Modern longevity is crowded with promises, but the useful conversations stay close to biology. This discussion on GLP-1 medicines and metabolic health points to a steadier truth: healthspan is shaped by the signals we repeat, the capacity we preserve, and the recovery we protect.
Full transcript with timestamped links back to the original YouTube conversation.
how did obesity triple in the last 60 years I can guarantee you it's not an OIC deficiency so what is a solution 93% of Americans have some type of metabolic dysfunction meaning they're on the Spectrum somewhere from pre-diabetes to type two diabetes or even a little bit of pre - pre-diabetes six and 10 Americans have a chronic disease four and 10 have more than one over a billion people worldwide are considered obese and two billion are overweight type two diabetes cancer and heart disease are arising and few people know how to handle this and people are desperate for Solutions so what is a solution to this obesity crisis is it bariatric surgery should we do gastric bypass on everybody and we're doing this now on teenagers is it the new crazy explosion of the weight loss drugs like OIC The gp1 Agonist or is it maybe instead getting to the root cause so let's get into it OIC or semaglutide is something called a glp1 Agonist finds to a particular receptor G1 receptor and it does a lot of things we're going to get into what it does and it was originally formulated by pharmaceutical companies as a way to treat and manage type two diabetes and lately it's been in the news in the media and medicine for being this anti-obesity miracle drug for weight loss now there's a high demand for this drug U there's a lack of incurrence coverage as I mentioned there's Nationwide shortages and it's hard to get for those who need it the most we know it works for type two diabetes but uh it's also being looked at as a treatment for reducing cardiovascular risk a cancer risk Alzheimer's and even as a treatment for longevity now novonordisk uh approved another version of the drug called wovi uh which is the weight loss version and it's even approved it for obese teenagers now that is concerning to me and and some are now proposing it be used in children as young as SI six years old and there are studies for this I mean this is just staggering to me that we're thinking of using a lifelong drug with serious side effects on kids as young as 6 years old instead of a dream addressing the causes
instead of a dream addressing the causes was which is our toxic food system now the research on improving cardiovascular risk factors with OIC is strong but it's not straightforward M maybe it's because of the weight loss not necessarily the drug uh and many believe that you know that Improvement could be just from the weight loss and so I want reminds me of a study that was done on around bariatric surgery where they basically took very obese patients half of them got bariatric surgery half of them didn't they both both groups had diabetes and severe metabolic dysfunction the group that had bar surgery had the bariatric surgery diet and then the control group got the same diet as the people who had surgery but without the surgery and you know what there was no difference in the outcome so was it the surgery that worked or the diet that worked well it's pretty obvious from my point of view these drugs have become a craze and there is a lot of money flowing into research unfortunately most of it's funded by the industry and by Pharma but we're going to get some more answers but what we're seeing now is an increase of very serious side effects for people who have been on it a longterm there's also common short-term side effects but there's common side effects that that affect the gastrointestinal system it basically makes you nauseous moment and have diarrhea and that happens in 50% of people who take it but there's more more very serious side effects that I'm concerned about including gastroparesis which is paralysis of the stomach meaning you can't move food through your stomach and that creates a huge problem bow obstruction which you often requires Sur Y and uh pancreatitis even death and we're going to talk about all these side effects in a little more detail in a minute now this really makes me question the the long-term uh use of these and the widespread use of these and we're going to go deep into the side effects but the real question is this uh you know that no one asks is how did obesity triple in the last 60 years from about 133% of the population to 43% of the population I can guarantee you it's not anosmic
can guarantee you it's not anosmic deficiency functional medicine provides a better framework for understanding root causes particularly around obesity metabolic dysfunction and type two diabetes and provides a way more sustainable and affordable treatment that works I've seen this over and over again we're going to talk about that in a minute so let's get deeper into what's going on here in America why is this drug important and why are we seeing such increased use of it well we have a problem there's no denying that you know as I said 93% of Americans have some type of metabolic dysfunction because of poor diet and lifestyle uh that means only 6. 8% of Americans are metabolically healthy meaning they're not somewhere on the Continuum of uh type two diabetes meaning they don't have high blood pressure high cholesterol high blood sugar or overweight or had a heart attack or stroke so only 6. 8% of the population meet that criteria the rest of us are metabolically unhealthy and somewhere in that Continuum six and 10 have a chronic disease four and 10 have two um there's over 400 million people around the world who are diabet itic 90% obviously are type two diabetes or more uh 40 million Americans or one out of every 10 Americans has type two diabetes which is uh terrifying to me uh as I mentioned over a billion people worldwide are obese and over two billion are overweight uh 43% of us adults are obese 75% are overweight 40% of kids are overweight it's is really a problem we saw increase in obesity during covid because of the stresses and the challenges people face um and you know we're seeing now W GOI or semaglutide another version of OIC is now approved for 12 to 19yearold obese teens now one in four teenage males has either pre-diabetes or type two diabetes that's frightening to me 25% and the the Obesity rates are staggering you know teenage obesity is at over 22% um from between 12 and 19 year olds and as I mentioned 40% of kids are overweight this is not a problem that's because of gen genetics it's a problem because of
