"But neither he nor high-profile followers of the 'Make America Healthy Again' movement would be likely to risk seeming disloyal to Mr. Trump.... Mr. Kennedy was careful in the Oval Office to emphasize that obesity drugs were not a 'panacea' or a 'silver bullet.' He repeated his beliefs in ways of tackling the root causes of Americans’ ill health that include new dietary guidelines expected next month and a presidential council on physical fitness.... [In October 2024, Kennedy said] 'If we just gave good food, three meals a day, to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight'.... The medications do carry side effects, most commonly gastrointestinal complaints that are rarely severe, as well as the hazards that come with losing a lot of weight through any means, like shedding muscle. And because these medications are relatively new, there is not yet data on what happens if people take them for decades. Speaking of Novo Nordisk’s product in February 2024, Mr. Kennedy said, 'The impacts of this drug are just terrible.... The moment you stop using it, you regain all the weight, and meanwhile your stomach’s been paralyzed.'"
From "Kennedy Walks a Tightrope on Trump Deal for Obesity Drugs/The weight loss medicines are proving to be a test case for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, in straddling divisions between his supporters and the president" (NYT).
In Trump's America, everyone will be thin and also constipated. What form will the greatness of Making America Great Again take if it is accomplished by thin, constipated people? I don't think it will be Trumpian — all the gold and the lavish decoration, the dancing and the good times. No, the America of the thin constipated people is pinched and bleak. I would rather see the culture that arises out of people who flourish through "good food, three meals a day."
Posts
76 comments:
"the America of the thin constipated people is pinched and bleak."
Heh.
Weight loss drugs - >the day will come when the long term side-effects show up.
I'd prefer the MAHA agenda, but some people are going out of their way to be dependent on Big Pharma. You can't save every idiot from their poor choices, no matter how hard RFK tries.
Because the times really knows what maga wants
Operation Warp Weight Loss.
"thin, constipated people" made me LOL.
Remember when they decided exercise was bad ans junk food was good
Obese? High body mass index? Watch your diet. Sugar and high carbs are a no-no. This advice is not new. Or load up on drugs.
’No, the America of the thin constipated people is pinched and bleak.’
That’s gold, Jerry - gold!!
3 meals a day is overeating for most people. GLPs seem to be as close to a perfect drug for modern humans as has ever been created. People eat less and get healthier by almost all measures. Would it be better if people just ate less and lost the weight? Of course. The problem is that many people simply can't bring themselves to do it. GLPs also drastically reduce drinking and smoking.
Thin and constipated sounds contradictory 'do they science'
Three meals a day would make me fat.
Eating high fat zero carb will clean your arteries, cure type 2 diabetes and burn the fat off amd solve a host of other autoimmune disorders.
Obesity is a mindfuck because of gut disbiosis. Every biochemical and neurochemical process in the body is messed up and it drives a Savage nearly insurmountable hunger for highly satisfying high caloric highly processed junk food.
These drugs are successful because they reverse this lizard brain biochemistry nearly immediately.
Most people are going to need this form of help. Given that the experts now think that 70% of Americans are obese, we can't afford to wait around for these people to slowly change their diets restore their gut flora and fauna to the appropriate diversity of a hunter-gatherer tribesmen in Africa in order to have a properly functioning lizard brain that only craves healthy whole foods in moderation.
The MAHA lifestyle changes are much easier to implement once people have slimmed down and have removed that literal ball and chain that has been dragging them down into the grave for decades one jelly donut at a time.
I worry about the side effects of the drugs. I would prefer that people go MAHA of course. I have been losing weight the old fashioned way and don't want to take the GLPs. OTOH
My body my choice.
(It is not just about abortion)
I see no problem with MAHA AND GLPs.
I am especially happy to see Lilly and Novartis making APIs in the US again.
$1.4bn is going to be spent in Puerto Rico in their Carolina plant. So that also makes me very happy.
John Henry
Not to mention the constant low level nausea. I saw an article, not this one, https://people.com/brooks-nader-admits-career-took-off-after-starting-glp1-11844118#:~:text=Brooks%20Nader%20is%20being%20transparent%20about%20her%20health.,using%20and%20that%20she%20%22should%20get%20off%20it.%22 , about a lovely swimsuit model who microdoses the drug daily. Truthfully, it scares me. Sounds too much like the side effects I lived with for years on my leukemia meds. I do not want to revisit. Besides, I have no appetite these days without taking the drugs and I'm still not losing weight. (Sorry about the unsophisticated link.)
