Summary Ozempic For Weight Loss: 6 Experts Share The Scary Truth Behind This "Miracle Drug" - YouTube (Youtube) youtu.be
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Speaker 0 What is the right way? And more importantly, what's the wrong way to use drugs like Oz? And these other Gl 1 agonist, these super weight loss drugs. Today we have 6 experts from our community, sharing their honest and Nuanced thoughts. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 0 Oz. Right? I want your thoughts on it because I'm seeing more and more telemedicine emerge, these sort of startups emerge, and a lot of people who feel like they've been struggling with weight for so long that they are seeing their friends that are out there and they're losing, especially where... I live over here where years to live. I'm in Los Angeles and Brent and the Pal in Santa Monica, and And there's a lot of individuals that are on this.
Speaker 0 I was at a fundraiser this weekend. And you could tell that there was probably a lot of people that were on those that were there. Talk a little bit about this. So I'm sure you've been following it very closely. And, you know, what are your thoughts on the situation?
Speaker 1 My answer is probably not what... You think of this.
Speaker 0 No. I actually I have a feeling that you're gonna give a more nuanced stance answer.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Which is
Speaker 0 why I asked you.
Speaker 2 So
Speaker 1 when I was on the Doctor Phil Show, he had a chapter in his book called weight loss resistance. And I thought that is such an interesting thing and this was what 20 plus years ago. Not knows 2007. And I thought weight loss resistance, what could get in the way of you losing weight and cause you to gain weight? And I started digging in, you know, past looking at diet exercise, what what else is there.
Speaker 1 Well, there's thyroid, there's insulin resistance. There's toxicity. There's at the time, we didn't know that there was all this gut microbiome stuff and food sensitivity, tough stuff. That's how that whole book came out of that. And genetics obviously.
Speaker 1 And so there were... I I got all of these different factors. And I was teaching a course to doctors all around the country, really working on this. And, you know, working with people who are weight loss resistant for whatever reason, and there's so many different things sleep, stress. Right?
Speaker 1 And so when this Ozempic came out, people need a little win. Right? And this drug, there's also if you start to dig into this drug, I went to... I was at integrative healthcare symposium where actually did this c with Mark this year. And they had a guy talk about this.
Speaker 1 And he started talking about the other effects beyond weight loss, and the neuro regeneration and heart and kidney. I put my son grant on this. So my son grant now is cycling it mh. For the neuro regeneration. I've been looking at this and I'm actually working with 1 of my doctor friends in Tampa, and we put together a program.
Speaker 1 My next book actually is the perfect program for Oz. So for for Journal for any of these things. Here's the problem with the Drug" as I started to do the research. They are getting the drug and they aren't getting for what should... The only way you should be able to get this drug is if you absolutely must track your food, eat protein first, get in your protein amounts and do resistance training.
Speaker 1 And if you will not do that, you cannot have the drug. And the other thing that has to happen, is that you have to monitor your fat free mass and make sure that you are maintaining your skeletal must, muscle mass. Now, like 10 percent would be the least amount, the most that you could possibly lose a skeletal muscle that you are losing from fat. The scary thing with this, is that if you look at the diets on the online for this, they are basically low calorie low fat, low protein diets. They're eat little amount.
Speaker 1 It's almost like a bariatric surgery diet. They're giving them really nothing and they're not recommending resistance training, and now we're seeing this devastating impact to the metabolism people are saying they can never go off it. Well, true. If you devastate your metabolism because you have to heal your metabolism to be able to lose fat and have a great... You know, great metabolic rate.
Speaker 1 If you are devastating it by losing muscle, you have a major problem. So while these drugs, could be the best thing ever because we have now 80 percent overweight, and obese.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And we're not gonna just fix it by teaching everybody how to cook.
