# Semaglutide

45 Hacker News commenters recommended Semaglutide and 23 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (10 owners).

**Verdict:** People recommend it for effective weight loss and side benefits like less liver fat. Common caveats are nausea, stomach upset, and weight regain after stopping.

## Why people recommend it

- Helps autoimmune conditions (5 comments): "My own extremely rare and terribly painful immune disorder is basically entirely cured by it - it completely changed my life" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46965064)) "It's a miracle drug for reducing immune overreach, like better than anything we know of." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964722)) "I take low dose of semiglutide and this seems to help with the auto-immune aspect" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47903112))
- Side effects minimal at low dose (4 comments): "As long as you stick to the lowest dose that's effective the side effects are minimal to non existent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48703097)) "Mine were mainly around bloating and abdominal pain, but I solved it by spacing the doses out further" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49316677)) "so far no serious unwanted side effects other than the usual ones for semaglutide which went away" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47679521))
- Effective weight loss (3 comments): "Weight loss is an extremely complicated and societally mediated problem that we didn't have a 'cheat code' like this for until recently." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49312749)) "Losing 40 pounds where sometimes it feels like this weight is impossible to lose. That's what makes it worth it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49312682)) ""Just eat less" would work, but patients don't do that, so semaglutide it is." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49577848))
- Reduces liver fat (2 comments): "It shrinks visceral fat, it's been shown to clear liver fat, and it actually increases mitochondrial efficiency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49314890)) "Semaglutide cleared my liver fat and fixed my moderate NAFLD in a matter of months." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49312546))

## What people warn about

- Low energy or hypoglycemia (3 comments): "After my first 10-day gap between doses I ended up with a strong encounter with the hypoglycemic feeling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49315716)) "You aren't the only one I've heard who started to have no energy after being on semaglutide." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313130)) "Sema made me feel unwell and sometimes sleep due to what I think was hypoglycemia" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47478357))
- Dementia benefit unproven (3 comments): "I'm not convinced by this study that GLP1 treatment reduces dementia incident rates meaningfully compared to normal health weight loss." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313576)) "Novo Nordisk's actual dedicated clinical trials for Alzheimer's completely failed to show that semaglutide stops cognitive decline." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49312664)) "oral semaglutide did not significantly reduce clinical progression in patients with early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330519))
- Stomach upset and gastroparesis (2 comments): "Mine were mainly around bloating and abdominal pain, but I solved it by spacing the doses out further" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49316677)) "I started at 0.025mg and still got temporary gastroparesis which was indeed very uncomfortable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062182))
- Weight regain after stopping (2 comments): "We know that semaglutides have also side effects, and that rebound happen when you stop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824604)) "it's effective at losing weight but as soon as you stop you gain back all the weight" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051783))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Ozempic](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ozempic.md): 52 recommend
- [Tirzepatide (Zepbound)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tirzepatide.md): 36 recommend
- [Retatrutide](https://hackerapproved.com/p/retatrutide.md): 23 recommend
- [Wegovy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wegovy.md): 23 recommend
- [Zepbound](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zepbound.md): 21 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Semaglutide", https://hackerapproved.com/p/semaglutide/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).