December 12, 2025 • 37 mins
In this eye-opening episode of The Tudor Dixon Podcast, Tudor sits down with author Aimee Donnellan for a deep dive into the meteoric rise of Ozempic—the diabetes drug turned cultural phenomenon for weight loss. Together, they unpack the surprising science behind GLP-1 medications, the growing trend of microdosing, and the real risks users often overlook.
Donnellan and Dixon explore how body image pressures, diet culture, and the powerful food industry fuel America’s obesity crisis. They also discuss why the drug has become both celebrated and controversial, and what its popularity means for the future of weight management.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast, and today
we are talking about ozempic. You guys have all heard
all kinds of stories about ozempic. Some of you probably
have used it, some of you may not know the
whole history of what ozempic is or how it even works.
And that's why we decided to bring the author of
the new book Off the Scales, the Inside Story of
(00:21):
Ozempic and the Race to Cure Obesity, Amy Donalin. Thank
you so much, Amy for being on today.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's really great to be here. Thank you so much.
Shooter absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
First of all, as I was reading through this, I
didn't even I guess we don't understand how drugs come
to be. And there was a lot of work, years
and years of work on this. It was obviously for
we I think many of us know was for diabetes,
but then they started to see all of these other things.
It has kind of set off a whole line of
(00:55):
questions from all different industries. But tell us a little
bit about how you got into figuring out how ozempic
came to be.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, it's funny, actually, So I cover pharmaceuticals for Reuter's,
which is the news agency so I cover Novanordisk, which
is the company that makes ozentpic and now Weggavy, which
is the obesity drug.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And it was actually during.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
The pandemic that I was asked to write a piece
about what was being called at the time virus vices.
So this was basically the idea that people were sitting
at home, drinking, smoking, doing all sorts of things that
were really really bad for their health. And I was
looking at all the stocks of these companies really kind
of just going up and up and up, and they
were really benefiting from this. And then my editor at
(01:38):
the time said, but what's the upshot of all this?
What happens if everyone lives really on healthy lives And
then we thought diabetes.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You get Most people will get diabetes if they put
on a lot of weight and as I said, live a.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Very unhealthy life.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we looked at Novaanornis stock and it had completely
outperformed all the others, and that was sort of the ozepic.
And that was the first time I had ever This
was twenty twenty, the first time I had ever really
heard or seen anything about ozembic, And bear in mind
I was covering pharmaceuticals, and this drug had already been
on the market for about two years, so it was really.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Bubbling under the surface for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
That's what I wanted to say, because I in your book,
I read that there was sort of a buzz in
Hollywood around twenty eighteen where one of the one of
the plastic surgeons in Hollywood started getting these calls like
I hear, there's this miracle drug, and it started that
these folks in Hollywood were actually getting it, which I
think if we look back, we started to see people
(02:38):
shed weight like you would not believe.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
How is this happening?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And all of a sudden it wasn't so much like
we're body positivity.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It was like everybody needs to be thin again.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, absolutely, and that is definitely something that I explored
the book because twenty eighteen. Bear in mind, this is
when the commercial came out, right, theoozempic, which kind of
went round and round everyone's heads. And they do mention
in that commercial, which came out like summer twenty eighteen,
that there was weight loss and that wouldn't be necessarily
unusual for a pharmaceutical drug that there would be some
(03:10):
weight loss so they didn't make a big deal out
of it. They didn't say, you know, you lose a
ton of weight if you're on these drugs, but it
was very much there. And yes, it was this Jason Diamond,
who is a plastic surgeon. He's been linked to Kim
Kardashian and Katie Perry, and he basically said that, yes,
it was you know, producers, movie stars, TV stars being like,
what is the situation with this diabetes drug because we
(03:33):
hear it helps you lose weight, and you're right. It
kind of crashed right into I think, really the peak
of body positivity. This is when people were really companies
like Abercrombie and Fitch were really being shamed for not
having plus sized models on their websites, not having enough
varieties of clothing in their stores.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So there was a big, big push at this time.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And then, as you're right, once people realized there was
this shot that they take that could allow them to
be thin, it seems like for a lot of people
body positivity just kind of went out the window.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But I think body positivity had been there because of
something else that you write about, and that is the
change in how our food is made and the portions
that we were getting that we didn't realize were happening.
You said that the current size of a side of
fries at McDonald's is the size of the nineteen ninety
(04:26):
eight supersize me size that he asked for in that movie.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And that was stunning to me. I'm like, oh my gosh,
how much are we eating?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, I found even like even more so, like looking
at the McDonald's when McDonald's first came out, that they
had one size of fries that that was you know, and.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That, yes, that the small size. I remember when I
was a kid, that was the only size.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, So you didn't have these options for all sorts
of different portions. And I have to say as well
that one of the scientists in the book talks about
and when you think about it, it is baffling to
think about free refills of sous like this is why
would you be offering more and you're not getting any
extra money for it. You're you're actually just giving away
a very unhealthy drink for free, like it is. Yeah,
(05:12):
I think that that And I had to have to
sort of wrestle a little bit with this as like
a woman, because you can see that there was definitely
a period in the fifties and sixties where people were
eating at home a lot and people didn't eat out
a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And that was definitely when women were at home more.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
They were spending about three hours a day in the
kitchen literally, like baking bread, all of these types of things.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And then women really went back into.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
The workforce, but they were obviously in there during World
War Two, and they went back into the workforce, and
then you saw a kind of rise in convenience food
because both typically both parents were then working, there were
single parent families. And then that essentially meant that companies
like Nesle and the big food manufacturers were like, oh, okay,
people need they need ease. They need to be able
(05:57):
to come home, have their dinner on the table in
fifteen minutes. So lots of jarred food, lost, canned food,
lots of preservatives in order to keep those things fresh
let's call it fresh, but keep them like from going off.