Speaker 1 Or even Haven't fixed it yet. More information than ever out there and we haven't fixed it yet. Now for a lot of reasons we've gone after the wrong targets. Like, just the description of diets alone and the way we put people on a diet where it's this, you know, we're we're lowering calories and we're get giving them this ultra processed food that makes them hungry is just mean, and it doesn't work. It's ineffective.
Speaker 1 So if you could give them something that's going to giving Now all of a sudden, improve insulin, improve their satiety and give them a little take the edge off a little bit. While you're making you're having them track, increase their protein, at resistance training could be amazing, but it's not being done that way. And that's the big challenge.
Speaker 0 What about any kind of concerns that are bubbling up about any kind of long term health damage?
Speaker 1 It's But again, the long term health damage, I mean, these drugs have been around for a decade for diabetes. The long term health damage, what's the big health damage for long term obesity?
Speaker 0 Yeah. It's huge. You know? Most people are getting all these chronic diseases because they're diabetic. They're...
Speaker 0 Right. Obese. So you're just saying we have to weigh the process.
Speaker 1 So you look at risk reward on everything in life. The risk here is really about your muscle mass. Yeah. It could easily not be an issue. I'm literally building the program We're doing the trial group right now on this to prove that you can do this.
Speaker 1 And not lose muscle.
Speaker 0 Right. So we don't need to demon it. We do need some tools to tackle this sort of obesity epidemic. But it can't be this idea that you just take a medication, and it's a free launch because you're gonna end up sacrificing all these other things, and we a whole sort of maybe decade of a lot of women and some men 2, they're gonna be extremely frail. Mh.
Speaker 0 Not strong not to to mention potentially they'll be skinny, but they'll be diabetic. Right. Right? Because they're eating a lot of foods that are you know, not supporting their overall body, maybe extra carbs, extra other things, even if their calories are lower.
Speaker 1 So it's like any other type of weight loss diet. I mean, we could go back to the biggest loser and go look at the metabolic adaptation that happened there and they were exercising like fe and still exercising, it's gonna to be the same devastating metabolic adaptation fact, That's why how would you use this correctly? You're frustrated, you haven't been able to lose weight. Your thyroid working well. I would say, Your thyroid really working well, and I'm sure you've had a lot of thyroid experts on here.
Speaker 1 Your thyroid really has to be working well. You're sleeping well. You've managed your stress. You've you still are little insulin resistant, so that's probably 1 of the big issues. You're doing your exercise you're eating, but you you just need something to help you get started.
Speaker 0 Mh.
Speaker 1 And you are committed to make you're you're gonna eat a protein first, and you're gonna eat the amounts that are right for your target body weight. You are committed to doing resistance training 3 days a week, walking after meals, we all need to move so much more than we're moving holy smokes. You know, doing little hit training for that, visceral adipose tissue, you're gonna do all of that stuff, but you're gonna use this as a little helper.
Speaker 0 Mh.
Speaker 1 I think that it makes... We have got a crisis. We've got to do something. Now, when us sun Dr Phil, we did... We tried to take on the teens because it was like, if you're an overweight teen that she'll be an overweight adult is like 70 percent.
Speaker 1 But the challenge was the parents. So we weren't like chicken egg, What do we do here? Like, we would help the teens, but the parents was sabotage the teens, We'd help the parents. And then, you know I was like, so I I think that this done correctly is a huge opportunity. The other opportunity that's great with with all of this is that we can talk about weight loss again.
Speaker 1 Because we couldn't talk about it for a while. And, you know, I know this is unpopular what I'm about to say.
Speaker 0 May not be with our audience, but jump it to it. Alright.
Speaker 1 But I'm going to go there. It is absolutely inappropriate to tell people they can be healthy at any size. You should love yourself at any size. And then you should love yourself enough to say I wanna be my healthiest best self, whatever that is for me. And you know, we cannot tell someone if you're hundred pounds over overweight that you can be healthy because that's a lie.
