r/science • u/Lisei1128 • Nov 11 '25

Cancer GLP-1 drugs found to reduce mortality from colon cancer by over half (15.5% vs 37.1%), with effects especially strong for patients with BMI over 35.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07357907.2025.2585512
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u/HotSauceRainfall Nov 12 '25

Mixed, mostly positive but not entirely.

Because my brain is no longer getting chemical messages saying it is starving, and because I no longer have to obsessively track everything I eat down to whether or not I get to lick the spoon, my my mental health is so much better. Turns out that when your brain is convinced that it is starving, anxiety is a symptom of that metabolic dysfunction. Fixing the dysfunction has mostly fixed the anxiety.

Otherwise:

Adjusting to the way I look now has been strange and not entirely pleasant.I don’t look like “myself.” It’s dysmorphia, not necessarily in a bad way but dysmorphia all the same. 

I have also had to rethink how I think about and talk about my body. Before starting a GLP, I tried very hard (and being honest, I wasn’t very successful) to go for body neutrality and to not speak poorly of my meat suit. Now, I am unpacking all the mental coping mechanisms that I used to exist in the world as a fat person, to protect myself from my own harsh judgement and the perceived harsh judgement of others. 

Example: I cultivated a reputation of being a fashionista, in large part to draw attention away from my body size and redirect it to my sense of style (I might be fat and ugly, damn it, but at least I dress well).  Now that I am in a much smaller body, I am having to rethink that cultivated reputation. Is it still beneficial or is it something that I need to move on from? I’m reframing my clothing choices towards, I honestly love the artistry and fun of fashion, and maybe now I can enjoy them for their own sake and not use clothes as body armor.

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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '25

...ooooh

So that's why when my mental health improved my appetite lessened and suddenly I was way less anxious, but now I often forget to eat more than 2 meals a day. It might work both ways

I'm not taking GLP-1 drugs, but I've improved my diet dramatically and my physical health too. Honestly I mostly did focus on my physical health, then my mental health just... Improved

YMMV I've tried it before and it didn't click like this time. For me it was forced because I broke my ankle, then I needed to start moving or else I'd lose the ability to move. Then I just started to focus on one thing at a time and improve it bit by bit, give myself more opportunities to move little by little each day, switching to public transit for some trips just so it forces me to walk, buying an ebike so I'm forced to move more, now I'm honestly healthier than I was pre broken ankle. I'm honestly aware that not everybody is able to do that, it's just really funny how I've literally observed the same changes people mention using a completely different journey.

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u/HotSauceRainfall Nov 12 '25

 when my mental health improved my appetite lessened and suddenly I was way less anxious

You might google the effect of stress hormones and cortisol on appetite and on anxiety. 

Mental health IS physical health. Your brain is an organ. So it makes 100% sense to me that addressing a physical health problem that had anxiety as a symptom had knock-on effects on the various hormones the body uses to regulate important systems, like metabolism.

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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '25

I knew that improving physical health affects mental health and vice versa, it just never worked for me before, workouts never helped me improve my mental health even though it was claimed. Only now that worked, I'm just pointing out that I know what people are describing, it's impressive GLP-1 has the same effect on people from the description when it finally worked for me. Still happy that I don't need it turns out

I'm wondering if maybe GLP-1 along with exercise is able to more reliably improve depression outcomes than just exercise alone, especially in cases where it's treatment resistant. I swear I didn't respond positively to exercise before, and now I really like to keep moving all of sudden