gen genetics it's a problem because of our toxic food environment and the Cure isn't a drug especially a drug that has serious side effects and needs to be taken for a long time or lifelong now this is a great business model for Pharma you have a very expensive drug that need be taken forever it's a gold mine and it greates customers for life but teens have a problem they're targeted by the food industry they have all sorts of issues around Eating Disorders um there's lots of unlawful advertising and targeting of kids videos going viral on Tik Tok uh and it's really concerning to me I think people don't realize that there's literally 10 billion dollars or more spent just directly targeting junk food and process food ads to children and now there's currently trials going on in kids as young as six years old for the goino zic I mean six years old I what are we talking about here this is nuts um and it's not addressing the root cause it's not addressing our food system it's not addressing our toxic nutritional landscape it's not addressing the fact that Ultra processed foods make up 60% of our diet and 67% of kids diet that altrus processed foods account for about 90% of the added sugar in our diet which is about 150 pounds of sugar per person per year about 34 teaspoons a day for kids and 22 for adults that's nuts it used to be you know maybe 22 teaspoons a year when we were hunter gatherers this is causing all sorts of metabolic dysfunction uh and this metabolic dysfunction is is not just about weight it's obviously about obesity but it's also about typee two diabetes Alzheimer's dementia fatty liver disease chronic kidney disease and premature death now this is a huge problem chronic disease is bankrupting our system and our nation there's four now $ 4. 3 trillion dollar spent on chronic disease and Healthcare in this country in 2000 it was 1. 6 trillion and that's only 23 years ago so we are in a crisis of of accelerating disease accelerating costs and it it's not solved by a new drug that is serious side effects and it and may actually
side effects and it and may actually cause um a bankruptcy of our nation if we follow through on this uh you know if you look at the uh cost here diabetes alone is 413 billion in 2022 uh OIC is exploding in in its revenue and you know one study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that if just obese Medicare patients were prescribed toic the cost annually to the government would be $ 267 billion a year now to put that in perspective the entire Medicare Part D which is the drug benefit program is 145 billion so it's another 100 plus billion dollar a year over what we're spending for the entire drug benefit for all drugs for all seniors this is an insane amount of money so if if we were to do that it'll bankrupt our country if if and if all the overweight people and obese people in America took OIC or a similar drug it probably will cost over $ 5 trillion which is more than our entire Healthcare expenditures now let's talk about about the risks because I think this is where it gets sticky uh everybody's looking for the miracle cure the miracle shot instant weight loss and it it can work I'm not saying it doesn't work I'm just saying that it's not a free ride um now part of the problem is that many drugs don't don't uh have long enough studies when they're initially approved and the longest study is about 68 weeks in these drugs now often these side effects don't occur till more chronic use of two years or longer and there's some of that data coming out now which is called postmarket uh surveillance meaning after the drug comes out let's look at what's happening and and it's a bit concerning now we're seeing a lot of side effects not just the nausea vomiting diarrhea that's in 50% of users but we're seeing uh side effects that are are life-threatening things like gastroparesis or paralysis of the stomach B obstruction uh and pancreatitis and deaths Rising now now to put things in perspective as I share some of the statistics around the
share some of the statistics around the findings of people who've been on this drug longer and what it's doing to them um in medicine when we see a 20 to 30% increase in a response to a drug or a side effect it's considered highly significant for example statins which are a blockbuster drug to reduce heart attacks they only reduce the risk of heart attacks by 20 to 30% and that's a blockbuster truck now listen carefully as I explain this next study in a study of over 4, 000 patients published in jamama um five out of every thousand patients had stomach paralysis which was an increased risk of not 20% or 30% 367 per. the risk of pancreatitis which is an incredibly dangerous illness which causes your pancreas to be inflamed and leads to type 1 diabetes Mal digestion and really very serious problems uh went up by 900% and ball obstruction which is very serious and often requires surgery went up by 422 per. not 20 or 30% so this is not insignificant it's not an artifact uh and in fact when you see these kinds of studies these uh these data you you have to pay attention you know this is the kind of almost the risk we see with with smoking and cancer these are really concerning concerning numbers for me and they're not trivial and they can cause permanent damage and require surgery the other thing that people don't realize is when you lose weight 40% of the weight lost with OIC or these drugs is muscle and muscle is where your metabolism is when you lose muscle you lose your metabolism it slows down and you end up needing less food to maintain your weight at even when you gain the weight back the other problem is that 65% of the weight that you lose is regained when people stop the medications so I think it's really quite concerning how we get off the drug what happens what what happens with these drugs with kids we don't know