Speaker 1 It's a flat out lie, and it's It's doing the mean massive disservice.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Where do you think that all that came from? Just like big picture, You know, you've been in this industry. For a long time. You've seen all the different trends and the ups and downs.
Speaker 0 Right? Was that a reaction to, you know, not to demon anybody, but like V and, these different magazines putting the super skinny models on there, and sort of a lot of that was going on in the nineties in the early 2 thousands, that... That's the vision of beauty.
Speaker 1 That started so sixties with Twin. Like, that's been going on forever.
Speaker 0 I was born 82. So, you know, Yeah. I I have my own reference right?
Speaker 1 That was in... I mean, you know, I I wasn't around then either, but it was t in the 6 I think really started a lot of that. And they've been using these crazy skinny models ever since. In fact, I've had this biz bizarre career. Part of my career I was living in in Fort Lauderdale, and I would go to South Beach and I did nutrition for the models down there.
Speaker 1 And they did not want to put any muscle. They needed to be super skinny. And I look at them now and I go, these are women who devastated their metabolism. Right? If you look at what happened to especially over the pandemic.
Speaker 1 I remember hearing a statistic that by the year 2030 that we were gonna be a hundred percent diabetic. And I go, that is ridiculous. And then you look at what happened over the pandemic. And how we went into the pandemic, 12 percent of the population was metabolically Healthy came out of it 6.8 percent. And the obesity statistics that have been on the rise since the eighties that are now the overweight obesity is what nearly 80 percent And I think we had to make being fat, not overweight, fat, okay because it was just...
Speaker 1 It's more normal than b.
Speaker 0 More normal than.
Speaker 1 It's it's more it... Well, if you look out at around, I mean, go anywhere, go to Disneyland go to mall go whatever, the thin people are the not normal.
Speaker 0 Right.
Speaker 1 Right? The normal weight persons they're not normal. So we just made it okay, but that's not helping anyone.
Speaker 3 Sure.
Speaker 0 It maybe also a little bit of like, the politically correct language. Let's create safe spaces for everybody.
Speaker 1 Well do that. Like, let's let's not demon someone because they're struggling with their weight. I can pretty much guarantee you since I've worked in this field for 40 years that no 1 is seeing there going you know, I feel great about being over fat. What I really wanna communicate is feel good about yourself, You're doing everything you can. They're frustrated.
Speaker 1 And what I learned over the years, working with so many people who are over fat is that they knew more about it.
Speaker 0 They were trying harder It's on their mind all the time. All the time. If you have a friend or a family member, somebody that's close to you. Maybe that's even that person is you. I never dealt with that myself.
Speaker 0 I was always this... Skinny Indian vegetarian kid. So I have my own challenge earlier here, but it is literally on your mind all the time. Anytime you get dressed in the morning. Anytime you go in the mirror.
Speaker 0 Anytime you walk into room, people constantly have that narrative of are people looking at me? Are they gonna like me? Do they think I'm too fat? Know, that's just a constant thing. So they don't want to be that way.
Speaker 0 Right? And they haven't been given the right tools and information, kind of been lie to a little bit by the narrative.
Speaker 1 Been lied to. Like, you look at what we've done over the last 30 years telling people to eat... No. You just need to... No, you need to cut the fat out.
Speaker 1 All you need to do is go fat free. No. You need to eat pretty much only fat? No. You know like you look at it and go, should I be...
Speaker 1 Fat free love, if you look at all the traditional diets out there. It's carbs or fat, carbs or fat, carbs are fat, They miss the most important 1, and disco go, well, what if you just focused on your protein, and then it was like extras to do loads and loads and loads and loads of cardio? We've devastated people that can make... You lose your muscle and raise stress hormones and make you hungry or for carbs. We know that when you do chronic endurance training.
Speaker 1 You burns up muscle raise a stress hormone to make you hung. And then you're not supposed to eat because you're on a diet. Like, it's just a horrible situation that we've done over the years.
