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Happy Spurling - Regular Font
Kayla Lanier - Bold Font
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could eat whatever you wanted and still lose weight? Is it possible? Today we are going to talk about Ozimbic, Manjaro, Wogovi, and GLP 1.
42% of Americans are morbidly obese. Could this actually be a game-changer?
Yeah, so that seems to be the question of the day lately. Really has been for several months now. And because there hasn't been a lot of research on it, everything's kind of newly coming out about the side effects and the benefits, the risks involved. These medications do this by targeting an area in the brain called GLP 1 receptors that help regulate your appetite and how much you eat. They closely mimic a natural hormone in the body called incretin, which is made primarily in our digestive tract, and works to improve insulin resistance.
We have GLP 1 receptors in the beta cells in our pancreas, in our brainstem, the central nervous system, the hypothalamus. The cortex, our gastrointestinal tract, endocrine system, heart, lungs, and our immune system that they know of. It actually is estimated that we probably have them in more places than that, but that those are the ones that we know of for sure. And these receptors are what control appetite and hunger as well as gastric emptying. So the receptors actually target more of a brain messaging center than anything, so it doesn't really base it in the gut itself. But because the brain is sending the signaling there, and this affects those receptors, that's kind of where the messaging is changed.
So, it can help people feel full and satisfied with less food, and even shut off hunger mechanisms. Which sounds like a good idea, especially if we struggle with... Insulin resistance, which often leads to leptin resistance. So often people don't have that gauge of being hungry or full. When you have leptin resistance, that hormone is not being picked up on.
So it becomes really difficult to lose weight. And you have to really retrain the body to be sensitive to leptin, just like you do to insulin, in order to really allow that hormone to regulate so that you don't get those mixed signals of being hungry when you should be full.
Right. Wow.
One of the main things that they do is they slow the gastric emptying process. That means that the food is coming through the digestive tract at a much slower rate than it would normally. So of course you're staying full longer because the food isn't moving through as quickly. So what does that mean for long term if you use these drugs? There's some debate as to whether or not the gastric pathway would actually be able to regain motility, so the ability of the stomach to actually press food and use that muscular action of moving food through the system, it can actually be delayed because it is a muscle. And if you do that long term and you suppress movement in the gastrointestinal tract, there is a concern, and it's a very valid one, that you may actually cause a condition called gastroparesis, which is a type of mild paralysis of the gastrointestinal tract. It still works, but it works really, really slow. So these GLP 1 receptors kind of mimic that. I have clients that actually have gastroparesis, which is a very slow, delayed emptying of the gastrointestinal tract. And it can be quite painful, honestly.
It's, it's a very difficult issue to deal with simply because once the body has had a muscle weaken like that, it's difficult to regain the strength of that. So there is some concern as to whether or not that will go back to normal, and if you will have normal gastric emptying once you stop the drug.
Wow, okay, so like basically gut paralysis.
Yeah, and they know that this is an issue now because it just recently came out that if you're gonna have surgery and you have an upcoming surgery, if you're a diabetic and you've been on one of these GLP 1 medications, which is like Ozempic or Wagovi or any of those, that you actually need to, if it's a daily dose, that you need to stop the dose two days before you go into surgery.
And if you're on a weekly dose, like many people are for weight loss, you actually need to stop the injection the week before surgery. And that's simply because people were fasting the night before for surgery, just like anyone would. But then when they got in to do surgery the next morning, the gastric emptying was so slow that they still had food content in their stomach, so they weren't able to have surgery.
And of course, that could be dangerous, so they are saying that you need to be aware of that, that it truly slows down the emptying process. And so for some people, that's going to cause nausea and diarrhea and vomiting. Some people could have constipation. It really depends on what kind of condition your gut health is in when you start a medication like this as to how you'll have side effects manifest.