I weighed myself for the first time in many months and am back up to almost 19 stone. I topped out at almost 20 in 2015 but lost a bunch the old fashioned way in the next couple of years.
Not ready for more drugs--just need to stop with the daily chocolates, and the daily (half!) apple fritters.
And walk more.
Getting people off the Zoloft and Adderall will go a long way to helping with many other things…and I don’t see the contradiction between the weight loss drugs and what Kennedy is advocating. I think part of the problem is the weight loss drug's are supposed to be indicated for severity instead of convenience or a fix in lieu of dietary changes…
…or most importantly vigorous exercise…
Lol. How much "good food" did you purchase and donate to food banks when the SNAP benefits were suspended, ann? Hush up now.
I hope these drugs don't have longer term side effects that haven't become known yet but the deal to make them cheaper is a good one for those who want to take them and that risk. Will the lower prices lead to more use- of course it will, it is basic supply and demand economics.
Lose a great deal of weight and there is also the detail of that extra skin left behind.
Ozempic and MAHA are not necessarily at odds. It's entirely possible that a nation of thin people will be more active and eat better because they feel better, achieving Kennedy's real goal.
"Son, thin and constipated is no way to go through life."
The most fattening thing we have is social media. Get off that, move a bit, and the pounds will get off you.
+1 to everything Howard said at 11/14/25, 8:49 AM.
People have found that there are cells in your bones that react to stress on the bone effectively providing the signals to your body for how heavy it thinks it is. A lot of research is going into weight vests right now.
The NYT's is trying to divert attention by creating fake drama.
Our health care system is evil and corrupt to the core and their opposition to MAHA is driven completely by corporate greed.
Meanwhile Americans go to doctors in this country that are training you to become a cow that eats their vegetables and fruits and grains and then can't figure out why you are fat.
Amen, sister. Preach it!
Constipation may be an acceptable trade-off in order to lose 40 or 50 pounds. There are "fixes" for that as well.
The lesson learned is that pharmaceuticals are priced above market support, previously made affordable under a shared debt.
@Howard - I did your chuck steak recipe last week and was impressed! The texture was somewhere between a sirloin and the eye of a ribeye. Delicious and appreciated…
tim maguire said...
Ozempic and MAHA are not necessarily at odds. It's entirely possible that a nation of thin people will be more active and eat better because they feel better, achieving Kennedy's real goal.
GLP1's have been used for decades. Their use and effect in Russia is well known. They have been researching these things for a long time.
What the drug companies are doing with "Ozempic" and "Wegovy" is fucking criminal. They are starting people out at megadoses that is so far out of line it makes no sense.
Unless your goal is to make people sick and make them view peptides with suspicion.
If you are on these peptides and prescribed by a doctor in the US you can almost certainly get the same benefits with ~1/10th or less of the dose without all of the side effects you get from taking megadoses.
There are people that have been taking GLP1's for decades on youtube. You should go find some of those videos. Your doctor is prescribing you megadoses of these peptids because he gets a big fat kickback from the drug companies.
Or, we could bring back cigarettes! That was how people of my parent's and older Boomers kept the weight off. The rise of American obesity in my observation correlated neatly with the demise of smoking in the workplace. Life is nothing but trade-offs.
I prefer the Izzy Mandelbaum method.
Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum
Yancey Ward said...
I hope these drugs don't have longer term side effects that haven't become known yet but the deal to make them cheaper is a good one for those who want to take them and that risk. Will the lower prices lead to more use- of course it will, it is basic supply and demand economics.
Go on youtube and search for peptides maybe throw in GLP1 wegovy ozempic etc.
Grok or chat gpt will give you summaries of a few decades of research. Most of the research is in Russian but easily translated now.
The drug companies did not research these peptides because they are just amino chains that naturally form in your body and the body uses to up regulate various bodily functions so they cannot really be patented.
With about 100k in equipment you can actually grow these peptide chains yourself. There are labs popping up right now.
You can get GLP1's far cheaper just buying them from a peptide lab and reconstituting it at home. It would cost about ~100$ a month and you can control dosing. It is not hard.
The drug companies are taking advantage of ignorance right now. But there is a growing number of people that are catching on to what the drug companies are doing.