And that obviously did lead to two big problems. But
one thing I would say as well is that when
you do read the book and you look at the
(06:17):
case studies, there doesn't.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Really, in my opinion, seems to be much rhyme or.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Reason to people becoming obese that there was a girl
who really starts the book off her mother is, you know,
very attentive, makes food out of their vegetable patch in
their garden. Like by no means is this girl eating
lots of junk food. But her body is bigger and
she is more hungry than her sister, and she you know,
continuously puts on weight as she gets older. And that
(06:43):
would I would definitely think that the food industry is
a factor in that well.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And you have the twins studies, so that was also
interesting because they which I thought, how much did they
pay these people to be willing to do this because
multiple twins, so identical twins, They fed them all increased
amount of calories, like twelve hundred extra calories and a day,
and these people gained about thirty pounds, but they all
(07:09):
gained it in different areas too, and some of them
didn't gain weight. But yes, so it was interesting because
some twins no weighed at all, some twins up to
thirty pounds, and some twins they got it in the
thighs and some twins got it in the stomach, but
it wasn't consistent.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No, no, And I think that that is I think
that one of the scientists that I spoke to for
this book, who was one of the developers of ozempic
in Novanordesk and Denmark, is that he had this real
battle within the company, within the bosses of this company,
trying to explain to them really the causes of obesity
because there was such a stigma. I mean there still
is a stigma, but there was such a stigma in
(07:46):
the nineties about obesity. Nobody was calling it a disease
in the mainstream. Nobody was kind of even thinking about
it like that, and it was really seen as like,
you don't have willpower, you are weak in some way,
you can't help yourself eating all these huge portions, and
that's why you're overweight. And he had to literally kind
of trot a load of experts into these executives and say,
(08:08):
here is the science.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Here are the people who will show you the genetic links.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And actually it goes back to like the ice age
that we literally you survived if you could retain fat,
that's what allowed you to kind of propagate the species,
is that you could go into a cave for the
really bad winters, and if you could hold on to
as much fat as you could, you survived, And then
that works fine if there isn't a lot of food around.
But if there is abundant food and limitless food, which
(08:35):
is the world that much of the Western world is
living in now, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
That our bodies just don't work in that way.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So it was also interesting to listen to or read
about Sarah, the character that not a characters. This is
her real life. What you were talking about where her parents.
Her mom was making food out of the garden, but
she had gained weight and at a certain point she
had been about one hundred pounds overweight and she was
so she found ozempic or, one of the weight loss drugs,
(09:04):
and she started taking it. She lost first it was
like seventy pounds and overall I think she ended up
losing one hundred pounds. She and her husband started doing
things that they had never done before. So it was
very interesting because it wasn't just that her story struck
me because she didn't just take the drug and lose
weight and become thin. She changed her lifestyle because having
(09:24):
less weight on her body, she was able to run
a marathon, she was able to do exercise in a
different way. It had changed her ability to live a
healthier life because she wasn't fighting her body constantly gaining weight.
But it also changed the way people treated her, which
was it's like a reality we don't want to talk about.
(09:45):
We don't want to admit that people treat you differently
if you're not overweight. And she very begrudgingly talks about
this with you. It's like even my own father took
longer to talk to me than he had in the past.
That that was kind of stunning, and I think it
took us to a place where we said to ourselves,
(10:06):
as we read this, body positivity was never going to
change this inherent I don't know, it's like this reaction
to someone who we believe is overweight. And I do
think that there is still a stigma attached that like
you're not doing enough, but bodies are different.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
We find I know, I found that probably the most
like sort of amazing thing writing this book was and
actually I thought that was probably for me. The most
interesting thing was sort of the societal impact of all
of this. And as you said that there is and
all of these all of these people I spoke to
for the book, they really didn't criticize their parents, Like
(10:46):
she wasn't criticizing her father for the fact that he
was more interested in her.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like I kind of said, was how was he as
a dad? She's like, he was a great dad.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
He was always around, he was you know, loving, but
he just was a bit absent, Like we'd be talking
and I could just tell he wasn't really that interested
in what I was saying. But then she loses all
this weight, and I see, it's hard to know sort
of chicken or of the egg. Is it that she
sort of comes out of herself in a way. Is
that she's she's getting such a like lovely response to
herself in her life and her work in Starbucks when
(11:17):
she goes into coffee for coffee, men are holding doors,
like all of this is like surely boosting her. Maybe
she is actually a much more engaging person because because
of that, because maybe she doesn't feel as I don't know,
inhibit it.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And that's something that struck me when you had that
in the book where she said I was introverted? But
was I introverted because people didn't want to engage with me?
And then when they did, I came out of my
shell in a different way and I was more willing
to engage.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
And you kind of wonder if I mean my dad.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I think dads and daughters have like this period where
you don't really understand each other when you're in your
early early twenties, like late teens and then and that
was kind of how my relationship was with my dad.
And then I started working, and as I was working
and getting promotions, we had more to connect on. So
you do kind of wonder if it was she was
(12:08):
getting massive promotions at work, which she credited to losing weight,
which is sad but a reality we should talk about,
and then she had a better connection with other people.