Okay. You know, I mean, it's like 44 percent have experienced nausea, 32 percent diarrhea, 25 percent vomiting, 23 percent constipation. So... 44 percent is pretty high for nausea, and being nauseous all the time is, I mean, I couldn't do it.
Some people can, some people feel like maybe it's not as dramatic for some people as other people.
There has been significant dizziness and bloating. Of course you're gonna have bloating if, if you have. everything moving through in a really slow transit time through the gut because it's not moving. I mean, that's kind of one of the things that you want to make sure with regularity that you're moving everything through in a timely manner.
So, of course, you're slowing that process down. There's some benefits to it as to how you can regulate appetite and hunger, but there is a downside. So, indigestion, gas, reflux, low blood sugar, and even the heightened risk for pancreatitis. There is a warning that if you have had pancreatitis in the past, you wouldn't be a good candidate for a GLP 1 medication because it could increase the risk even more.
Okay. Well, we've covered the side effects. I guess we should talk about some of the benefits.
Yeah, and honestly, that's just trying to touch on a few that have been...
I mean, these are minor side effects, going into the major side effects as well as...
Yeah, the semaglutides actually have a black box warning on that medication or in that line of medications.
That is the most significant risk category that the FDA issues as far as a warning label. There's only 600 meds that qualify for a black box label, which means it's a really high risk medication. And... Semaglutides are one of those, and I'm not sure that that is being talked about or discussed. I hope it is among a practitioner and a patient that there are real risk here.
The studies that were done was actually a 168 week trial that had 1, 961 individuals in the trial. That study was actually paid for by Nova Nordisk, which is the company, of course, that has kicked all of this off. There was no third party research that had been done at all. The study was 100 percent funded by Nova Nordisk and all of the research doctors that are listed on the study, if you go in and look at that, are either on the payroll with this company or they own stock in the company. So, this study... is looked at a little differently in that it's kind of hard to know if it was really done properly because the people paying for the study were also the ones completing the study.
So, there are some questions to be asked about the legitimacy of one study.
Right.
Just because... You have a lot invested. There's a quote by Upton Sinclair that says, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it. And I feel like that's kind of where we are in this study, is there needs to be third party research being done that is sourced outside of that supplier so that we can get some real results. And maybe those are real, but I think it would solidify that if you could get more third party testing done.
This one study, of course, was completely in favor of the drug and there were a few things that they highlighted, but pretty much it was just like a hundred percent go.
But again, if you trace it back to the motivation of that, there really wasn't an objective way to do the study, in my opinion. Now, was it done with the utmost of integrity? I hope so, but they had the most to lose by having any side effects that were significant.
The mouse models did show an increased risk for thyroid cancer, and it is actually a very rare type. It's a thyroid c cell tumor cancer, and the higher the dose, of the medication, the increased risk of the thyroid cancer.
So that's primarily what the black box warning is for?
Yeah, and that's, that's the one that they've labeled it for, is that rare thyroid cancer, just because they did know, again, we didn't have a human study that came out with this, it was in the mouse models.
But what's happening right now is we've had this short term study that was conducted by the company, but there hasn't been enough time to do a long term study. And so the people who are trying this medication right now are what we call a market data analysis group. They are the long term study. And so as people take the medication, they will go to their primary care providers that have given the prescription and they're supposed to report side effects which is where we're finding these mild side effects that people are having with the nausea and the constipation and all that. And then the provider is supposed to note all of those side effects and then that's going to be collected as a data analysis.
So the people that are taking the medications now are actually part of the study group for long term side effects.
Oh, wow.
So as long as the primary care providers are able, with time constraints and all, to actually write down all the side effects, go through the paperwork and all it takes to submit those, then we're going to get this system built that's basically going to define the side effects.
Right now, it doesn't look like there's many side effects, but people need to keep in mind that you're defining those as you go, and so a lot of that will unfold as we go along.
Right.