with these drugs with kids we don't know how does it affect development how does it affect puberty menstration it's it's a lot of open questions now I want to kind of get into this whole issue of obesity being a disease or uh being genetic I I think there's a lot of conversation out there that's a little bit disturbing to me uh and and I just think you know just you know if when I was born uh 5% of the population was obese and now it's 43% did we somehow magically have a genetic mutation in the global population or in America to account for this no this is an environmental problem same thing with the Puma Indians you know 100 years ago they were thin fit healthy they had no obesity no diabetes they ate their traditional diet they lived in Arizona now they're the second most obese population in the world and 80% get diabetes by the time they're 30 and their life expectancy is 46 and kids as young as two years old get type two diabetes because they're genetically predisposed they're not predestined and when they're in the wrong food environment which they are which is the white poisons white flour white sugar and white fat otherwise known as Crisco or shortening which was their government commodity Surplus Foods they were given even a word for it they call commod bod you know when you eat the commodity food you get big and and diabetic now this is not a genetic problem and what's disturbing is that uh Dr Fatima Sanford who's an obesity medicine doctor at Harvard and massachusett general who was also on the dietary guidelines Committee in 2025 very disturbing to me you said you know obesity is genetics he said it on 16 minutes uh now it's true that if your parents are overweight you're more likely uper weight but this is epigenetics not not necessarily genetics this is means it's changeable uh now where are all the obese people 60 year 100 years ago is this whole nonsense it's our toxic food environment it's impacting our gene expression and our predispositions now the idea that it's genetic is very disempowering it removes our autonomy our agency it essentially says this is a disease that must be
says this is a disease that must be treated with medication there's nothing you can do about it it's just genetic so it's it's hard now the costs of this are staggering as I mentioned for the drug it's over $ 1, 000 a month $ 1700 a month you know depend on where you get it but it's a lot of money and you're supposed to take it for life and really it's hard to come off of uh it's going to be completely bankrupting our our nation if we continue to to do this um and there's again as I mentioned Nationwide shortages for people who have diabetes because everybody who wants to lose five or 10 pounds or 20 pounds is taking this drug and getting it from their doctor because any doctor can prescribe a drug for any reason once it's been approved by the FDA it's called off Lael use and this whole pill for every ill Quick Fix is is really not the solution here we not we have not been addressing the root causes uh the other thing I want to address here is this whole body positive movement and healthy at any size you now I think what's happening is that you know there's there's a confusion about this that we we do not want to blame the person who's got this problem for the problem if you're overweight it's not your fault you're living in a toxic environment if you take somebody and you put them in an environment where all you can get is ultra processed food and and sugar and starch and you're told by the government to eat six to 11 servings of bread Rice Serum pasta a day it's no wonder that we have become obese it's not your fault and by the way I'm getting to this minute but there's a lot of data on the addiction properties of these Foods so what's happening is that it you know it's is this whole movement that doctors aren't talking to their patients about obesity they can't say the word it's considered fat shaming if a doct are diagnosed someone who medically obese or overweight um people don't want to be weighed in the doctor's office they don't want to talk about diet and lifestyle I feel like it's shaming or somehow belittling I think this is a problem and I think
think this is a problem and I think there a lot of celebrity kind of endorsements and news media magazines normalizing obesity as healthy but it's just not it's just just no data that it's healthy I think the only I think data was you know you look at people who are older uh sometimes the data on on when you're older shows that you die if you're thin but that's because you have cancer or some kidney disease or something else it's wasting your body away it's not because being thin is is a risk factor for disease it's it's the diseases uh and unfortunately a lot of people are getting cancelled for talking about this I saw uh a report about an email that went out to all the students at Columbia University talking about this in medical school saying know you can't talk about this it's fat shaming and it sort of made it not okay to talk about imagine him saying well we can't talk about diabetes because you know that is a disease that you know they don't have any control over and uh it's it's fine and diabetes healthy in any way it's just it's kind of nuts now I've