Health Blogs (955)

Over 200 Cases Of Suicidal Thoughts After Taking Weight Loss Drugs: New Analysis

As Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro soar in popularity, the drugs are facing increasing scrutiny by regulators over reports of suicidal thoughts.

A recent Reuters analysis reveals that over half of the adverse event reports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration describe suicidal thoughts arising soon after starting or ramping up doses of these injectable drugs.

About 40 percent found relief after quitting the meds or taking a smaller dose.
...
Suicidal Thoughts: A Recurring Theme with Weight Loss Medications

Wegovy's label explicitly warns of potentially serious mental health side effects such as depression and suicidal thoughts. Patients are advised to monitor any sudden mood changes, behaviors, and feelings.

Similarly, liraglutide has been linked to suicidal thoughts and worsened depression in some patients.

A case reported by The Epoch Times spotlights the mental health risks. After starting Ozempic in February for his diabetes, a man became uncharacteristically withdrawn. By May, severe fatigue and declining mood set in. On May 14, he took his own life.

Weight loss medications provoking suicidal thoughts is not unprecedented. Sanofi’s weight loss drug rimonabant (Acomplia, Riobant, Slimona) was pulled from European markets in 2008 amidst concerns about suicidal ideation. Though unrelated to GLP-1 medicines, it reduced hunger through the endocannabinoid system, which serves as a connection between the body and the mind. Rimonabant was never approved in the U.S., due to psychiatric side effects.3

It is the time of the year, again, when leaves turned into beautiful colors of orange, red and yellow before they fall to the ground. Yet the sky is always gray or worse, black and rain just keeps coming day after day. I wonder where the sun goes.

A few weeks ago someone commented on a forum post about the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners and suggested using Stevia as it was derived from natural plant sources. Perhaps, but I see an article that stated Erythritol, an ingredient in Stevia, linked to heart attack and stroke.

I stopped drinking fruit juice, Coke & Pepsi and sometimes take a diet drink mixed 50/50 with seltzer water or flavored for the slightly sweet taste. By doing that, I dropped a few pounds. It's difficult eliminating sugar from my diet. Walmart has some baked goods with no added sugar. Also, I've found only one company who has tomato sauce without added sugar and one company who has mayonnaise made without sugar.

Here's a link to the story about the ingredient Erythritol and while this blog is to call out the awareness of the possible dangers to consuming Stevia, it's not to be taken as medical advice.

I am typing this on the final day of the month, September 30th. Tomorrow, on October 1st, I am starting fresh with more healthy eating. To do that, I have bought a few ingredients that - hopefully - is gonna take me down a path of more healthy eating.

Change will not happen over night, but over several months. I don't expect to be a changed man tomorrow, just because I have started eating more salad and vegetables. The first thing I have to stop eating is chips. I eat way too many of them, but they're an easy thing to eat, but not very healthy or filling, so they have to go.

The next thing on my list: stop drinking so much soda. Switch it for water or flavored water. This step is undoubtedly going to be the hardest step, because I'm addicted to coke. Not the powder, but coca cola. I have been drinking it for over 35 years, so kicking the habit completely is going to be VERY hard - but very rewarding, in the end. Hopefully that will see an improvement on my overall body, as well as on my wallet. I bought 5 crates today, which sat me back 565 kroner, or about $80.

Every day at work, I drink 4 cans. The plan is to slowly bring that number down to 0. Some people might be thinking "What about diet soda? Isn't that better?".. I have heard somewhere that diet soda is worse than regular soda, but I am not sure if that's true or not. I might have to ask a nutritionist about that.

But - starting tomorrow, I will begin my quest for a healthier lifestyle. It's gonna be hard, but rewarding in the end!

I'd never heard of this before - insulin for non-diabetics, as a way to lose weight. A man in his early 70s that I know has recently started it, because his overweight daughter did. I looked it up, and seems there's quite a trend, mainly in the US. They are not in the US but their doctor is providing the stuff and monitoring quantities and, presumably, their health.