As with planned parenthood, the first choice of health care is abstention, the second is prevention, the third is moderation, the wicked solution is surgical or medical abortion.
Abort burdens of body fat with dietary fat. Restore a metabolic climate through carbohydrate sequestration. Mitigate dysfunctional progress with proteins. Inflammation is a fetus... feature of chronic conditions with Diverse first-order forcings.
Abundance to scarcity -- a change in the cycle would bring unexpected results.
R C Belaire said...
Constipation may be an acceptable trade-off in order to lose 40 or 50 pounds. There are "fixes" for that as well.
The constipation is a result of massively overdosing.
GLP1's are just analogs of bio regulators your body creates naturally. When exogenous GLP1 analogs are added they attach to the same receptors and activate them causing your body to change neurotransmitter signaling.
You can get all of the benefits of Ozempic with a far lower dose.
People have also been microdosing these peptides for decades to help with dopamine addiction and improving productivity.
I think the Medicare approval of GLPs is intended to provide heart disease benefits, not for weight loss. Hence the silence from RFK et al.
For those with constipation issues, five prunes a day will work wonders.
GLPs also massively reduce inflammation and this has been credited with the documented reduction in joint pain and cognitive improvements seen in people taking them. Aside from the weight loss and blood sugar benefits, these drugs seem to have a plethora of positive effects.
Weight crept up in my 40’s, and got harder and harder to lose despite me eating healthy and low carb. Also unbeknownst to me, was developing Type 2 diabetes. Did lose enough to be a higher BMI, but not into obese category, so I’m not saying eating healthy didnt work at all. But the blood glucose levels were not great, and really could have used another 20 pound loss to get rid of belly fat.
Have been on the OZ for two years now, glucose improved overnight, and gradually have lost about 25 lbs. Recently, I had abdominal surgery and was off the OZ for almost 3 months. Appetite mostly returned so I am back on the drug. Eh, it’s a process. I think that a low maintenance dose will probably work for me, for now. In any case, I’m glad to have the option available.
When on GLP-1's, metamucil is your friend. NB: don't take drugs and metamucil at the same time because it will sweep it out of your body along with bile fatty acids
Glad you succeeded with the Chuck Steak, Beast.
Not that I'll be buying any, but what about "The Drop" from the Wellness Company (as seen on TV)?
Opinions?
https://apnews.com/article/peptide-injections-rfk-maha-4d48e78a5d65658b4d6eac87818352e3
Big pharma is terrified that people will hack their own medical and pharmaceutical care and supply chain outside of their authoritarian hold on science and the FDA
Come on folks! Have you Sen what Amy Schumer has done with this stuff?!
https://pagesix.com/2025/11/12/celebrity-news/amy-schumer-deletes-all-pre-weight-loss-photos-from-social-media/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=pagesix
When you find contradictions, check your assumptions.
If you want to be thin and constipated I have some multiple myeloma treatments that would do the trick
Trump still hasn't figured out that the medicos are a pack of jackals.
Prune juice. A warrior's drink.
Eli Lilly make Mounjaro. One of the side effects of Mounjaro is loose stool. Where is Althouse coming up with constipation?
"...No, the America of the thin constipated people is pinched and bleak..."
The NYT does a masterful job of painting Junior' as a craven coward, a toady, without actually coming out and saying so. What a picture ! I wonder if they even know what an honest portrait of RFK Jr. would look like. But if it's in any way connected to the Trump Administration, it's going to shown as pinched and bleak. They don't realize their words are a perfect reflection, a mirror.
One of the side effects of the GLP inhibitors is a reduction in some of the cravings that some people find hard to shake, mostly sugar and fat. A reduction in cravings for junk food is a good thing, both for the patient and for the food industry.
Howard said...
Big pharma is terrified that people will hack their own medical and pharmaceutical care and supply chain outside of their authoritarian hold on science and the FDA
+1.
This is happening one way or another.
I am currently trying a cycle of BPC-157+TB-500 and a cycle of Ipamorelin+Sermorelin. These are two popular peptide combinations people start with.
BPC-157 promotes angiogenesis and tb-500 reduces inflammation. This mix is extremely common and used for injury and joint repair. The "wolverine blend" moniker is cringey but it is extremely popular with athletes.
Ipamorelin and Sermorelin increase the number of growth hormone cycles and the amount of growth hormone released per cycle. Way cheaper than exogenous GH and it doesn't suppress natural production. This stuff is going to make drug testing in sports essentially impossible.