Speaker 0 Next up, we have health advocate and entrepreneur Cali means, who's bringing a well needed critical lens to these weight loss drugs. That should be kept in mind for anybody who thinks that these drugs alone are the miracle cure to our obesity crisis. To what is? Why is it, you know, being talked about so much and why is, like 60 minutes doing... You know, basically commercials for it and how has it become a hot button topic that you wanna jump in the mix all.
Speaker 3 Let let me try to take this from kind of my perspective of of I've seeing the Drug" system and kinda how I would think about it early Micro as a as a consultant. So this is reported. The parent company of Oz over the past several years has paid 30000000 dollars a year in direct consulting fees to Obesity doctors. This new field it would be.
Speaker 0 And just to adding Ozempic is basically being touted as this miracle weight loss drug. Yeah. A lot of celebrities are on it. It was reported that maybe Elon Musk is on it, and it's been catching a lot of excitement in the public.
Speaker 3 It's a miracle obesity cure. It's a weekly injection that you have to take for life. According to the disruption description, the the the recommendations that you take it forever.
Speaker 0 Because if you stopped taking it, many of the patients that stopped, actually ended up gaining more weight back because they went back to eating exactly how they...
Speaker 3 More weight back and there is unknown and not un fully understood metabolic impacts because the the injection is fundamentally impacting your metabolism, So it's recommended that you never stop taking the weekly injections. The weight comes back, there's potentially some other metabolic factors that that are negative. So so that's the drug, but but it's being billed as a as a miracle obesity cure. So so so we've had this like like plethora of press. It just feels inevitable, you know, culminating in this 60 minute segment.
Speaker 3 The most watched news program in the United States where they had doctors that were paid, on as a big payroll saying that obesity is caused by genetics is not caused by choice. Okay? So let's let's let's let's just look back the past couple of years and how how the system is written how we rigged institutions or trust for this. Okay? So first, you you have this document.
Speaker 3 It because paid obesity specialists, 30000000 dollars in direct payments, not research payments, consulting fees, direct payoffs. So that's on the Cms start org that's on the website, there's been over 400000 payments per year individual payments to... So they absolutely strangle. The obesity treatment profession, big conferences, direct payoffs, 30000000 dollars a year in lead up to this. Right?
Speaker 3 Also, than the Fda approval. The Fda has fast track this approval. They fast track they approved for teens in less than 30 days. 70 percent of Fda funding directly comes from pharmaceutical companies. There's been an...
Speaker 3 So this is... This has the potential to be 1 of most profitable drugs in the history United States. And the boards, the obesity boards. And the You see this time and time again that actually approve and decide whether they're fast track drugs, whether even approved drugs. They're not they're not Fda bureau cra, they're they're blue ribbon panels.
Speaker 3 And they're blue ribbon panels of Obesity specials that are on payroll. Okay? Then you have 60 minutes, the news media. Okay? The majority of their funding, literally, the oz segment before and after, pharma as.
Speaker 3 So you have the news media carrying in the water. You you just had yesterday, AAA doctor going cnn who was built as a non partisan, non biased advocate. I actually looked into it. She was actually on Oz pacific payroll. You went to...
Speaker 3 What was the website you
Speaker 0 went to and you looked
Speaker 3 the Cms website. Is she she's on as a big payroll. Is You build as a non part. So so so so so it's weapon institutions of trust. Now in where is is Robert hit the road, as I mentioned, during Covid, 40 percent of children between 5 and 12 obese, of The American Academy and pediatrics, which is not some fringe organization.
Speaker 3 It credentials pediatricians. It's the gold standard. The majority of their funding comes from pharmaceutical makers. That's on the website. And they say, that the data is great and we recommend surgery and oz for obese teens.
Speaker 3 That's 40 percent of teens. Okay. And then there's a lip service. This wasn't even really in the guidance. There's 1 line on on nutrition interventions and then doctors on Twitter saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna do a Nutrition.
