being woken up multiple times every hour causes weight gain, so often times being overweight is the consequence of sleep apnea rather than the cause.
> I wonder how many years are left before Ozempic-like drugs make sleep apnea a rarity.
Obstructive sleep apnea is not caused by being obese or old, although those things don't help. In some people, losing enough weight may allow for sufficient airflow despite their airway restrictions.
I wouldn't count the Ozempic chickens before they roost. So far it looks like it's a costly lifelong injectable drug with a lot of reported uncomfortable side effects. That doesn't bode well for adherence at the population level.
Weekly injectable semaglutide is the first generation.
Tirzepatide is already more effective and better tolerated for most people, and there is also semaglutide as a daily oral pill available as Rybelsus. Further generations of obesity drugs are already in human trials, and are showing even greater effects relative to the side effects (e.g. retatrutide and combination therapy with cagrilintide).
Price is an issue, but with multiple pharma companies that have effective drugs, the prices have already come down quite a lot. My tirzepatide is running me less than £200/month now, and I'm saving at least that on groceries and eating out. Not even counting that it's effectively cured a few weight related medical conditions that were costing me more.
Actually, it's also a miracle drug that can reduce inflammation and reduce the medication load of millions of people.
From what I've seen anecdotally, Ozempic adherence is much higher than most other meds. And the side effects are minor compared to, say, being 200 lbs overweight.
>And the side effects are minor compared to, say, being 200 lbs overweight.
I was about the reply the same thing. Obesity is directly or indirectly a risk factor for almost every health problem imaginable.
Even for a situation that looks completely unrelated like getting shot in the knee by a gun, the risk of dying during the surgery will be significantly higher if you are obese.
Given that >80% of Americans have some form of metabolic dysfunction, it's not surprising that those drugs are having miraculous effects.
That depends. A lot of people experience significant GI issues. And it isn’t clear yet if those issues are reversible after stopping. It’s still best for people to naturally control their weight and diet. Is one better than the other - depends on how overweight and how severe the side effects. Right now I feel like there isn’t much focus and rigorous study of those side effects but over time I expect it will reduce the overall positives of the drug somewhat.
"A lot of people experience significant GI issues. And it isn’t clear yet if those issues are reversible after stopping."
I don't think there's any reasonable definition of "a lot" where this is true. A significant number of people experience GI issues. Most of them subside after a time. There is some evidence that a small number of people may experience more severe GI issues that don't go away after stopping.
"It’s still best for people to naturally control their weight and diet."
What is your evidence for this? Right now, it's looking like the "unnatural" GLP-1 agonists are racking up quite a score against "natural" methods like "willpower" and programmed diets. It's not a useful distinction, in any case. These medications cause reduced calorie consumption, and reduced calorie consumption causes weight loss naturally.
Diet and exercise are also costly, have uncomfortable side effects, and require lifelong adherence.
Yeah, I bought the "Ultra" less than 24 months ago, it was released September 23, 2022, only for it to be obsolete within 12 months and now it's the model that can't even do new features. IT'S LESS THAN 2 YEARS OLD!
Maybe I should learn my lesson and stop buying Apple Watches, it's really a joke.
Yeah, kinda weird considering afaik the gyroscope hasn’t been changed since they introduced the improved three axis one with your model year (powering the crash detection feature).
I feel like if they were just trying to get people to upgrade they wouldn’t have bothered putting it on last years models either, but they did, so maybe there’s something we don’t know about that makes it more difficult.
Sleep apnea is not completely due to being overweight.