You generally inject at night before going to bed. My eyes are been 20/50 20/60. The first morning I woke up I felt like I had glasses on. I could read the issue board from the back of the room at scrum.
My brother did a cycle of Epithalon. It actually increases telomere length and swears by it. The fact that spellcheck red lines telomere demonstrates the depth of this problem.
When it comes to our bodies it’s hard to say who we should trust more, the jacked-up ex-junkie horndog or the puffy orange guy.
OT but a question for our hostess:
Would you permit a German Swastika as an avatar? I suspect/hope not
The communist murder toll is many times the National Socialist murder toll. In the range of 100mm vs 12mm in the 20th century.
Why do you permit communist imagery if you would not permit National Socialist imagery?
Speaking of Earnest Prole here. I do not want him banned or censored, only his communist image. It is offensive as Hell.
John Henry
Don’t worry… even when there is no conflict, trust the corksoakers @the yew nork times to gin one up.
People like a quick fix, a wicked solution, thus surgical, medical and pharmaceutical progressions.
Some Choices are more wicked than others.
It helps if you think of the points of the star as the sharpened contradictions every true prole feels.
"Why do you permit communist imagery if you would not permit National Socialist imagery?"
The same reason she is offended by the "N-word". She marinated in the academic worldview for so long that she mistakes it for ordinary reality.
"People like a quick fix ...".
Well. Yeah. If you take your car in to the garage, and they say, "We can fix it now, in ten minutes, while you wait, or we can let it sit around for a month or two and then fix it. Up to you.", which one are you gonna choose?
Used to have a local grocery chain called Big Star, the icon of which was a big red star.
To me the red star is more like a German cross in offensiveness*; a hammer and sickle would be akin to the swastika.
*I'm not offended.
I prefer maintenance over reconstruction.
There are also vaxxxines (i.e. non-sterilizing injections perchance with migratory, progressive effects) and general mandates to compensate.
I’d turn the thing upside down to better reflect my beliefs but the irony-impaired would then accuse me of being a Satanist.
Howard noted that when on GLPs, Metamucil is your friend.
Here to endorse that recommendation! Every day that I haven’t had a lot of veg, I mix up a precautionary glass of what I’ve decided to call “Meta-Muckle.” Hint: it tastes pretty good anyway, but ultra-chilled is best.
"I would rather see the culture that arises out of people who flourish through "good food, three meals a day."
This is Sparta! Pass the black soup, we must be lean and healthy. Good advice, and every administration from TR to DT has advocated for well-balanced meals and have from time to time tried to enforce the lean and regular lifestyle with no measurable success. Americans want to be free to eat what pleases them, even if it's toxic shit that would disgust a porker.
Telling people to eat less and exercise as the answer might as well be talking to air. If it were easy everyone would do it. As far as better food and exercise, people working hand-to-mouth cannot afford "better food" and time to exercise, they just cannot. Someone's privilege is showing.
Like ian malcolm said 'just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should' that was true of many chemicals
People can eat less and better quality at a lower price, and mitigate the occurrence and progress of chronic conditions, at a premium cost of minutes a day.
Thin and constipated: James Carville.
That's type 2 diabetes from eating too much crap they're discussing, not type 1, a completely different, unavoidable, rare genetic disease that killed half my family after years of extraordinary, daily, sometimes hourly suffering, and too many near-death experiences to even count. 11 heart attacks despite their best efforts, vision loss, decades of dialysis, counting every calorie they ate. They were not overweight. They were extremely disciplined every moment of every day just to stay alive. Back in the Sixties, it was a death sentence, but their incredible discipline kept them alive, if you could call it a life by the last decades.
Is it too much to ask of you to footnote the difference between these different diseases, Althouse? Please educate yourself and grant them that dignity. I already tried with the Times. For years. They're both dead now. Educate yourself, goddamn it. Don't be intellectually lazy.
And Ozymec will not "eradicate diabetes." It will do nothing for people with type 1 diabetes, who have steadily lost research funding to the undisciplined, fat couch potatoes who gave themselves type 2 diabetes with their behavior, yet exist in such massively high numbers that they are showered with new public funding, treatments and attention, as type 1 diabetics continue to die in the shadows, though insulin pumps have improved their life and quality of life expectancy. At least have the dignity to differentiate between the two.
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