Sometimes it's important to kind of think about the best advice as a, a practitioner or a physician is, was given to, Dr. Kenberry had mentioned this, he said he was told that never be the first physician to prescribe a drug or the last, and I think that would apply to patients as well, is that sometimes it's good to just sit back and wait and wait. See the brave souls that are willing to kind of jump on that and just let them be part of that study analysis.
And I know that sounds a little bit harsh, but sometimes you need a little bit of time to see how something's going to work. And unfortunately, the way that these drugs have been approved by the FDA. We don't have the option of looking at it through a long term lens and I think that is where we might find that the fact that there's these receptors all over the body may not be as easy to turn those on and off as we think that they are with the medication.
Yeah, well it's pretty heavy. So we got pretty somber there a little while, and we have been completely negative about the drug. I just want to know if there's any kind of benefit.
I feel like there is a group of people that truly have morbid obesity, meaning that their BMI is above 27 percent. And they're actually not able to lose weight and maybe they really have tried everything.
That's when you look at that as going in with eyes wide open to know, hey, there's some very real risk here. But there's also some real risk to having morbid obesity and the chance of a heart attack increases and there's some real issues there to just stay in that place too. I think you kind of compared it like maybe you had heard compared on a podcast or something about to a pair of running shoes.
Yeah, it's a tool. It's like a good pair of running shoes. You add it to your healthy lifestyle for a couple of months.
And that's the difference is I think adding this as a tool so that you can change your eating style and everything so that you're supporting low insulin levels. And you're learning how to regulate your insulin by the foods that you're eating.
And then you have this for a short term period, maybe three to six months. The less time you're on it, of course, the less risk factor. But no mistake in the fact that that doesn't mean there is no risk. You're just not on it as long. So of course you would assume that may be less risk. It may not be for some people, but if this is truly the only way someone feels like they're ever going to be able to make that change, then it's like a lot of medications.
Maybe it's a good bridge to get you from this point to that point, if you understand. And I think that's the concern is that maybe people aren't being made fully aware of all the risk. And that needs to be discussed openly. It's not just this wonder drug that has no side effects. And if you go in that with eyes wide open, then you know, hey, I'm assuming this risk over the risk of not being able to lose weight.
And you kind of weigh those out. But it's a hard call because I think. Gastric sleeve surgery is, to me, very comparable to this, or gastric bypass, where you are slowing down the process of digestion, and because of that, you have a lot of the same effects.
And it's used as a, a tool. It helps you, you know, moderate your diet, but usually, the people that I've seen who've gotten this procedure, usually implement exercise, and they get their vitamins in check. You know, and it just changes their entire lifestyle.
And it can definitely, can literally come out of that surgery and have a new ability to manage your weight like you haven't before. But I know of clients that I work with that have maintained their weight loss and they do it through a lifestyle change.
So they did, they used the surgery as a tool and it got them to that place to where they felt like they had at least a heads up where it's like, okay, now I can start to gain some ground on this. Where before maybe they felt like it was kind of hopeless. Like there's, there's this insulin resistance that's in place and it takes a lot to get that reversed. And sometimes time is not on your side when you're dealing with obesity.
Well no, um, and also I mean going back to the running shoe metaphor. I mean you can literally, you can put on your running shoes and sit on your couch. They look great on your feet, they feel good, but if you're just sitting there.
Keep them clean that way too, cause I don't like dirty shoes.
Yeah, no sweat, no tears, no blood, it's great. You know, getting out there walking or running and just trying those out using them instead of just running barefoot, you know, you can look at this if you know, you're morbidly obese I could see it being an amazing leg up like a ladder a nice stepping stool to finally get above water.
Yeah, and I think that knowing that you're looking at something like a tool and then you're able to say, Hey, during this time, I'm going to get my nutrition and check so that I can maintain the weight loss because that's the other flip side of this.
In the study that was done, there was a significant amount of weight loss initially. Towards the end of the study, they did see that some of the weight had already started to come back, even while still on the semaglutide. So, that there was some weight gain. The way that this works is that it actually accesses the brain stem and changes messaging.