been practicing this medicine for decades and I've been doing deep Dives on their people's biology with all these problems and I see real issues when people have metabolic issues now um this this whole being overweight thing being normalized is not scientifically scientifically true uh it's uh I understand the goal right which is not to victimize or blame the person who's our weight but the truth is it's our toxic food environment and it's the addictive Ultra processed foods that are driving the Obesity epidemic not our genes now there was a review of 281 studies in 36 countries and it found that 14% of adults and 12% of kids meet the scientific definition for food addiction and I put that in perspective the prevalence of alcohol addiction in the population is 14% now 12% of kids are food addicts based on strict criteria and scientifically validated metrics this is not uh an accident by the way the reason for this is that food companies have designed these Foods to be hyper palatable and Hyper addictive
be hyper palatable and Hyper addictive and stimulate dopamine they even do such things as put children in an MRI machine so they can see on a functional MRI which part of their brain lights up when it's triggered by different images of different junk Foods so it's not trivial it's not an accident and it's not your fault uh so if you struggle with weight in issues it's it's really a complex issue that your metabolism your hormones your neurochemistry has all been hijacked by the food industry and so is our kitchens and our restaurants and our grocery stores and where just unable to often find their way through now uh there's certain concerns about OIC 2 because people are using counterfeit OIC uh they can get it online they can buy it from different places and people can get very sick from it so I think i' would watch out for that now um you know there's there's a large part of the way traditional medicine is that misses the mark no pun in um because it doesn't address root causes and functional medicine is about root causes it treats symptoms not mechanisms it treats symptoms not causes so and it doesn't focus on prevention or lifestyle there's no early intervention for pre-diabetes or weight gain there's no lifestyle or exercise prescriptions that really are integrated into our Healthcare System there's no payment system for it I say you know if you people and doctors got paid to do this it would work right I I remember being uh working on health policy in 2008 and uh was met with the secretary Health Human Services and we proposed a lifestyle change program where we would basically guarantee that people would become healthier and reduce health care costs and if they didn't we would pay back the money that Medicare paid us and uh or paid the doctor and she said well this is great but who's GNA learn how to do it well I said if you pay for it it's like if you pay for angop plases people will figure out how to do it there was nobody who said oh well how do we reimburse angop plases no doctors know how to do it because it's a brand new procedure well guess what as soon as they pay for it people figure out how to do programs at work and we we often
do programs at work and we we often don't we don't do things until it's too late we wait and see I had a patient who had blood sugar 110 and I said did you see your doctor about this and she said well yeah but I they said we'll come back later when I get uh higher in my blood sugar and then we can treat it with diabetes drugs rather than dealing with the the fact that he was already on his way so rather than dealing with the root causes which is our food system you know we're trying to get a quick fix with these GP agonists like gmic which do help suppress appetite which do reduce calorie intake um but you know it really important to deal with the the causes not just the the U the problem that is uh quickly fixed by a drug because there's downsides to it and the real issue is our excess intake of refined starches and carbohydrates and sugar Ultra processed foods and a lack of ability or access to follow a really whole food nutrient-dense diet that's full of satisfying Foods uh lots of fiber fruits and vegetables protein good fats and you know the fact that we you know don't live in active Lifestyle the fact that we don't use our bodies the fact we're under muscle and our metabolism is slower all these things Drive obesity I think um you know one study by Kevin Hall at the NIH showed that people who are freely allowed to eat as much food as they want whether it's Ultra processed food or whole food they ate 500 calories more of the ultra processed food because there was no rate limiting thing in the brain or the body it was like the body didn't recognize it as something that was food and so it just kept getting more and more hungry in order to satisfy some nutrient needs but it was like like looking for the love in all the wrong places so it's important that that we uh also focus on nutrition quality uh and our diet quality you know people are eating all this Ultra processed food uh but they you know they may be eating same stuff but just less of it because they are nauseous but you know the if if you focus on a lower calorie intake which is
