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Eli Lilly releases data for a new weight-loss drug to tackle obesity : Shots - Health News : NPR

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This drug is a true gamechanger

In the SURMOUNT-1 study, people who took the highest dose of tirzepatide, most of whom had a BMI of about 30 or higher but did not have diabetes, lost about 21% of their body weight during the 72 week study. As researchers point out, for people who have bariatric surgery, typical weight loss is about 25% to 30% of their weight, one or two years after the surgery. In the tirzepatide study, 36% of people taking the highest dose lost 25% or more of their body weight.

this is comparable to bariatric surgery

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but the way that their discounting/deals are structured suggests a keen awareness of this in practice

That wasn't my initial read of what the coupon books and occasional mobile discount appear to be for; I believe that's more to convince the semi-regular customers to find it worth coming to the store (given that they're basically 2/5ths off what a single person would want to buy). Sure, it's still perfectly possible to go full whale at that point, but I'm not sure what the amount of crosstalk is between coupon users and those who spend 40 for one big meal.

Or maybe those milkshakes are far more popular than I think they are, since that's probably the cheapest way to maximize calories.

The sheer difference in revenue between a 'twice a day' customer and a 'twice a year, when drunk'

There's a lot of middle missing in that statement; people who are too lazy or busy to pack a lunch or cook dinner tend to be people who visit fast food places semi-regularly. They're also the ones that respond well to those discounts. (Maybe it's a universal human experience to consider this a failure?)

I'm relatively certain that (though my sample size is small) with respect to "whales" the source of their size is diffuse factors and not from any one source in particular; I think packaged candy/chocolate/potato chip manufacturers will be most impacted because people don't need to re-buy them as much. Fast food tends to be people going from 0 meal to 1, less 1 meal to 2, so it's not "a magic drug that makes people stop going out to eat" and more "they only buy one meal's worth of food where they might otherwise buy 1.5-2x", thus they'll not likely be affected as much.