Speaker 3 They don't make money. On nutrition. And as I said, 80 percent of those doctors didn't take 1 nutrition class. You know, I've spoken to... Diabetes specialists a Busy specialists from Harvard, who have not taken 1 nutrition class in their lives, Right?
Speaker 3 So so so so that's a fallacy that there's gonna be some like, you... We've all been to the doctor. Oh, eat your fruits of vegetables go on your way. There's no real nutrition advice from the doctor. Health doesn't happen the doctor.
Speaker 3 Office, but that is. And again, these are good people. I'm not, but let's just look at the raw economic incentives dis. That is weekly injections. There literally cells will go be z if they stop taking it for life.
Speaker 3 That's that that's regular doctor's appointments for their entire life. And I'm not reflex anti a drug, but lit let's dig into that. Let's dig into that. So so let's take a let's take a team and they're obese. They're obese because of food.
Speaker 3 Right? They're eating... Primarily 3 things. Process grains, which turn into sugar, which which converted into fat when they overwhelm the cells. So with glucose, sugar, which is off the charts as we know, and inflammatory sea oils.
Speaker 3 If they take oz, which changes the metabolism, you know, it changes dynamics and your gut to make you less hungry They might be less canola oil, less sugar, less inflammatory, but they're still eating these inflammatory ingredients that are causing violence to the cells. This is why the stats I just mentioned on statins being correlated with increased heart disease, metformin diabetes, all these things. It's because there's underlying issues. We're still ingesting inflammatory foods. The American Diabetes association until 20 18.
Speaker 3 By the way, the American Diabetes Association, which credentials diabetes doctors, was funded by coke. And said, literally their guidance until 20 18 as Dr Robert Lust has pointed out, said you can eat whatever you want if you're diabetic as long as you take your insulin. Right? That's just 1 biomarker that stands or 1... They they they impact 1 biomarker, We're eating inflammatory food.
Speaker 3 It's the fuel... I don't know. It seems so simple To me, It's the fuel for our bodies. And if they kid, right, the obesity could be seen as a warning sign. I will guarantee you.
Speaker 3 And we can play us back. I will guarantee you. I hope oz this is this is overturned. But it is not gonna result in long term Obesity reduction. For children, and it is gonna result in increased comorbidities because the cells are still under threat.
Speaker 3 And that's what so It's not reflex anti Drug", but it's like opportunity costs. It's like the 4000000000000 dollars. Why now, of course, this whole P campaign. Is leading to the American taxpayer paying for this injection, you know, for tens of millions of Americans, What if that money went to incentivizing healthy food?
Speaker 0 Next up, we have Dr. Gabriel Lyon, who's here to talk about the best and worst practices around these weight loss Drug". When it comes to using them in our own clinic, and the pros and cons that come with any medical intervention. We have a society today though, unfortunately, that all programmed around people being over fat.
Speaker 4 Yeah.
Speaker 0 And we have this abundance of new medications, things like Oz, and I'd love to get your take on them.
Speaker 4 Mh.
Speaker 0 Are these things good, not good or it depends.
Speaker 4 Well, everything depends because everything is in context as it relates to medicine. I personally feel that these medications are game changing for people. People that have really struggled for a very long time to move the needle and just cannot. Whether it is Ozempic, or Mon journal, I think that it's amazing. I think that with every medication, you have to weigh out the risks and benefits there's a lot of discussion about what is its impact on skeletal muscle health.
Speaker 4 I have never seen a mechanism of action that at least at this time, that negatively impacts skeletal muscle health.
Speaker 0 Right. And so some of what has been out there is that if people, if we're talking about some of the similar of the things that I've seen if people are relying on Ozempic to lose weight and what are the other medications called?
Speaker 4 Journal? There's another 1 called what o so v some
Speaker 5 they're all...
Speaker 0 Some they're all
Speaker 1 tied.
Speaker 4 Yeah Yeah.