focus on a lower calorie intake which is what happen with zoic without focusing quality you're going to become Nutri nutritionally deficient you're going to get worse metabolic dysfunction you're GNA have copper selenium mineral deficiency zinc deficiencies you're not going to get protein potentially have muscle loss which definitely happens and you know when you look at these studies they don't look at body composition they look at weight now weight is is not exactly the most effective way to look at your metabolic Health it's really looking at how much muscle you have how much fat you have where it is is it in your belly is in your arms or legs and and the percentage and so body composition is something that's critically important to do and yet most of the studies don't look at it because they don't want to see it this drug companies don't want you to tell you so they just measure weight loss they don't measure the percent fast fat loss versus the percent muscle loss they don't look at the ratio of body fat percent of body fat Le you know they don't see how all this works so if you lose lean muscle it's serious if you lose lean muscle that's what your metabolism is that's what your energy factories is that's where your glucose snc is so basically what happens is if you especially in the elderly if you lose more muscle you're you're going to become more frail and weak but even if you don't when you lose the weight to lose 40% as muscle which you do with uh these drugs then let's say you gain the weight back after you stop you may be the same weight as when you started but your metabolism will be slower because usually you gain all the weight back as fat so you don't gain back the muscle so you're basically up worse off and needing to eat less and having a slower metabolism after the fact so it's really quite concerning um also you know we we don't really focus on the right strategies around weight loss that we could help people reduce starch and sugar we could help them get off Ultra processed foods we can increase protein we can increase good fats we can increase fiber we can increase activity we can do this in ways that work that are effective for Behavior change because that's the other issue and that involves group models and things like I've done with the church uh at Daniel
I've done with the church uh at Daniel Plan in in Saddleback Church and at Cleveland Clinic where we have group model therapy for and treatment for chronic disease and it works incredibly well it works three times better than regular interventions um now part of the thing I want to emphasize too is that it's not a free ride once you get on these drugs um you end up getting the weight back uh in in this one study called the step one trial semaglutide treatment effect in people with obesity it was a randomized control trial where they found that uh two-thirds of people regain the weight they lost two years after discontinuing the drug uh and also the any benefits their cardiovascular biomarkers like cholesterol also went back to where they were um the other thing is that these drugs cause per can cause permanent damage as I mentioned B obstruction gastro pris pancreatitis could change your taste for food loss of appetite um now the side effects are not trivial they occur in half of all the people in these studies and severe side effects occur in 10% so one out of every 10 people has a severe side effect from these drugs there's reports of stomach pumping being needed because of B obstruction even death um and it you know taking this drug that costs a lot of money even if it was lower price for the rest of your life with all these consequences I think is highly concerning and the longer you take it the more concerning it is because one of the things it does it affects the GI tract and that's why you have these symptoms of nausea vomiting diarrhea what it does is thickens the bow wall so it makes the bow wall thicker and that ends up leading to Bow obstruction this may be a permanent thing we're still not sure and we're still not um clear on what's going on in the long term with these drugs because they haven't been studied long enough uh there was a good study that came out in the Orland Journal an article I read years ago it said you know be sure to use new drugs as soon as they come out before the side effects develop you know so I think that's true in this case uh now now these drugs do work right people lose 10 to 20% of their body weight uh
lose 10 to 20% of their body weight uh and and it's not insignificant uh so it can be a helpful drug in certain patients I don't think categorically like nobody should take it ever I'm not against it but it has to be for the right reason uh and I've only prescribed it once in someone who was an older patient with severe obesity who had a uh neurog denal disease and we need to get his met metabolic Health dramatically improved and he was almost diabetic so I think he was one of the few people I use it for and I would not use it long term and I make sure he's having high amounts of protein and doing resistance training at the same time so we we see big weight loss but um you know we uh you know we see also improvements in cholesterol and anyone C and triglycerides and liver function um and all those are good things but it's not that it's I don't think it's the OIC it's just the weight loss like I said with the bariatric surgery example I have all the same results even better by the way uh you know we see for example a reduction in A1C the the measurement of your average blood sugar which is imp important and we see this with OIC but it's like you know one point you know I did a DI dietary intervention with a patient at Cleveland Clinic and hers went from 11 to five and a half which is almost a six point reduction this is an algorithmic scale so it's it's I mean sorry a logarithmic scale so it's really significant amount it's not just a trivial amount and so diet and less I work far better than these drugs now um it does help with improving in intivity and in improves a lot of these things but you you'll see basically you know only a you know 1. 3% 1. 6% reduction in in the A1C it's not that dramatic and you know it's really important to realize we have a chance to to do something quite quite different uh by having a more focused targeted Intervention which I'll talk talk about in a minute um now the cardiovascular