Changing the body's chemical make-up - AND knowing that diabetics struggle to rid themselves of stored bellyfat when they start on insulin - is surely not a great idea, but father and daughter are both very happy so far with reduced appetite and steady weightloss, don't mind the occasional attack of biliousness. Both are pretty large.

Anyone know more pros and cons - literally asking for a friend, since his wife (a naturally skinny wench who therefore Doesn't Understand How Hard It Is To Lose Weight) is absolutely appalled.

For the past 25 years, I have been eating very unhealthy food. Lots of fatty dishes, with no vegetables at all. My burgers are huge, with lots of bacon and cheese, with no lettuce in it at all. I scoffed at the mere suggestion of lettuce in my burgers, going so far as to say "are you completely insane?", when I was asked if my burgers had any sort of healthy stuff in it. I can feel my health being worse, even if I walk a lot at work. I don't sleep much, and my daily sugar intake is alarmingly high. I'm amazed that I aren't diabetic at this point, because.. Well, it's bad.

My current weight is 96.2 kilos, or 212 lbs, and my height is 178 cm, or 5 ft 7 in, which is giving me a Body Mass Index of 30.4, which is obese.

So judging by that, and the fact that my heart races after climbing the 2 flights of stairs at the train station when I leave for work, I think it's time to get rid of some of my weight. I am aiming for 20 kilos, or 44 lbs.

First step is to cut out sugary soda completely, but that will take quite a while, since I get very cranky when I don't get my sugar and caffeine. I could drink caffeine free soda to begin with, and gently cut back until I am completely free of the sugar/caffeine grip. I also need to eat more vegetables, so I think I'm gonna start doing that from next week. That gives me enough time to find good recipes with lots of vegetables in it.

It's gonna be a struggle for sure, and a battle that I am determined to win!

Wish me luck

This is one procedure that people avoid. Doctors often recommend everyone start around the age of 50. I have a cousin who retired to Florida a few years ago. He's in his 70's and has an active lifestyle. Having his very first colonoscopy 2 weeks ago, the biopsy revealed cancer. He's scheduled for an MRI today and said he will probably require surgery.

Don't put off the exam!

That is how much weight I have lost since last summer when I was diagnosed diabetic and started to eat right. The closest thing I can figure out is that I am sweating out fat. My a** is nothing but a bit of wrinkled hairy skin, skin folds and wrinkles all over my body. If I were to sleep with a woman now, the lights would have to go out, I am awful to look at now I know the skin will eventually go back tight again but its quite different looking at myself now.

So around 8:30am yesterday while I was still sleeping my doorbell rang. Aroused by the sound I yelled just a moment and slipped on some pants. I heard a familiar voice respond with an okay. My land use tenants.

I had rewired my electric circuit panel and installed a 30 amp 110v GFI plug outside (using 8.2 AWG Romex and an appropriate circuit breaker) outside the house and for a monthly fee permitted a friendly former dancer to park her large, towed RV motor home (you may depending on where you live call it a towed Caravan trailer) as a place to live. She had a well to do husband and when he passed she liquidated much and bought the mobile home as a place to live. It is big enough so that whatever tows it needs what is called a 5th wheel to tow it. Ultimately after bouncing around awhile she decided on the Shenandoah Valley as a place to settle. To alieviate boredom, much as I had done a few years ago gotten a job at the local 711. Local parking rates for such large RVs can approach (US) $70 a day. When she mentioned this to the store owner it was suggested she contact me, and a mutually acceptable financial deal was struck with a parking lease agreement and advance payment resulting.

It was an effort to get her RV in place due to some low laying tree branches. But they were removed and a good water and power connection was made. She was happy with the secluded location we chose. A posted entrance and screened by tree hedgerows totally invisible from the road. Deer, rabbits, turkey greet her every morning. Gorgeous sunsets. Hunting allowed. Close enough to work to walk. A parking place for her car. WiFi, etcc.

In the past 6 months we have become reasonably friendly. I have a private jogging trail she uses to stay trim. Her shape is not displeasing. She does her own mowing around her camper. When home her electric current draw is at most 24 amps. The electric bill is included in the rent of the space, Her music taste is similar to my own.