So, that's kind of an, in a nutshell, you're getting receptor changes in the hypothalamus, which is triggering that you're not hungry or you don't need to eat or that kind of signaling. It also shrinks fat cells because of how it affects the glucon like peptides. So you're getting some effect on that as well, which is a good benefit.
But it caused the fat cells to shrink on this drug, but the problem is you do make more fat cells. They're just smaller. So if you gain weight, then you could still possibly gain more back than what you lost because you have, your body has possibly created more fat cells they're just not as large and fat cells have memory.
Which is why it's so hard to lose weight. You know, people have a body set point that's set by our brain. And so you can see where the benefits of something to come in and change that makeup would be like, Oh, this is a good thing. But our body remembers weights that we were at for a long period of time.
And that's why people can often lose a tremendous amount of weight. And it it literally comes back so much faster than someone just gaining weight for the first time. And that's because, just like muscle has memory, fat cells have memory. So, you have this expansion that happens more easily. So that's a real thing, that whether you lose weight on a drug, or you lose weight just with diet and exercise the propensity to regain that weight is very real, because the body remembers that this was a weight before. So it's not fair, you have to change the body's set point, it becomes about changing how the brain affects weight over just what we eat, and that's kind of a whole different discussion.
Which is crazy too, because the brain and the gut are so well connected.
A hundred percent.
And that would make... It would probably cause feelings of depression or sadness.
It may cause some people to have suicidal thoughts and tendencies or to become more depressed. And again, that's linked to the gut. And the gut is referred to as the second brain. I would say that many would argue it's It's the first brain and that if you're changing your gastric emptying and it's being done because brain receptors are being affected to make that happen, then you've got both of those involved, brain and gut.
And that is my concern is that the power that the gut holds for our brain in our neurotransmitters, serotonin development, everything that tells us we're okay and healthy in our immune system, having these same receptors, you're talking about affecting that in a way that honestly has never been done before.
Could it turn out to be the greatest thing ever? Maybe, but I'm afraid that we're probably gonna find that the gut is more connected to the brain than we realized and unfortunately, it may come through long term side effects.
Well, yeah, and I mean, honestly, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Yeah, sadly enough.
I know we tried to find some kind of benefit.
This is my heart, is to not come across like, well, this thing is bad, everything about it is bad, and nobody needs to do it ever. I think you would have to be very careful saying that. But, you need to know that if you have a thyroid problem already, In my opinion, increasing the chance of thyroid cancer with this medication, it's probably not a good idea.
You need to weigh that out really good. The other issue is if you already have constipation, which is very common with people who have thyroid problems. or diarrhea, like IBS type symptoms, this is probably not going to be a good fit because you're altering gut health that's already compromised. I really want to love how this works because I think the premise is there that if we can slow down appetite and have really what leptin would be doing, which is controlling hunger and appetite and ghrelin, those hormones.
If you can eat in such a way, and that's a true thing, you can use food as a medicine to retrain receptors, just like this drug is doing. You have to be willing to do that, and put the time in, and sometimes even add in supplements to help with insulin regulation. There are tons of GLP 1 receptor abilities in plants, it's amazing. I mean, this, the body's...
Yeah, amino acids?
Amino acid therapy.
And it's safe and it's actually creating a healthier you. The side effects are nothing like this.
Yeah, and that's where even the worst of them are nothing. And there's actually a couple that I want to mention at the end here that are alternatives to this. Because I think if we're going to paint a picture about something that seems very lopsided on the negative side, I wish it wasn't. But my job is to be honest and say, All we can do is present that these are some benefits, these are the risk, and then you're allowed to make that decision with your provider, but I feel like everyone needs to have that information available.