in a minute um now the cardiovascular benefits are being touted uh in addition to weight loss but there was a large double line randomized weo control trial that looked at you know the risk of heart attack strokes and so forth and they found it was a reduction by about 20% over 33 months versus placebo and that's good um but you know maybe there's cardiovascular benefit but I don't think it's it's independent of the weight loss uh in other words if you had people at their weight and you gave them this drug I don't think you see the same benefit so I don't think it's a drug per se and the g GI side effects as I mentioned were really concerning and I think we need to take those very seriously the other thing you have to recognize when these drugs are being looked at from the research a the study show benefits they all look like it's a golden drug but they're all paid for by Novo Nordisk they're all paid for by basically by the company that makes the drug so if you're Coca-Cola and you're studying soda you're going to find that it's not harmful you're studying these drugs you're going to introduce bias um which is is uh really a problem and it's the study design it's the write up of the study it's what's excluded what's included uh and those things all can be kind of manipulated in in way that actually makes the drug look better and this is happens over and over in medicine this is not a new problem uh and we know that drugs that are funded uh studies that are funded by the pharmaceutical manufacturer often you know done with contract research organizations or with large conflicts of interest so I think we have to be really kind of skeptical in some ways also of these studies and the thing also I'm concerned about is that just the long-term studies on these just have not been done and then the more this drugs are out there the more they're being used the more we see these dangerous side effects come up so what is the right approach if if it's not OIC or maybe if it's OIC in certain Le patients or rovi or Muro again I'm not opposed to these categorically and they can be helpful I think we need to kind of sift out the the risk versus the benefits and
out the the risk versus the benefits and look at actually dealing with theot cause rather than just trying to put a Band-Aid on this which is a very very expensive Band-Aid with very very serious side effects uh now what what we do in functional medicine is quite different is we look at the root cause of obesity and type two diabetes the problem really is the flood of incredibly toxic food-like substances in our into our food supply that are everywhere ubiquitous and are marketed to us aggressively and that are on every corner in every grocery store in every restaurant it's it's a problem and these Foods these Ultra processed foods these high star sugar foods are driving massive metabolic dysfunction as I said at the beginning of the show including you know 93% of us being metabolically unhealthy they're driving High hyper insulin levels uh they're increasing our blood sugar lipids fatty liver triglycerides low htl and all these convenience foods are not so convenient when it get makes you sick right we have high amounts of refined sugar in our diet a lots of added sugar lots of soda soda sugary drinks all sweetened with high fructose corn syrup which is a whole another podcast on its own so what is the solution we have to really remove these Ultra processed foods from our diet 100% there's really no room for them at all you can eat Whole Foods it doesn't mean you can't have foods that are delicious or fun or have some comfort Foods if you want to have pasta occasionally that is a minimally processed food if you want to have uh occasional whole grain breads that's fine it's really about these weird foods that come from factories that are deconstructed from the original Source soy wheat and corn into the different molecular constructs that our body sees as foreign and that doesn't process as food and disregulated our hormones our brain chemistry and our appetite and our metabolism and so these These are hijacking our biology and we need to get rid of them and of course uh we need to exercise we need to do resistance training and build muscle we need to
training and build muscle we need to learn how to manage stress get adequate sleep and all the things we know help help our health what happens when you do this and I've seen this over and over again I mean people I just had a patient who lost 60 pounds I didn't put him on OIC he was a big guy Chang his diet got him off the things he was eating and we saw dramatic drops in his insulin we saw um basically the insulin come down which is the key factor here and this is part of what these glp1 agonists do is they help reduce this this U insulin uh resistance and prove insulin sensitivity and you need less insulin insulin is the fat storage hormone the more insulin you have the more fat you'll store and you'll store it in your belly and it gets locked in there and it doesn't come out unless the insulin goes down and as long as you're eating high starch in sugar diet your insulin is going to be high and the Fat's going to be locked in there and weight loss is very difficult also it causes uh these fat cells in your belly to become very inflamed produce all kinds of cyto kindes which leads to more obesity more inflammation Morel resistance leavs to fatty liver messes up your triglycerides HDL causes more cholesterol problems small particles things we've talked about in the show before it also leads to fatty liver disregulated appetite control hunger uh and uh it's a big big problem so getting the insulin down by cutting down the starch and sugar having more fat protein and fiber is really the key um and and that helps weight loss happen almost effortlessly and automatically when you eat whole food you'll restore metabolic Health you reduce inflammation your mitochondrial work better you'll reduce oxitive stress you'll have more metabolic flexibility and so basically when you get to a more normal metabolic State you can have more flexibility so if I atat a bow ice cream it's not going to really affect me but if I was diabetic it would affect me and by you know exercise an hour day whatever I or eat healthy or have a huge amount of fiber and protein and fat it's really um important to understand that it really is about tuning up your biology so you can have more metabolic flexibility uh so what should we be eating we you should be eating Whole Foods real food you know unprocessed