Speaker 0 So if they all are relying on those, there's a decrease in lean muscle mass, but generally when people lose weight, there's gonna be yeah.
Speaker 4 It doesn't have to be
Speaker 0 that's what you're saying.
Speaker 4 So in our practice, we utilize Oz and Mind journal and, you know, a handful of other things. We are not seeing a loss of skeletal muscle mass.
Speaker 0 Because you're having people do everything else.
Speaker 4 Exactly.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I appreciate you sharing about that because it's even the wellness space there's a lot of people to feel like. They're very concerned about some of these things and some of the side effects that have been reported out there. And obviously, everything makes the news because these drugs are you know, new. You know, some of the concerns that people have are, like, are the usage of these drugs linked to cancers I've seen?
Speaker 0 Mh. Or the usage of these drugs linked to you know, there was 1 recently that was all over Cnn in the new York Times. There was 1 about, like, they people can't... Eat the same way? Like, what was it again?
Speaker 4 Right. So gas. Gas. I wanna mention this concept of the cancer. So it's basically thyroid cancer.
Speaker 4 So there's so there's a black box warning on these tens as it relates to potential risk for thyroid cancer. I think that if you look at the literature, perhaps that is incidental that is an incidental finding,
Speaker 0 Got it.
Speaker 4 First thing. The second thing is what is more risky being overweight for decades and decades or utilizing a medication to manage it at least initially because we get people off these medications. I know that in clinical practice and in the media, they say, we once it you're on it forever. We don't see that. We see a kick start in people's metabolism.
Speaker 4 We say once we get them really dialed in on nutrition and training on we use this as an augmented tool for those that need it and we've seen tremendous change. The negative side effects, again, everything comes with side effects. A medication, and there's no free launch. When an individual gets gas, which is what you're hearing about is slowing gastric update? That's exactly what the medication is supposed to do.
Speaker 4 Not necessarily I mean, is it a side effect? Yes, but it's also an intention of the medication. It slows gastric empty individuals are less hungry.
Speaker 0 And your argument would be well, actually, I'll back up and say, some of people on the other side would say like, look, this cannot be the solution to fix America's obesity crisis. And I'm hearing you say that, yeah, if we're only gonna use these drugs and we're not gonna do everything else, We could end up having a bunch of people who are skinny and have a Ozempic face, but but you know, a little little. People who are skinny but actually, their metabolic health is not that good. But that's because they weren't doing all these other things like prioritizing muscle, and their diet is not prioritizing protein. So they might be eating a lot of carbohydrates or, you know, fats in their diet or other things.
Speaker 0 And their metabolic doesn't look great, but they are lean. And you're saying it doesn't have to be that way, and your clinic is 1 example of a clinic that is helping people use these drugs to get a kick start. You're not trying to keep them on there forever, but then they're working out and their prioritizing protein and doing all these others.
Speaker 4 And I wanna mention something else to you that I've been sitting here debating for the last few minutes if I was gonna mention. But I wanna mention it because I wanna highlight the disparity. Please okay. Physicians can prescribe something to make people less obese. Okay?
Speaker 4 No problem. But people cannot prescribe physicians cannot prescribe things for muscle health. So at this time, for example, testosterone is not Fda approved for women. But we can prescribe anti obesity medications, but there are multiple medications potentially that would help with muscle health that, you know, we're just not legal to prescribe.
Speaker 0 Like peptides, potentially testosterone replacement therapy.
Speaker 4 Which By the way, you know, again, you're able to prescribe certain things off off label.
Speaker 0 Right?
Speaker 4 But that is just an example of how backwards everything is. Think about that. You can go to the physician to... You can go to a provider and get anti fat medication, but you cannot go to a provider to get pro muscle.
Speaker 0 Our Last Clip Today Is An Excerpt From The Podcast, A whole new level hosted by Doctor Casey Means. And In This clip, Doctor Means is interviewing Dr. Robert Lust, who's been a regular on this podcast and they're talking about how Someone could use these drugs In the right way as a jump start And more importantly, how an individual could Think about Of course, discussing with their doctor, getting off of these drugs for long term usage.