Plants have over 200,000 secondary metabolites, or chemicals, that are in plants, that have therapeutic benefits. And 50 percent of our drugs or medications are derived from copied plant compounds, which is phenomenal. So if you look up even on Google and you say natural GLP 1 receptor plants, you can find tons of things.
I mean, in nature, this is being done. One of the things is... Berberine, which is a plant that actually can be used just like metformin in blood sugar regulation. So in blood glucose regulation. And for me, I think it would be good to know that you had truly exhausted all of your resources before you even considered a medication that at this point has more risk than benefit.
If you can do berberin like that and you put that in your daily protocol, it is phenomenal at balancing blood sugar to the point that if you're on metformin for insulin resistance and you try to use those, you have to be careful because it can balance blood sugar that well. So it can actually be a stand in even for people who are trying to balance like true blood sugar issues from being prediabetic. It's a phenomenal plant.
There are some side effects that can happen with that. One particularly is a little bit of gas and bloating, but as we've heard, that is probably not going to be avoided at all if we have some gastro emptying delayed there.
Honestly, I feel like if you would use one of the GLP, and if that one's not a good fit for you, there's tons of other ones.
Alpha lipoic acid can be a great glucose metabolizer. It can help you with blood sugar regulation. And I use that often in practice just to help with insulin regulation. And it works really well. And often that is deficient in people who are diabetics or pre diabetics. So it's an amazing thing to bring in.
The GLP 1 agonist herbs are Panax ginseng, is another one that can be used. Very effective for blood sugar regulation. And if you couple that with a healthy version of the ketogenic diet.
Okay, and short term.
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, and ketogenic. You're talking about like plant forward, like a lot of vegetables.
Yeah, the real...
Not just meat and cheese.
The real keto, not the Atkins diet. Ketogenically, it's supposed to be lots of green leafy vegetables, salads, a moderate amount of fat and a moderate amount of protein. But those are coming from good sources. And incorporate fasting with that. It's such a phenomenal tool.
When you talk about being able to balance blood sugar and reverse insulin resistance, you can't get away from adding fasting in. So, not only what you're eating, but how often you're eating. That's going to affect your body's ability to do this, what this drug is doing, on your own. So, fasting incorporated in a healthy lifestyle with a ketogenic, a true ketogenic healthy diet, and one of these herbs that are GLP 1 agonist, panax ginseng or berberine.
So you can use those, ketogenic diet, and then also fasting, which can be done primarily at night. You can get in a lot of those fasting hours.
Oh, absolutely.
You're not just starving all day, so don't look at it like that.
No, and actually, three days of fasting, you can actually trigger those hormones like leptin to actually be more sensitive. So what people find is that once they incorporate maybe a 14 to 16 hour fast, so just eating dinner at 6 o'clock and eating breakfast again at 10 the next day, that doesn't seem like a long period of time. A lot of people are probably doing that already, but if you strategically plan that, with the meals you eat than actually being ketogenic in the healthy form, and I say that term loosely because it's very much not, not done properly a lot of times. Then you literally can do the same thing that this is going to do as far as the medication in your body. It's going to take some work, but I would exhaust that and see if it would work, and honestly...
So try this before you get on a drug?
Yeah. Give yourself three months, say be completely committed.
Or three to six months. I mean, I feel like if your body has all the tools needed, it's just gonna take a little bit more time and you're gonna come out still feeling good, still being able to eat, not being nauseous all the time, and also saving twelve to fifteen hundred bucks a month.
Uh, yeah, that's the other big downside on this, is the cost. I mean, and I think a lot of concern that's, it's very valid, is that, is this a drug that you're expected to be on your whole entire life? And what we're finding is that when you come off of it, The studies are showing that there is some weight to be regained.
We don't know how much because again, we're not in a longterm stretch of it, but that's a valid concern. So are you going to stay on that forever to maintain the success that you've had? Is that why it's going to be a billions upon billions of dollar industry is because you are kind of dependent on it where with this kind of plan, you have nothing to lose.
There's no way that if you do a proper fasting regimen and you're on a healthy ketogenic diet and even adding in one of these plants that have the ability to have anti diabetic properties that you're not going to see some results. But if it was truly slow it's like you said i mean it may take a little while but how long did it take to get where someone might be? If you have had obesity that didn't happen overnight most likely it's been a gradual insulin resistance that's been building but there are over 400 phytonutrients in plants that have anti diabetic properties.
So you have a pretty good list that you could exhaust before you went to the side effects that are so drastic. The sustainability of this to me is not there. If you use it as a tool, yeah, maybe it's a jumpstart. And everybody can use a jumpstart sometimes, but you have to say what's the cost of that jumpstart.
And I guess just truly ask yourself, have you really committed to do all of these things and have you ever added some of these, even plant compounds, if it didn't work to just do the diet? Because if insulin resistance is there, it is very difficult to reverse that if you're not pretty extreme with your approach.
Well, yeah. And adding all these things and trying it for three to six months. That will create independence and health is independence. You don't want to be dependent on anything to be healthy and to thrive, so think about that.
There's also one more option to consider, which I feel like would possibly be more valuable than anything to give you an idea of what your blood sugar levels are actually doing to measure your glucose, which is to get a continuous glucose monitor and actually look to see what your glucose is doing when you eat a certain meal. And you'll be able to gauge how that meal affects you and before long, within a couple weeks, you've got a really good idea as to how protein affects you, how much protein you need in order for that blood sugar to be regulated. And to me, that's a great way to really put eyes on what you're eating and how it affects you personally, and how you can start to adjust that.
And it would give you an overall idea of your actual health, not just concerning your weight, but also you in general, it would help you get a better grasp. And also seeing it, having it tangible right there, being able to have that control yourself independently would be very empowering.
It is and I have a lot of clients, we do food journaling when they're diabetics and pre diabetics and every time they come in and they're like, I couldn't believe when I checked my blood sugar after eating this meal, how much higher it was. Or how excited they are to say, I got up this morning and my blood sugar was 87 and this is the meal that I ate that made that happen.
And you gain such confidence realizing that you can actually control something that may seem uncontrollable, but it takes that consistency. And it's like anything, whether it's gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, a GLP 1 medication, if you don't change how you are eating in order to maintain that, then none of those tools are going to work long term.
And I think that's where I would be more apt to say. You know, look at a continuous glucose monitor, start gauging what's happening to your body when you eat certain things. And it may be a healthy carb, but in the time of healing, you may not be able to handle that carb intake at that time. Because the idea is that you have to tap into the metabolic switch of burning fat for fuel in order to ever lose the weight.
So when you're watching your blood sugar that, and it's continuous, you're like, oh my goodness. Now I'm actually in fat burning mode and that's exciting because you realize that it can still happen even if you are discouraged and you've struggled with your weight and you've done everything. Then you realize that this is an insulin issue and I think we come a lot of times offering people medication from the standpoint that we think every person that's overweight over eats and that's not true.
No.
People are not gluttons just because they have a weight problem. And I think some of the people I know that struggle with being overweight eat less food than someone who's thin. It's an insulin problem and that's why these medications could be exciting if we had better long term studies, is that it's an insulin regulator.
That's what the problem is, but you can do that in so many ways on your own if you're willing to do it. And we know that because... We can reverse top two diabetes and that's full blown metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance can be reversed with good diet, even incorporating fasting and sometimes using plant compounds to be able to be really strategic in that. Which is empowering to know that maybe right now you feel like you don't have any control and that you are exercising and you are eating right, and it's just plain not working.
And that's a big part of the clients I see, is trying to figure out, why is this not working? Because you're doing hard work. The hardest working clients I have are the ones who are trying to lose weight, and it's so frustrating for them to not be able to have results.
This is an insulin problem, so how can we help with the insulin levels? And if we can do that, then you're on your way to being able to reverse obesity.