Foods real food you know unprocessed food or minimally processed food I mean sardines in a can is processed but that's very minimal you know what it is uh and learn how to cook if you don't how to cook this is really important it's a life skill you know have drive you know how to use your iPhone you know how to brush your teeth this is a basic life skill and people who eat at home and cook at home have a better tiet quality and they have fewer calories they have fewer carbs and processed foods and added added sugar and more fiber and more good fats so focus on nutrient-dense Foods Focus on high Sati foods like fiber protein and fat uh and you know we think about the calories in the food but we really need to think about the nutrient in the food what's the nutrient to calorie ratio is is for example if the nutrient to calorie ratio is low you're in trouble so Coca-Cola has almost no nutrients and a lot of calories that's bad if you have a lot of nutrients and fewer calories like broccoli that's good so it's not a hard concept to understand I wrote that about that in my first book Ultra revention about the nutrient de calure ratio as a simple concept about nutrient density and how to think about your food it's really about food quality um you know we talk about getting fiber fiber is really important uh you know I was in Africa and I saw the hza tribe which is one to the last Hunter gathers and one of the things they do is they eat a lot of honey but they don't have any metabolic issues because they eat 150 grams of fiber a day now the average American eats about eight grams uh we should be eating 30 to 50 grams of fiber so that helps your metabolic health and improves your cholesterol blood pressure lipids improves weight loss slows the gastric emptying prevents the sugar spikes improves something called short chain fatty acids in your gut which is anti-inflammatory have been shown to reduce um uh insulin resistance have you lose weight it actually boosts glp1 so fiber is a natural G gp1 Agonist which is a good thing right um and what are the sources well lots of veggies nuts and seeds should be three to five cups of veggies a day uh you should eat lots of nuts and seeds uh you can have low glycemic fruit
seeds uh you can have low glycemic fruit berries are great uh and any kind of non-starchy veggie also protein is a key thing to regulate your appetite we basically need a gram per pound of ideal body weight so let's say you're my 180 pounds I need about 180 grams of of protein not not if you were 400 pounds you don't need 400 grams of protein but you need to have enough to to build muscle when you need about 30 to 50 grams per meal depending on on your size uh it helps appetite control is a thermic effective protein meaning it takes more calories to burn protein it reduces your appetite so you lower your overall energy intake leads to weight loss and helps body composition because it helps you build muscle so protein is really key and animal protein has much higher B availability than than plant proteins and grass-fed beef and and lamb and eggs chicken turkey fish protein powders like things like goat way I like or bone broth all help now you know you can get you know a couple hundred calories in you know 4 ounces of chicken or or meat but you're going to get about you know 1, 000 calories if you get the same amount of protein from grains or beans which is a lot of Galleries and uh and you have to eat a lot of that food like six cups of rice or two cups of beans for a 4 oz piece of chicken or fish so it's much easier to get your protein that way uh high quality fats also important uh fats also help reduce appetite make you feel full avocados nuts seeds nut butter uh animal animal foods with B in them are all great uh also you can do Tim restricted eating you know 12 hours minimum 14 I don't think you need much longer than that uh but that helps and know don't eat before bed just really key just overnight fast don't eat before bed three hours you're going to do much better and then sleep also really important um getting the real cause of some of our problems has to do with our sleep deficits and if you don't sleep you're more likely to be overweight you're more likely to be obese it reduces leptin which is the the hormone that makes you feel full it increases grin which is the hormone that makes you
grin which is the hormone that makes you hungry it increases cortisol the stress hormone also makes you crave sugar it lowers you know blood sugar regulation and stimulates your appetite and the nurse's health study which was about 68, 000 women were followed for 16 years women who slept 5 hours or less a night had a 32% higher risk of a 15 kilogram weight gain that's like 35 pounds or more uh that's a lot and for those sleeping six hours a night there was a 12% high risk of obesity so get your sleep sorted I I have a sleep Master Class you can look at that uh you can go to sleep same time every night you want to get six to seven eight hours minimum uh six is usually not enough for people um then you want to move I mean there's no way around it our bodies were designed to move you got to move about 150 minutes a week of exercise you know so it's not you know that much it's like 20 30 minutes a day and it could be just a walk or it could be do walking uh in the morning or in the evening after after meals particular after meals great after dinner even a 20-minute walk makes a huge difference uh resistance training uh three times a week to build muscle it really