Speaker 2 So given the fact that there are gonna to be millions of Americans on this. Medication, and they're are gonna be... Probably a lot of blue have an awakening about the fact this is not a pan. It's not a silver bullet. They might have horrible side effects.
Speaker 2 They want to get off it what would you... I think there's probably gonna be a huge opportunity for essentially plans for people to while they're on the medication. Also set themselves up for success for getting off it. And maybe use the medication as a jump start to get the motivation and energy to then do the things that actually get the root cause. So let's say someone's listening who's on oz, this episode kind freaking them out a little bit and they're thinking they might wanna to eventually get off it.
Speaker 2 What do you think are some of the steps get that someone could take to like, really set themselves up for success when we.
Speaker 5 Right. So I couldn't agree more. I think that Ultimately, these medications will be good jump starts. In other words, that means that they will be add adjunct. To other therapies.
Speaker 5 K Ways of getting people to have early success so that they can basically feel some self efficacy, some agency that they can actually do something to help themselves and ultimately be able to carry that forward. I'm for that. I'm totally for that. And if that is ultimately how Oz will go are used, I will likely be a proponent for for them. That's not how they're being used now.
Speaker 5 Alright? But if you can see that changing your diet will basically be something that you can actually do and follow through on. And, you know, Oz and we'll go help you get there. Alright. To to that point where you can actually...
Speaker 5 Like, change what's in your pantry, and, you know, you'll be able to sort of subdue the cravings you know, so that you don't fall backwards, I think that would be a fine way to do it. So it could be sort of a short term, you know, jump start and then come off it and use it in that respect. That with that in mind. But that means that you need a nutrition involved, that means that you're going to need. You know, your primary care physician to really.
Speaker 5 Sort of take command and help you navigate how to do this and how to navigate the grocery store going forward, you know. So I could see, you know, these drugs being an adjunct to, you, more cod lifestyle program, and you know, then then maybe there'll be a good value to.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm I'm just thinking, like, okay, let's say there's someone who, you know, is morbid of a obese, and they really just don't have the energy or motivation to kinda get started. They get some early success the medication like this, get more energy. They're able to move more, I can I can imagine situation in which, like, that's? At that moment, if they're able to get a support team around and exactly what you said, like, learn how to cook, Shop at the grocery store, prepare whole foods, start a resistance training, programs.
Speaker 2 They, you know, lose as little of the lean muscle masses possible maybe even build some, you know, really dial in on protein and amino acids and kind of, you know, prevent the sa, effect, work on the mental health piece. And then maybe, you know it's like it's it helps them kind of then eventually just move from 1 state at to a much better future and get off the medication eventually. But I I just don't see a situation in which if none of that happens, there's no resistance training, there's continuing to eat ultra processed foods, just less of them, that the the body... So the body getting less of something crappy is not the equivalent of health. Right?
Speaker 5 If something is toxic. Then less of something is less toxic, but that doesn't make it healthy.
Speaker 2 Well, okay. So I... So you have some of the most, I think, amazing perspective on... On actually, like evidence based. Like, the actually evidence based ways for sustained weight loss, especially in children and I know you've done some research in your work on this.
Speaker 2 So the American Academy Pediatrics recently and their obesity guidelines that released in January made a recommendation that these medications and other pharma agents for obesity could be used in children as young as 12. I wonder if you could just speak to some of your research about weight loss in children about, what are the factors that actually allow children to lose weight in a sustainable way. And and maybe just your commentary generally on the Aap guidelines.
Speaker 5 Right. Well so the Aap guidelines that came out. Earlier this year, said 2 things. And 1 I agree with and the other 1 I disagree with, So what did it say? It said that obesity is a problem.