It is all very interesting. It is, it is, and
it is I think. That's what I mean is I
think when you delve into it, it's hard. As I said,
it's hard to blame people, but there is something that
(12:31):
really like when I started just asking people in my
everyday life, you know, what is your experience of when
you're thinner versus when you've got more weight on. And
I'm like in my early forties, so lots of my
friends have had kids, so they can kind of talk
about this. And one friend of mine said that she
was sitting around with all of her friends and they
said that their moms are nicer to them when they're thinner.
(12:52):
And I was like, what do you mean, and she said,
I don't know, She's just nicer, She's like more engaged, more.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And so I do think that that to me as well.
I have a daughter.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I just find that baffling that I would be somehow
to treat her differently if she was smaller versus bigger.
I just think that, yeah, you're right, there is something
we have to kind of look at ourselves. And I
think that hopefully this book kind of makes you think
about this, is that there is this disease out there,
which is obesity. It does cause all sorts of health
(13:25):
related problems. These drugs are really ideal for that in
many ways. But there's also a lot of people, and
I've spoken to a lot of these people as well,
who want to lose twenty pounds and they want to
get back to what they were in their early thirties,
late twenties. They really want that, and that is like paramount,
Like they'll go onto a website and buy a knockoff
version of these drugs just to get that back. And
(13:48):
I often say to them, I like, you know, would
you do that with anything else? Would you buy any
other hormone on the internet and just take it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Without a thought?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
And that is the desperation of fitting in.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I look at my girls. I have four daughters, and
I look at how life has been through elementary school,
middle school, and high school, and just the size of
kids compared to when I was young. And you talk
about the food industry having changed, when you talked about
the fact that women are not able to spend three
hours cooking at home anymore, it's not just that. It
(14:32):
is that we are buying food that is quick and convenient,
but also has addictive qualities that we didn't know we're
in there. So oftentimes we go to the grocery store
and we're like, oh, this says something on it that
looks like it's got vitamins, or it's got protein, or
it's got something that makes you go that means that
must mean it's healthy. But there's an addictive quality. So
(14:55):
not only did we start to gain weight, but the
food industry. We saw us as like, I mean, it's
almost like, oh, we can get them addicted to this,
and we can get them addicted to that, just like
nicotine or alcohol.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So I don't The thing is, I struggled a little
bit with this idea because I don't necessarily think that
there was I don't know if they were.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It was lilious. It just happened.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yes, yes, I don't think it was as calculated as that.
That's just my impression.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
It was sort of like an awful accident in a
way that they put all these things into these foods
really to kind of prolong.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Their shelf life, to boost their margins.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I think that was really the point of this was
to make these companies more profitable.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
They could sell was a change in life. We had
to make food faster.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That's right. There are.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
But there were some sort of cynical things that they did,
like the cereal boxes, having the cartoons like you know,
the tiger that actually makes eye contact with kids when
they're on like a certain shelf like that. To me,
that feels like you're manipulating a consumer in order to
get them to these things and.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Shoals in Saturday morning cartoons Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Yes, exactly exactly. And I used to eat lots of
cereal when I was a kid. Now I kind of
think when I look at my kids, I'm like, they
should really be eating protein in the morning, they should
be eating yogurt, they should be eating all these different things.
But and I do like to your point about like
the supermarkets, I do go into a grocery store and
I spend a lot of time reading the back of labels.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I spend like.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
More time than I would like to thinking about how
much sugar is in this? You know, what's stabilizer? Are
there excess ingredients that don't need to be in there?
If there are, can I can I buy something else?
And I think that's that's very tiresome that we're even
in the situation where that is you know, that is
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, you feel betrayed that you have to do that,
Like why do I have to read to see if
you are putting something poisonous? Which I agree, I think
it kind of was the perfect storm of we have
to create something that has long shelf life but also
can be made quickly and actually consist of a meal.
And ultimately we've been putting this into our body with
(17:00):
and I think the sugar content seems to be really
high on a lot of these things. I mean, you
talk about Nestli and some of the foods that they have,
and they're I mean, oftentimes those foods are like breakfast
type foods, and they have vitamins and all these like
important things, but they're also filled, filled, filled with sugar.
(17:23):
And we've gotten used to saying, well, if they're getting
chocolate milk, it's okay because they're getting milk.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
But then you look at the amount.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I mean, it's like, why don't you just pour in
three tablespoons of sugar into their mouths in the morning.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I one thing as well that also really kind
of gets to me is the sort of double speak
about nutrition, like nutrition that it has all these vitamins
as you said, and all of these things, but the
fact is it's not food in terms of like a
whole food that you would I would know it, or
or food that you know, because whole food fills you
up like a chicken breast, a salmon fillis.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
These things fill you up.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
But actually the types of ready meals and all those
things slots about it, they actually don't make you feel full,
and typically you're I'm going to be beat a McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You're often hungrier an hour later.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And it is this kind of, as you said, this
kind of cocktail of fat and sugar and salt, which
which do nothing for us, I think in terms of
our health.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I guess that's been kind of the stunning thing to
find out, is that we're eating food that is making
us want to eat more food, and that it makes
so much sense now you can see it. I mean,
I remember when I was young and in high school,
everybody decided to go fat free, which was silly. Now
we know that we would have an entire pantry filled
(18:36):
with fat free cookies. What a stupid thing, I mean,
but we were like, oh, we're not going.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
To get any weight. We're eating a massive amount of
fat free cookies.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But I think that is funny.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
But I think also in a way which I think
is terrible, is you were you thought you were doing
the right thing. You were responding to a company telling
you that this was somehow healthier than if you had
just eaten one full fat chocolate chip cookie, and you
would have known that that was how many calories were
in it. And it wasn't healthy for you. It would
have been seen as a treat. But I think these companies,
(19:12):
which again I kind of delve into with the book,
is they are really now facing a reckoning, which is
that the people who are going on these drugs don't
want their food. And there was this very interesting daily
podcast from the New York Times where they kind of
followed people around who were on the drugs and they
walk right past the Doritos, all of the processed food,
(19:33):
and they go straight for the produce style.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
They're going vegetables. I've spoken to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
A lady I spoke to for the book who told
me basically that she her and her husband were trying
to buy a house, so they were really watching what
they spent, so she knew how much she was spending
on takeout every month, and then she goes on these
drugs and that takeout bill goes down to zero. So
she said, I was just craving salmon and vegetables and
really healthy food. That's all I wanted, and all that
(19:59):
other stuff made me feel kind of sick. But then
she decides she wanted to have a baby, so she
goes off the drugs, and she watches that takeout, they'll
go right back to where it was before she went
on them.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So that's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
It's a hormone, So it makes you think like, okay,
so I must be missing something and if I'm taking this,
then this must be like the answer to everything. And
I've always been told if it's too good to be true,
it cannot possibly be true. But people are losing a
massive amount of weight, their heart disease is getting better,
diabetes is getting better, heart our blood pressure is getting better.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
So why is in everybody on this?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So there's a few things. It's a hormone, first of all,
and it's a very very powerful foremone. This is the
hormone that is created in your stomach when you eat
like a Thanksgiving dinner. So this is the hormone that
basically tells you you're full, you don't need anymore. It
sends a message up your vegus nerve up to your
brain and it's like stop eating. It's a very important hormone.
So I think that there is very specific prescription rules
(21:01):
about this drug, which is that you need to have
a BMI of over thirty, which means that you are
living with obesity, and typically in a lot of countries
in Europe anyway, you need another sort of ailment that's associated.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So that's like type two diabetes.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
It could be kidney disease, it could be fatty liver disease.
So I think at the moment, there's no trials going
on of healthy people taking these drugs, as in like
healthy weight weighted people taking these drugs.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's like we're hearing though that doctors are telling people,
healthy people, people with a.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Lower BMI to microdose this.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yes, like oh, you should just just to keep yourself
at that.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Weight or even lower.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I mean, I know for a fact that I know
people who are at an unhealthy weight who are using
somehow they've gotten this. I don't know if it's tele
medicine or what, but somehow they're getting it. I don't
know if they're lying or what.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
There is.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Again, like whenever I go to like dinner parties or drinks,
people tell me all the lengths that their friends have
gone to get these drugs. So one thing people will
do for telehealth is a good example. They'll stand on
a weighing scales and they'll hold like a weight, like
you know, like a ten kilogram weight or like twenty
pound weight, and that will show that the scales is higher,
because that's one of the things that like telehealth want
to see is that you have a like obviously they
(22:16):
know what your height is, and then they know what
your weight is. Another thing is that they might like
wear a bulky coat so they look bigger.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Other people have kind of squeezed folds into their stomach.
And think about that. That goes to what you were saying, like,
would you do this with anything else? Would you just
put any other hormone in your body? We're so desperate
to be thin.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, So I think that there And again there is
a chapter of the book that really kind of goes
through the side effects. And for some people they're okay
and they can manage them, but there is for most people,
they experience some level of nausea, diarrhea, like gastric issues
because they it's your gut that these hormones are affecting.
(22:55):
Then there's the people who have really kind of then
they have like really chronic, terrible symptoms where they really
can't stomach any food and eventually they come off them.
And about fifty percent of people who go on these
drugs a year later they come off them, and that
could be a number of factors. That could be they
just get fatigued taking a drug. It could be that
the side effects are too bad. It could be that
(23:17):
the cost is too high. But to your point, why
is everybody not taking them? Even the people who are
taking them are not staying on them. So that shows
that there are flaws in these drugs, and I think
that side effects would probably be a very big one,
which is why when a lot of friends of mine say,
who are ten to fifteen pounds, that they see above
what they should be, I do say to them, this
(23:39):
is a very powerful drug, and yeah, we've got about
twenty years of data, and that's a lot of data.
That's that's enough, I think to probably say that it's
unlikely that these things will cause cancer and things like that.
But at the same time, you are using a very
powerful pharmaceutical drug that was intended for people living with
a deadly disease that causes cancers and type two diabetes
(23:59):
and all sorts of other awful things. They are not
intended for people, in my opinion, to microdos unless a
doctor is really properly telling you that. In the FDA
has told you that that's okay.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right, because there's this situation where you start to lose muscle,
it's not just that you lose weight. So I find
it interesting because the big food market, I guess big
food industry is looking at this now and they're like, Okay,
people aren't eating art doritos, so let's put protein into
pasta and tell them this is healthy. And let's make
(24:32):
high fiber, like this is high fiber.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
And then the.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Supplement industry gets in because people's hair is falling out.
I'm like, what in the world if I already have
my hair falling out, I don't need more hair. I mean,
I'm thin but bald, Like, this is not a good compromise.
And then you see Starbucks. Starbucks has these protein infuse coffees.
I'm like, why do I need protein infuse coffee? And
I don't, And then I don't know that, so I
(24:56):
think I'm not on ozembic am. I like, oh, because
I am also Marketer's dream. When I see that, I'm like, amazing,
I must need a protein infused coffee, but I don't,
So then I'm buy it, and I think this is
also a disaster.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It goes back to your fat free cookies, like it is,
it's it is, It's true, it's all this, it's all
this idea your so calls exactly. I think that that
is probably, in my opinion, the most depressing thing that
has happened, which is that if, as you said, if
these strokes are so good at controlling your you know,
heart disease and preventing strokes and you know, preventing people
(25:34):
from going a kidney dialysis, which there is data to
suggest that as well, but then the food industry actually decides, well, actually,
you might be craving a salmon pilet, but I can
make you this ready meal that can sit on a
shelf for a year and it tastes just like that
salmon pillt that you're craving, and it and the problem
goes on. And I think that is that's not a
(25:55):
good place to be in. And I think that I
did mention this to one of the scientists who was
involved and creating things, and she was just so mad
when I told her that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
She just was like, oh my god, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
This was these are supposed to be fixing this problem.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So yeah, I think so they figured out a way
because I find it interesting that you're like, Okay, so
people start craving salads and they go to the pro
or the produce section. They're getting like, you know, those fresh,
crunchy foods, and then you read that big food is like,
we've decided it's a mouthfeel thing that they don't like
from our old food that they got addicted to, so
(26:31):
now we're gonna make it crunchier. They are kind of
mimicking the mouth feel, which I don't like that word.
It freaks me out for some reason, but the mouthfeel
of fresh food in a highly processed food to get
us back into eating bad food, which is crazy. I mean,
I get it, it's this is capitalism, this is an industry,
(26:53):
but I still am like, oh my gosh, this is
how crazy what we're eating actually is.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think I think the mouthfeel I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I remember hearing that term for the first time and
I was like, that is the most disgusting thing I've
ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Like that this that like yogurt.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Apparently low fat yogurt really doesn't have a good mouthfeel
to it, like doesn't have the same as like full
fat yogurt does. So they're always trying to figure out
ways to tweak it chalky and not smooth.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, yes, so they do. They spend a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But I think that what food manufacturers are thinking is
that people are ultimately lazy and not even like time poored,
just a bit lazy. So if you think to yourself
that you don't like soda anymore, so you like are
squeezing your lemons into your water and you're you know,
that's what you're craving. They're like, don't squeeze the lemon.
We'll squeeze the lemon for you. And we have to
(27:40):
do with some other things to it too, but we'll
do that and then you can buy it in cans,
you put it into your shelf and it's all great.
So I do think that that's the way they're going
to get around this. But I think when you look
at the valuations of these companies, to stop price these companies,
I don't think that's invest what investors think is going
to happen. I think investors think that these guys are
going to get smaller and that is just going to
be a reality that maybe they can do tweaks around
(28:02):
the edges. But if you're not if you're not creating
this stuff, and you walk into a supermarket and you
see this lovely chicken breast that looks great. Maybe that
is what you gotta go for rather than the ready meal,
and I think, yeah, I think hopefully that's the future.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
It has made me rethink everything.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I mean, and I had already I had already been looking,
you know, I'd already been curious about what's in the
labels and how do I just what the girls are eating,
and how do I try to be more focused on
what we're eating?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
But you do you get busy to run back to
the office.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh, I'll just get Chick fil A on my way home.
I mean, I am guilty of that. And then you
just said that thing about the water, and I'm like,
I fell for this. Yesterday I went to the airport
and there was a water that was called Hint because
it had a hint of watermelon flavor, and I'm like,
that sounds lovely. What else was in it I've done?
And where did the watermelon flavor come from? Because it
(28:53):
didn't look like watermelon. H Yes, I'm still falling for.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It, absolutely absolutely, But I mean I have spoken to
people who say that this will be like statins in
the future, like these drugs will be like Staaten's that
you will reach a certain age and most people will
be on them. And I think that that does speak
to the fact that in America, for example, about seventy
percent of people are overweight or living with obesity, so
(29:18):
that that would be most people would be on these drugs.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Okay, but you are thin, but
you look different.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
It's not the same thin as just a healthy thin.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
And you can definitely tell that the muscle tone is
not there, or it's like weird. The muscles are sticking
out and the skin is hanging. It's like a weird look.
I mean, you brought up Katy Perry, and I'm not
saying Katy Perry is on this, but I did see
a picture of her with the Prime Minister who is
apparently now her boyfriend of Canada with the Prime Minister
of Japan, I think, and I was like, this is
(29:58):
going to be your best look, right, because you are
gonna look as good as you can to go meet
the Prime Minister of Japan, I mean, I would think,
and she looked like hell I have to say, and
I'm not someone that like rips some people. I mean,
she looked beautiful because she's Katy Perry, but she just
didn't look like Katy Perry. I should say that, not
like hell. I didn't like the way she had her hairstyled,
(30:19):
but you know what, to each their own. But her
face does look sunken in and she has it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Look like her face.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It's just like she looks very different in her and
her body is not there's no shape to it.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
It's just like she was like a line with arms.
It's a strange look. It doesn't look the.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Same as you yourself if you just lost weight working out,
which I and I also understand that that's also not
something everybody can do. But I feel like there are
certain people who Katy Perry was never like obese.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
So I think the one thing that I would say
about all of this, and I have to say, I
the one thing I guess I'm uncomfortable about is even
like discussing people who might be on these drugs or
might not be on these drugs, just because I think
that speaks to like, again, this whole idea of like
people's bodies are sort of like a commodity that we
could just like you didn't mean like we could just discuss.
(31:15):
But I think to the point about, there are side
effects that go along with these drugs.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
So for example, you get hollowed out cheeks.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So one of the people I spoke to for the book,
she talked about having actually to go through a lot
of plastic surgery after losing a lot of weight.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
She said that she.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Could hold literally like handfuls of her skin and her
back and her buttocks because she was losing so much weight.
And I think to your point about is if you
were to diet and exercise, you lose about twenty five
percent muscle mass when you do that.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That's a lot, But.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's not that's what they'll be another like we'll call
it a natural diet. If you're on a zempic, you
lose forty percent muscle mass.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Forty percent?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
And that's and that is really bad if you are older,
because you've become more prone to full There was a
there was a lady I listened to. I went to
a conference in Texas last year and it was an
obesity conference. So everyone there was like an expersion obesity
and there was a lady who was running a trial
with veterans who were taking ozembic and these weight loss drugs,
(32:16):
and she got a call from the guy who was
running the day that was like, you need to stop
this trial and she said why and he said, they're
losing too much muscle. This is really dangerous for them.
They're going to start having falls. They're going to start
having bad falls. And then she said that they had
this big kind of discussion about the fact that they
which was worse, which was worse of the obese effects,
(32:36):
like basically the problems with the disease or these falls.
And what they decided was they would monitor the falls
make sure that their falls weren't happening, but that would
be something that you would start to see with people
losing a lot of muscle mass. So that is and
when I speak to endochronologists to these are the people.
This is another reason I think why everyone shouldn't be
on these drugs is if you're being prescribed these drugs
(32:57):
properly under the guidance and supervision of doctor, they will
see the symptoms and they will be looking at your
body going okay, so enough of that, let's keep you
on the stoves a little bit longer because your stomach
side effects are too bad or you're losing too much
muscle mass. But if you're at home and you've just
bought these as like a compound from your pharmacy, nobody's
(33:17):
watching you, nobody's observing you. I do think that this
would have a lot of effects on your body, and
effects that, like, as you said, effects that maybe are
not the way they should be and or have to be,
you know. And but yeah, I think that's that's kind
of what we're seeing with certain people who lose a
huge bound of weight very very quickly.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I have so many more questions, but I know we're
out of town time. I have seen, you know, we've
seen like people that it shows it's in their refrigerator
when they're doing some reality show or something, and you
can you see that hollowed out cheek look. And you know,
I think we're all very curious. Everyone is curious because
no matter what I mean, as you get older, you're right,
(33:59):
your body changed, and you're like, this seems so easy
all I have to do. I want to not have
to work out, I want to not have to change
what I eat. I want something that I inject that
just makes me change what I eat. I want it
to just happen, you know, because I'm lazy and we
are all lazy. Let's face it, that sounds lovely. It's
(34:20):
just going to do it for me. But that's why
we are so curious as to like, Okay, what is
it really like? I read this terrible story which I
don't even know if this is true, but I read
this story where some people's skin is almost like it's
not attached to their body anymore, like the ozembic had
some weird effect on them.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
That sounds terrible. Does it reattach if you stop? I
doubt it. I don't know. It freaks me out.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I haven't heard that, but I will lady with one anecdote,
which again I think speaks to what you're talking about
about how desperate people are. A woman I spoke to
said that she was really trying to get these drugs
and now she is not overweight in by any means,
and every doctor she w to. The doctor was like, no,
absolutely not. You do not fit the criteria for these drugs.
I'm not prescribing them to you. So she's talking to
(35:07):
one of the mothers that drop off and they are
a doctor and they're like, I could get you some ozampic.
I'll get you some osampic. So she goes on ozempic
and we had this discussion and I said, why are
you taking this? This is crazy and you're not overweight
and she said, I have this weight, I've had three kids.
I want to lose this weight. I'm just going to
do this. And then I said, but what happens if
(35:28):
this causes you long term problems? What if this shortens
your life somehow? And she said, I would rather die
thin at sixty than live until I was eighty and
be fat.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Isn't that terrible that we feel that way?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And I said, you would miss grandkids, weddings, all sorts
of things, and she said, yep, but that's how That's
how important it was to her.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So obviously our body positivity campaign didn't actually work well.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
It stinks, and I don't like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
It's not this is not something that I take joy in.
I didn't think it was working. But I also it
was a weird situation because we felt like we were
celebrating being unhealthy. But then now when I read your book,
you go through all of the different body types and
how people react differently. I'm like, well, maybe we just
needed to be smarter about the fact that our everybody's
(36:20):
body is processing something differently, and it is really hard
to get good food, and maybe we need to be
pushed back on the big food industry to say you've
got to take some of the stuff out, which I
think we're starting to say that, but it is.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
All crazy, all crazy, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Okay, So tell people where they can get the book
because it is very insightful and I do think that
if you're curious about ozempic and you're curious about your
weight off the scales, the inside story of Ozempic and
the race to kier obesity is for you.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
So tell us where to find it.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
You can find it on Amazon. You can find it
on Barnes and Noble. It can find it on Target.
You find a pretty much at any bookstore.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And where can people follow you?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
You can follow me. I'm on X and I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I have like a personal account which nobody will be
interested in because it's my kids basically on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
But I think X, basically at LinkedIn is where you
can find me.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Okay, awesome. Amy Donohan Thank you so much for being
on the podcast. I appreciate it. It was an enlightening conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Very nice to talk to you too, Tutor, thank you absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And thank you all for listening to the Tutor Dixon podcast.
You know where you can get it, the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and you
can watch it on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor Dixon.
But make sure you join us next time and have
a very blessed day.
You are listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast, and today
we are talking about ozempic. You guys have all heard
all kinds of stories about ozempic. Some of you probably
have used it, some of you may not know the
whole history of what ozempic is or how it even works.
And that's why we decided to bring the author of
the new book Off the Scales, the Inside Story of
(00:21):
Ozempic and the Race to Cure Obesity, Amy Donalin. Thank
you so much, Amy for being on today.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's really great to be here. Thank you so much.
Shooter absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
First of all, as I was reading through this, I
didn't even I guess we don't understand how drugs come
to be. And there was a lot of work, years
and years of work on this. It was obviously for
we I think many of us know was for diabetes,
but then they started to see all of these other things.
It has kind of set off a whole line of
(00:55):
questions from all different industries. But tell us a little
bit about how you got into figuring out how ozempic
came to be.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, it's funny, actually, So I cover pharmaceuticals for Reuter's,
which is the news agency so I cover Novanordisk, which
is the company that makes ozentpic and now Weggavy, which
is the obesity drug.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And it was actually during.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
The pandemic that I was asked to write a piece
about what was being called at the time virus vices.
So this was basically the idea that people were sitting
at home, drinking, smoking, doing all sorts of things that
were really really bad for their health. And I was
looking at all the stocks of these companies really kind
of just going up and up and up, and they
were really benefiting from this. And then my editor at
(01:38):
the time said, but what's the upshot of all this?
What happens if everyone lives really on healthy lives And
then we thought diabetes.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You get Most people will get diabetes if they put
on a lot of weight and as I said, live a.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Very unhealthy life.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we looked at Novaanornis stock and it had completely
outperformed all the others, and that was sort of the ozepic.
And that was the first time I had ever This
was twenty twenty, the first time I had ever really
heard or seen anything about ozembic, And bear in mind
I was covering pharmaceuticals, and this drug had already been
on the market for about two years, so it was really.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Bubbling under the surface for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
That's what I wanted to say, because I in your book,
I read that there was sort of a buzz in
Hollywood around twenty eighteen where one of the one of
the plastic surgeons in Hollywood started getting these calls like
I hear, there's this miracle drug, and it started that
these folks in Hollywood were actually getting it, which I
think if we look back, we started to see people
(02:38):
shed weight like you would not believe.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
How is this happening?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And all of a sudden it wasn't so much like
we're body positivity.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It was like everybody needs to be thin again.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, absolutely, and that is definitely something that I explored
the book because twenty eighteen. Bear in mind, this is
when the commercial came out, right, theoozempic, which kind of
went round and round everyone's heads. And they do mention
in that commercial, which came out like summer twenty eighteen,
that there was weight loss and that wouldn't be necessarily
unusual for a pharmaceutical drug that there would be some
(03:10):
weight loss so they didn't make a big deal out
of it. They didn't say, you know, you lose a
ton of weight if you're on these drugs, but it
was very much there. And yes, it was this Jason Diamond,
who is a plastic surgeon. He's been linked to Kim
Kardashian and Katie Perry, and he basically said that, yes,
it was you know, producers, movie stars, TV stars being like,
what is the situation with this diabetes drug because we
(03:33):
hear it helps you lose weight, and you're right. It
kind of crashed right into I think, really the peak
of body positivity. This is when people were really companies
like Abercrombie and Fitch were really being shamed for not
having plus sized models on their websites, not having enough
varieties of clothing in their stores.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So there was a big, big push at this time.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And then, as you're right, once people realized there was
this shot that they take that could allow them to
be thin, it seems like for a lot of people
body positivity just kind of went out the window.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But I think body positivity had been there because of
something else that you write about, and that is the
change in how our food is made and the portions
that we were getting that we didn't realize were happening.
You said that the current size of a side of
fries at McDonald's is the size of the nineteen ninety
(04:26):
eight supersize me size that he asked for in that movie.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And that was stunning to me. I'm like, oh my gosh,
how much are we eating?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, I found even like even more so, like looking
at the McDonald's when McDonald's first came out, that they
had one size of fries that that was you know, and.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That, yes, that the small size. I remember when I
was a kid, that was the only size.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, So you didn't have these options for all sorts
of different portions. And I have to say as well
that one of the scientists in the book talks about
and when you think about it, it is baffling to
think about free refills of sous like this is why
would you be offering more and you're not getting any
extra money for it. You're you're actually just giving away
a very unhealthy drink for free, like it is. Yeah,
(05:12):
I think that that And I had to have to
sort of wrestle a little bit with this as like
a woman, because you can see that there was definitely
a period in the fifties and sixties where people were
eating at home a lot and people didn't eat out
a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And that was definitely when women were at home more.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
They were spending about three hours a day in the
kitchen literally, like baking bread, all of these types of things.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And then women really went back into.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
The workforce, but they were obviously in there during World
War Two, and they went back into the workforce, and
then you saw a kind of rise in convenience food
because both typically both parents were then working, there were
single parent families. And then that essentially meant that companies
like Nesle and the big food manufacturers were like, oh, okay,
people need they need ease. They need to be able
(05:57):
to come home, have their dinner on the table in
fifteen minutes. So lots of jarred food, lost, canned food,
lots of preservatives in order to keep those things fresh
let's call it fresh, but keep them like from going off.