is key and muscle is really a snc for glucose so you have to build muscle there's just no way around it I to say uh you can lift weights you can do resistance bands you can do body weight exercises all of it also it's important to mindfully eat uh you don't want to be in front of the TV scrolling on your phone W you know eat with family and friends make it a social thing enjoy the food take your time really important um and supplements also can help because often we're nutritionally deficient if you're more obese you're more likely to be nutritionally deficient uh in vitamin D and many of the B vitamins magnesium Omega-3s uh and so taking a good multi vitamin D magnesium and Omega-3s is really helpful uh and if you're concerned I would also want look at some testing which we can do you can do through function Health go to function health. com you you can use the code young forever and get jump the weight list but you can see what's going on with your metabolic Health we help you
with your metabolic Health we help you measure insulin we help you measure your libid particle number and size uric acid and many many things they want see that look at your metabolic Health in a very deep way so you can know what's going on also you can look at your metabolic Health by looking at your body composition and you can use inbody or those those little machines you can use in some gyms or even a body composition test called the dexas scan really really helpful to know what's going on so you got to kind of get a sense of where you're at and be personalized in your treatment but um in conclusion I I just want to share that I think this this whole craze for these weight loss drugs is misguided uh it's highly risky it's highly expensive it's it's untested in long term and I think we're going to see more and more problems and complications come online as these drugs are being used long term H it's not stopping the Gold Rush it's not stopping the frenzy but I had to put in my two cents here uh and it's you know it's not something I would never use you know if you have a type two diabetic who's not responding or you have some very obese patient you need to get them the drop weight and you know you need to do it for some medical reasons I think that's okay but often you really don't need that I just had a patient email the other day lost 200 pounds no drugs no mariac surgery it's possible to do just by following simple approaches that work with your body rather than against it so I think I'm really concerned about the long-term consequence of this drug it doesn't address the root causes as we say it's sort of uh it doesn't really kind of work in conjunction with lifestyle and the side effects are very concerning um and it's hard to come off it and we need to help people think about an EXO strategy for these drugs rather I'd prefer you take a functional medicine approach that looks at your entire system at the root causes and and gets to the the bottom of it which is our metabolic poor health uh which is my mostly caused by Sergeant sugar and Ultra processed foods and it leads to high levels of insulin and some resistance inflammation and all those things can be addressed through a high
things can be addressed through a high nutrient-dense diet exercise um sleep hygiene stress reduction and understand that you know if you're overweight it's not your fault we live in a toxic food environment and and it's really tough to do the right thing in this culture but it's not impossible it just takes a little bit of learning and and focus and an approach that I think can be helpful and I've written many many books about how to address this the 10-day detox diet is probably one of the most most important in terms of getting your metabolic Health sorted out and it does it very quickly we put a diabetic patient on this who was you know very severely diabetic and in three days she was off her insulin in three months she was off all her meds and her A1C went from 11 to 5 and a half so it's possible to do if you love that last video you're going to love the next one check it out here I'm talking about wheat flour or grain flowers even brown rice flour all these healthy quot and gluten-free snacks they're actually often worse than regular flour cuz are just so highly processed and it quickly absorbed so those are also huge things and you know
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
GLP-1 medicines can help people lose substantial weight, but longevity asks a more exacting question. What kind of weight is being lost, what happens to muscle, and whether the metabolic system becomes more resilient matter more than the number on the scale.
The body reads weight loss through many signals: appetite, insulin sensitivity, lean mass, inflammation, and energy availability. When those signals improve together, healthspan has a better foundation.
Rapid weight loss can include lean tissue unless protein, resistance training, and medical oversight are treated as part of the protocol. Muscle stores glucose, supports balance, protects joints, and keeps metabolism more flexible.
Preserving muscle changes the felt experience of weight loss. You do not just become lighter. You stay capable.
Appetite control can create an opening, but it does not replace food quality, sleep, movement, or recovery. These are the daily inputs that teach the body how to regulate energy.
The strongest frame is not medication versus lifestyle. It is whether every tool being used supports long-term metabolic resilience.
Longevity is not measured by weight alone. It is measured by the capacity you keep.
Treat any weight-loss strategy as a body-composition strategy, with muscle preservation at the center.
Use food quality, protein, resistance training, sleep, and recovery to support the metabolic signal.
Discuss risks, benefits, and monitoring with a qualified clinician rather than treating GLP-1 medicines as a shortcut.