Speaker 5 I agree. Obesity is a problem. They said that pediatricians have far too long ignored obesity in their children in the children that they see. And that by saying to parents, oh, it's just baby fat, it'll go away. You're actually per the problem.
Speaker 5 So they called the pediatricians on the carpet, you know, for basically ignoring the problem as the problem, fest under their feet. That part of the Aap guidelines I agreed with. Then was the second part, which I disagree with. What it said was, because obesity is such a problem and because it is a disease and because kids aren't getting better. You are entitled and rightfully appropriately commissioned to use medication as young as 12 years old.
Speaker 5 Now, look, I used medication. When I was head of the Ob program at Ucsf. Fully 1 quarter of the patients that I took care of were on metformin. And the reason that they were on metformin was because Metformin was targeted at the problem. These kids had insulin resistance, they needed their insulin to go down I knew that as long as their insulin stayed up.
Speaker 5 They were gonna continue to gain weight because insulin is the energy storage hormone, get the insulin down. And that metformin was the drug that we had at our disposal at that time that kids could take that would get the insulin down. And the reason is because it worked at where the insulin problem was, the liver. It was targeted to the liver to improve insulin sensitivity at the level of the liver by increasing the enzyme Amp kinase. Amp kinase is the fuel gauge on the liver cell.
Speaker 5 It is the thing that tells your liver to make more mitochondria. So if you increase amp kinase activity, you're gonna make more mitochondria, which means you're gonna burn energy better and faster. You're gonna improve insulin sensitivity and you have a then a chance to get your insulin down and, you know, have weight loss. And That's why we used it because it was directed to the correct problem. I also knew from my own studies from back in the nineties when I that metformin first came out, that if they kids consume soft drinks, that metformin them was useless.
Speaker 5 Did not work, and the reason was because They were poisoning that Amp kinase. So you can't raise your m Amp kinase when it's being poisoned. It it doesn't work. Alright? So soft drinks were the anti of metformin activity, and I had to get people off the soft drinks before the metformin would work.
Speaker 5 Alright? I had to do both I had to stop the soft drinks and do the metformin. But when I did that, then it would work, and I had plenty of good data to show that. And I, you know, published this... You know, this was out out in the world.
Speaker 5 How many people did it, you know, how many the pediatricians adopted that, you know, only the ones who listen to me, you, which is not not enough. All alright. Now, can we ultimately, you know, get kids to change their diet so that they don't need medicine. And the answer is, no. We can't because the food environment that they find themselves in, is so unbelievably toxic.
Speaker 5 We have to fix the food environment in the schools we have to fix the food environment in the grocery store so that the food environment at home can ultimately be fixed. And the parents, you know, we expect them somehow to be the gatekeepers. And the problem is they can't be. It's too difficult that we've made it too difficult. And of course, that's the food industry's goal is to make it too difficult.
Speaker 5 In addition, most of those parents are sugar addicts themselves. So how are we gonna fix the food for the kids if we haven't fixed the food for the parents. How do you expect the kids to get better when the parent is the Sugar act, and it's still bringing the, you know, Oreos into the house. What, you know, what's that about? Alright?
Speaker 5 That... So so to me, that doesn't work. It requires a much bigger effort and not expecting that the parent alone is going to be able to solve this problem. So giving drugs to kids is not the right answer, even though I did it, but I did it for the right patient for the right reason at the right organ, Alright? But just throwing Oz and Mu go at kids is not the answer to this problem.
Speaker 0 I hope you enjoyed today's compilation episode. By no means is today's episode meant to be the final word on this complicated subject. But 1 promise I can make you is I will continue to ask experts that come on my podcast about their thoughts on Oz, And these other Gl 1 weight loss drugs and we'll continue the conversation. And as always, I'll ask about all of the complicated topics that you wanna know about so that you can be more empowered in your health journey. Be sure to follow all the experts featured on today's clip in the show notes below, and I'll see you next week.
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