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GLP-1 Agonists and Weight Loss Therapy - Efficacy and The Side Effects

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 Editors Note: Please see update of 1.9.26 for recent developments, including Retatrutide --------------------------- Weight loss therapies using GLP-1 agonists have been implicated in the news recently as having a tendency to cause gallstones, and in some cases more serious gall-bladder damage. A recent report confirmed that there has been a marked rise in gall-bladder removals in UK over the last few years, and MHRA have recently updated their guidance on weight loss jabs. Should we have expected this, and what might be the consequences ? The short answer to this question is …Yes - this particular side effect was predictable, particularly after longer-term exposure..... To explain this more fully, we first need a little background. GLP-1 agonists are one of the most successful weight-loss inducing agents produced by Big Pharma of recent times; they have already generated a level of demand in the otherwise healthy population which far outstrips the available supply. Origi...
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Travelodge: The New ‘Blind Date’ Scheme

  Followers of the now somewhat beleaguered hotel chain may have noted an item in the news recently regarding several instances of occupied room keys being issued in error to unauthorised persons. Rumours abound as to why this might have happened, citing lax hotel security policy, poor staff training, etc. However, an interesting alternative explanation surfaced recently on social media, based on the possibility that it wasn’t actually a mistake after all…. The theory advanced by its proponents is that in attempt to ‘spice up’ their hotel offering, Travelodge’s Marketing Development Department (TMDD) have come up with a ‘blind date’ type scheme whereby rooms occupied by single travellers are selected at random and a surprise additional occupant, also selected at random, is issued with a second pass key. Presumably neither 'victim' is aware of what the hotel (or fate!) has in store for them.... This scheme is apparently designed to ‘make life more interesting’ for the ...
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Publication Paywalls - and How to Bypass Some of Them

  Just a quick heads up on a useful tool I discovered recently while on a quest to view Medium articles.  For those who haven’t come across it, Medium is a blogging platform with a (hitherto!) fairly wide following in the blogging world, where authors can contribute articles, and also receive payment if they are members and are prepared to pay a monthly subscription. Some of these articles are worth reading, but almost all of those that are remain inaccessible behind a paywall. As a new user of this platform, I did some research and discovered quickly from other sources that Medium was losing readership and contributors…much in the same way that Blogspot did some time ago, although apparently at a faster rate.   I’m convinced that this is fall-off is because of the paywall and their aggressive marketing messaging about membership subscriptions. It’s interesting to note that some of their recent output includes reports of a study on the effectiveness or otherwise of pa...
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What happened to all our Common Sense ?

Editor's note: Herewith a reissue of an amusing aside I wrote in 2022 after experiencing a particularly perplexing series of announcements, most of which seemed to defy common sense.......enjoy ! --------------------------------------------------------- Pondering the recent article about the close down of the world’s largest online eBook library  by the US authorities earlier this year led me back to the question asked increasingly often nowadays:   “ Where has all our common sense gone ?” I thought this might be a good opportunity to take a light-hearted 'tongue-in cheek' look at the logic (or lack of it) underlying human behaviour. What is it ? First of all, what is ‘common sense’ – and how do we define it ? To start with, here's a bit of personal history to help 'set the scene'.... I can well remember from my early childhood the frequent exhortations I received from my parents in response to what I thought was perfectly reasonable behaviour: ‘…for g...
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