> every time in recorded human history when there's be a panacea or cure-all it's generally been snake-oil.

That's just not true at all. Like, not even close.

Almost everything we've invented in medicine has been free. As in, little to no downsides and just makes things better. And not just in medicine - look around you, compare it to 100 years ago. A lot of stuff is safer, for free.

Think about infant mortality. We went from 1/4 100 years ago to 1/1000s. For free. Surely birth must be more painful now, right? No... we got rid of the pain too. Well surely mothers die more, right? No... They die orders of magnitude less too. Well surely the Vitamin K shot must have SOME downside? Pretty much no, it just pevents bleeding out.

Aseptic technique is a panacea or cure-all IMO.

But usually when someone says panacea they don't actually mean a cure-all. Because, obviously, that's impossible and will always be so. They mean something with lots of uses and no downsides.

There are lots of miraculous, life-saving drugs that have minimal side effects and aren't snake oil.

Metformin, insulin, many vaccines, some statins, and some antibiotics are clearly on that list.

Statins cause uncontrollable anger in some people… but also lower it in other people.

eg https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... finds it reduces anger in men but increases it in women.

Sure, but most people take statins without side-effects

> panacea or cure-all

specifically, is what i said.

"GLP-1s are beneficial for many conditions downstream of liver dysfunction and metabolic disease" is a much milder claim than "cure-all".

also in the news in the last couple months was "promising for breast cancer" and another cancer (can't remember, don't care), and depression as well as some other mental health disorder.

If you would like to give me money i would be happy to do the research on what claims have been published about GLP-1 inhibitors since they became prescribed off-label.

I assure you it's more than "many conditions downstream of [...]", unless you want to concede that mental health like depression and dementia are related to gut bacteria, then we can be friends.

also, i caught wind that by December 2025 it's going to be recommended / "proven" to work for erectile dysfunction. At a certain point, we're mincing words.

> I assure you it's more than "many conditions downstream of [...]", unless you want to concede that mental health like depression and dementia are related to gut bacteria, then we can be friends.

You have no way to assure that and haven't even made that assertion. Depression and dementia are absolutely related to digestion, gut bacteria (as you mentioned), metabolism, and hormones, all of which are affected by GLP-1s.

Also, if someone starts taking GLP-1's (which has a placebo effect to begin with), loses weight, exercises more, and sees improvement in their diabetes, why wouldn't they also see improvement in their depression?

As someone who saw miraculous cessation of lifelong immune issues on it, saw another friends dramatically improved allergy symptoms, another lifelong smoker finally quit, and other friends generally get in great shape, I actually do believe it’s uniquely good. If even half of the seeming benefits it seems to be showing in early stages right now turn out to be true, it is.

Wouldn't the side effects, combined by the accompanying lifestyle changes key to making this medication most effective, show its not a panacea or cure-all? The fact there are these second order effects with such incredible impacts would lead me to believe its more mechanistic than magical with how much obesity effects all sorts of body systems

Antibiotics?

I mean, antibiotic resistance and superbugs are a thing. Overuse of antibiotics has been and still is definitely a problem, and there's a good reason that you're very strongly advised to fully finish whatever dose of antibiotics you're given.

Also broad-spectrum antibiotics can cause havoc to the body. They're amazing of course, don't get me wrong, but far from a panacea and there are issues in their use and overuse, some of which we're still learning about despite it being a century (in only 3 years!) since their initial discovery.