So the purpose of her visit was to invite me to a barbecue she was planning for evening. Althoujgh early for me, she had just gotten off work at the store, so I offered her a cold one. She accepted and we went outside to the chairs on my front porch,, me with coffee, her with a tall Twisted Tea. I asked her to hold on while I got my cigarettea (also to put on my flip flops). While iside I heard her screaming my name. I yelled out throush a window what is wrong. She yelled back she needed help. Come here now. My land has mostly gentle animals, but it also has animals that eat them. Bear, Eastern Coyote (aka Red Wolf), occasional mountain lions seeking a mate too. .Or there may have been a human trespasser on my posted lands she was confronting. Either way it couldn't be good, so I grabbed an appropriate gun and went to help her. She wasn't where I had left her. I yelled where are you and she said, at my trailer. I ran over there and found her on the ground clutching her arm which had a new bend between wrist and elbow.

I asked what happened and she said I fell on my steps. She had decided to retrieve her own smoking materials while I got my cigarettes. Before coming to my door she had gone home and changed out of her work outfit to something more stylish which included women's cowboy line dancing boots to match the desired western cowgirl look. Those boots are made for dancing on a dance floor. The soles are slick leather. The steps to her home are polished metal, still damp with the morning dew. She had fumbled for her key while ascending the steps when her foot slipped. As she went down she out thrust her arm to protect her face from the steel step edge. Her hand slipped off the top step and into the space above the next step as she continued to fall. Her arm was not a crowbar. Her momentum resulted in the trapped arm breaking.
End Pt I. =continued-

You pour a chilled glass of your favourite sauvignon blanc and are about to take a sip when a fruit fly lands in it. The fly is clearly dead. But given what you know about where flies hang out, you wonder if it's safe to drink.
Despite their salubrious sounding name, fruit flies (Drosophila species),
eat food that is decaying. They inhabit rubbish bins, compost heaps or any place where food is present, including drains. Rotting food is rich in germs, any of which a fly can pick up on their body and transfer to where it next lands.
These bacteria include E coli, Listeria, Shigella, and Salmonella, any of which can cause a potentially serious infection in even healthy people. The fruit fly, you realise, may have just deposited potentially lethal microbes in your wine, so you toss it in the sink and pour a fresh glass.
However, the scientific evidence suggests you may have just wasted a good glass of wine. Wine has typically between 8 percent and 14 percent ethanol and has a pH of around 4 or 5 – a pH below 7 is considered acidic.
Alcohol is well known to be inhibitory to germs and is one reason wine can be stored for so long. Several laboratory studies have also shown that the combined effects of wine alcohol and organic acids, such as malic acid, can prevent the growth of E coli and Salmonella.
Whether the germs transmitted by the fruit fly into the wine can cause an infection depends on the number of bacteria deposited (the "infectious dose") and how metabolically fit the germs are.
The wine the fruit fly entered was also chilled, which some food poisoning bacteria find shocks their metabolism so profoundly it stops them growing.
As all types of wine (red, white or rosé, whether chilled or room temperature) are naturally antibacterial, germs in wine are likely to become damaged, which will reduce their infection fitness.
This suggests that while the germs deposited into wine by the flies might be present in a dose high enough to cause illness, they are not likely to cause an infection as they are too damaged. So, in all likelihood, the contaminated wine could be drunk without ill effect – whether it was chilled or not.
Then it has the body to contend with
And if not damaged directly by the wine, any germs still alive from the fruit fly deposit will encounter the highly acidic fluids of the human stomach.
Food poisoning germs are highly sensitive to acid, which damages their DNA, and stomach acid can even kill them.
In the stomach, germs must also overcome other deadly barriers such as digestive enzymes, entrapping mucus and the ever-watchful immune system defences. Fly-deposited wine germs are unlikely to be able to set up an infection.
Unless you are germ-phobic, I would suggest removing the fly and drinking the wine. If you want the extra protein, you could even swallow the fly.
The fruit fly is unlikely to change the taste of the wine, even if there are several of them. Your digestive system will simply process the fly like any other protein. Salud!