site banner
PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   674 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 28, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

CVD is thought to be largely caused by dysfunctions in metabolism, which is also true to some extent for the other three largest killers in the west: diabetes, cancer, and dementia. While traditional medicine has had a ton of success eradicating traditional infectious diseases, it seems largely unable to effectively treat these “four horseman”

Eh? I present semaglutide. It obviously works for diabetes, and I did a journal presentation on recent research demonstrating a 50% reduction in risk for Alzheimer's (and probably vascular dementia) for people who started before diagnosis.

https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.14313

Semaglutide was associated with significantly reduced risk for first-time AD diagnosis, most strongly compared with insulin (hazard ratio [HR], 0.33 [95% CI: 0.21 to 0.51]) and most weakly compared with other GLP-1RAs (HR, 0.59 [95% CI: 0.37 to 0.95]). Similar results were seen across obesity status, gender, and age groups

The obesity epidemic, which is upstream of a whole host of other issues, is being cut down at the knee.

Wait, what? Semaglutide really has that much of an effect on Alzheimer's? Is everyone gonna be on the stuff when they get old, fat or not?

Unfortunately, studies on the effects of semaglutide after developing Alzheimer's showed null results. But yes, as a preventative agent, it's up there with the best we've got. If you're diabetic or at high risk of developing Alzheimer's, I'd say it's a no brainer. Getting weight under control and improving glucose metabolism probably has a quadrillion other benefits. We're still in the early days.

The only thing preventing it from being a blanket agent, at this point, is the cost. But GLP-1As are only going to get cheaper, and they're already not that expensive.

Astral Codex Ten article on the topic

Why Does Ozempic Cure All Diseases?

Fine, the title is an exaggeration. But only a small one. GLP-1 receptor agonist medications like Ozempic are already FDA-approved to treat diabetes and obesity. But an increasing body of research finds they’re also effective against stroke, heart disease, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, alcoholism, and drug addiction.

Right, and this treats the same thing that lifestyle interventions, without the willpower. I do worry about muscle wasting long-term from GLP inhibitors.

Muscle wasting on semaglutide is comparable to that seen with equivalent weight loss from intermittent fasting or bariatric surgery. It can be entirely mitigated with concomitant resistance training.

In other words, if you're in a pronounced caloric deficit, you're going to lose a bit of muscle with the fat. It's not a big deal, the health benefits robustly outweigh the risks. There's an ongoing study, LEAN, that looks into it at scale, but preliminary studies support this claim.

Total agreement. Seems like an amazing drug to get metabolically healthy. I think I would prefer the lifestyle interventions that Attia recommends once I'm there to stay in that condition though.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats