Ozempic and GLP1s: Weight loss drugs, or future catastrophe?
There’s been a disturbance in the force. A drug that has been used for many years and reserved for those unfortunate folk with Diabetes has become available on the market and it comes with truly astounding promises.
I’m going to preface this by saying, the state of pharmaceutical industries around the world should absolutely leave you sceptical and you should fundamentally do your own research and talk to as many unbias people as possible when it comes to new medications that have wild claims.
That being said, I spent a lot of time over the past two weeks thinking more about whether this category of drugs, GLP 1s as they’re loosely referred to, are a force for good or evil.
So lets start with what they are
GLP-1, or glucagon-like peptide-1, is a hormone naturally produced in your gut. When you eat, GLP-1 is released to help manage blood sugar levels. It does this in a few ways:
It stimulates the release of insulin, a hormone that helps lower blood sugar.
It slows down the rate at which your stomach empties, keeping you feeling full longer.
It reduces the amount of sugar released by your liver.
By doing these things, GLP-1 helps keep your blood sugar levels steady, which is crucial for people with diabetes. But how does it help in people who don’t have diabetes?
Fundamentally, what GLP-1 is sends a signal to your body to stop eating.
GLP-1 secreted by the gut lasts for a small amount of time. The medications allow a mimicked version of GLP-1 to sit in the body for up to a week, thus surpressing your appetite for intake of food.
So this is good right?
In some ways yes.
If someone’s confidence is rock bottom, their BMI is sky rocketing and ultimately they’re in a downward spiral where obesity is going to be the most harmful outcome, side effect or no side effects, then this drug is almost a no brainer. It claims to help someone lose 20% of their bodyweight. That’s an immense amount of weight that would certainly take some time for that person to do, but also willpower.
Willpower is the key word here. To be overweight to the point where there’s a negative social impact, causes trauma to the psyche that ultimately leads to someone being unable to perform what might seem like to everyone else, basic everyday actions.
People would expect me as a trainer to be very anti this medication, but ultimately I’m pro health and if the risk of someone never changing their ways and ultimately dying early or succumbing to a variety of diseases is outweighed by a little pill, then fine, let them take the pill and start a journey towards better health.
This is a pretty brief wrap up of my thoughts as I’m keen not to create an entire podcast episode and drop it down into one blog post.
The research ultimately shows that if you’re obese or morbidly obese, the pros of getting out of obesity will likely outweigh the side effects that the pill will produce.
So now for the negatives.
My biggest concern here isn’t actually for the people who need to take this pill. It’s for the people who ultimately have body dysmorphia, both male and female, and believe that they’re overweight.
This gives people a legitimate easy way to starve themselves, people who don’t need the pill to begin with and will suffer all the side effects (Which I’ll list in brief at the bottom).
My secondary concern is that this is ultimately a solution to an artificial problem created by humans with hyper palatable food. Theres suggestions to say that modern day processed food has ultimately found a way to forgo the GLP-1 signals to bypass the body’s natural way of saying stop eating. Tie this in with more anxiety, depression, and disorders that cause people to turn to the dopamine hit or the coping mechanism that hyper palatable food supplies, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Chris Williamson stated this as the scales were out of balance, and instead of removing the issue that causes the scales to be out of balance, we instead are adding weight to the other side. Ultimately this adds more tension to the system.
As a fitness professional this is incredibly scary as you don’t need to be a rocket science to know that adding more substances to the system in order to balance out the symptons, does not ultimately fix the cause of the issue itself.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this is ultimately a brief overview of my thoughts, I’ll leave the side effects below but I recommend reading up heavily on this before you make any decision for you or your loved ones, and aim to read from non bias sources, ie, those who aren’t going to make money if you decide to go down the GLP-1 mimicker routes.
Known side effects - Kind of disturbing if you ask me!
Nausea and vomiting: These side effects are often reported early on in treatment and tend to be transient, rarely leading to discontinuation of therapy.
Gastrointestinal (GI) upset: GLP-1 receptor agonists can cause GI symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nausea.
Weight loss: Some GLP-1 receptor agonists can cause weight loss, which is often a desired effect in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Injection site reactions: Some patients may experience injection site reactions, such as redness, swelling, or itching.
Headache: Headaches are a common side effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists.
Nasopharyngitis: Some patients may experience nasopharyngitis, or inflammation of the nasal passages and throat.
Pancreatitis: A rare but serious side effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists is pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas.
Thyroid cancer: There is a potential risk of thyroid cancer associated with the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists, although this risk has not been seen in human clinical trials.
Gastroparesis: GLP-1 receptor agonists may worsen symptoms of gastroparesis, a condition where the stomach does not move food around as well and does not fully empty.
Gastroesophageal reflux (GERD): GLP-1 receptor agonists may worsen symptoms of GERD, or acid reflux and heartburn.
Central nervous system effects: Rarely, GLP-1 receptor agonists may cause central nervous system effects such as dizziness, fatigue, or depression.
Allergic reactions: Rarely, patients may experience allergic reactions to GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as angioedema or anaphylaxis.
Renal effects: GLP-1 receptor agonists may cause changes in kidney function, including increased creatinine levels.
Blood effects: GLP-1 receptor agonists may cause changes in blood chemistry, including increased levels of lipase, amylase, and liver enzymes.
Malignancy: There is a potential risk of cancer associated with the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists, although this risk has not been seen in human clinical trials.