And that obviously did lead to two big problems. But
one thing I would say as well is that when
you do read the book and you look at the
(06:17):
case studies, there doesn't.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Really, in my opinion, seems to be much rhyme or.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Reason to people becoming obese that there was a girl
who really starts the book off her mother is, you know,
very attentive, makes food out of their vegetable patch in
their garden. Like by no means is this girl eating
lots of junk food. But her body is bigger and
she is more hungry than her sister, and she you know,
continuously puts on weight as she gets older. And that
(06:43):
would I would definitely think that the food industry is
a factor in that well.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And you have the twins studies, so that was also
interesting because they which I thought, how much did they
pay these people to be willing to do this because
multiple twins, so identical twins, They fed them all increased
amount of calories, like twelve hundred extra calories and a day,
and these people gained about thirty pounds, but they all
(07:09):
gained it in different areas too, and some of them
didn't gain weight. But yes, so it was interesting because
some twins no weighed at all, some twins up to
thirty pounds, and some twins they got it in the
thighs and some twins got it in the stomach, but
it wasn't consistent.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No, no, And I think that that is I think
that one of the scientists that I spoke to for
this book, who was one of the developers of ozempic
in Novanordesk and Denmark, is that he had this real
battle within the company, within the bosses of this company,
trying to explain to them really the causes of obesity
because there was such a stigma. I mean there still
is a stigma, but there was such a stigma in
(07:46):
the nineties about obesity. Nobody was calling it a disease
in the mainstream. Nobody was kind of even thinking about
it like that, and it was really seen as like,
you don't have willpower, you are weak in some way,
you can't help yourself eating all these huge portions, and
that's why you're overweight. And he had to literally kind
of trot a load of experts into these executives and say,
(08:08):
here is the science.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Here are the people who will show you the genetic links.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And actually it goes back to like the ice age
that we literally you survived if you could retain fat,
that's what allowed you to kind of propagate the species,
is that you could go into a cave for the
really bad winters, and if you could hold on to
as much fat as you could, you survived, And then
that works fine if there isn't a lot of food around.
But if there is abundant food and limitless food, which
(08:35):
is the world that much of the Western world is
living in now, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
That our bodies just don't work in that way.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So it was also interesting to listen to or read
about Sarah, the character that not a characters. This is
her real life. What you were talking about where her parents.
Her mom was making food out of the garden, but
she had gained weight and at a certain point she
had been about one hundred pounds overweight and she was
so she found ozempic or, one of the weight loss drugs,
(09:04):
and she started taking it. She lost first it was
like seventy pounds and overall I think she ended up
losing one hundred pounds. She and her husband started doing
things that they had never done before. So it was
very interesting because it wasn't just that her story struck
me because she didn't just take the drug and lose
weight and become thin. She changed her lifestyle because having
(09:24):
less weight on her body, she was able to run
a marathon, she was able to do exercise in a
different way. It had changed her ability to live a
healthier life because she wasn't fighting her body constantly gaining weight.
But it also changed the way people treated her, which
was it's like a reality we don't want to talk about.
(09:45):
We don't want to admit that people treat you differently
if you're not overweight. And she very begrudgingly talks about
this with you. It's like even my own father took
longer to talk to me than he had in the past.
That that was kind of stunning, and I think it
took us to a place where we said to ourselves,
(10:06):
as we read this, body positivity was never going to
change this inherent I don't know, it's like this reaction
to someone who we believe is overweight. And I do
think that there is still a stigma attached that like
you're not doing enough, but bodies are different.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
We find I know, I found that probably the most
like sort of amazing thing writing this book was and
actually I thought that was probably for me. The most
interesting thing was sort of the societal impact of all
of this. And as you said that there is and
all of these all of these people I spoke to
for the book, they really didn't criticize their parents, Like
(10:46):
she wasn't criticizing her father for the fact that he
was more interested in her.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like I kind of said, was how was he as
a dad? She's like, he was a great dad.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
He was always around, he was you know, loving, but
he just was a bit absent, Like we'd be talking
and I could just tell he wasn't really that interested
in what I was saying. But then she loses all
this weight, and I see, it's hard to know sort
of chicken or of the egg. Is it that she
sort of comes out of herself in a way. Is
that she's she's getting such a like lovely response to
herself in her life and her work in Starbucks when
(11:17):
she goes into coffee for coffee, men are holding doors,
like all of this is like surely boosting her. Maybe
she is actually a much more engaging person because because
of that, because maybe she doesn't feel as I don't know,
inhibit it.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And that's something that struck me when you had that
in the book where she said I was introverted? But
was I introverted because people didn't want to engage with me?
And then when they did, I came out of my
shell in a different way and I was more willing
to engage.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
And you kind of wonder if I mean my dad.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I think dads and daughters have like this period where
you don't really understand each other when you're in your
early early twenties, like late teens and then and that
was kind of how my relationship was with my dad.
And then I started working, and as I was working
and getting promotions, we had more to connect on. So
you do kind of wonder if it was she was
(12:08):
getting massive promotions at work, which she credited to losing weight,
which is sad but a reality we should talk about,
and then she had a better connection with other people.
It is all very interesting. It is, it is, and
it is I think. That's what I mean is I
think when you delve into it, it's hard. As I said,
it's hard to blame people, but there is something that
(12:31):
really like when I started just asking people in my
everyday life, you know, what is your experience of when
you're thinner versus when you've got more weight on. And
I'm like in my early forties, so lots of my
friends have had kids, so they can kind of talk
about this. And one friend of mine said that she
was sitting around with all of her friends and they
said that their moms are nicer to them when they're thinner.
(12:52):
And I was like, what do you mean, and she said,
I don't know, She's just nicer, She's like more engaged, more.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And so I do think that that to me as well.
I have a daughter.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I just find that baffling that I would be somehow
to treat her differently if she was smaller versus bigger.
I just think that, yeah, you're right, there is something
we have to kind of look at ourselves. And I
think that hopefully this book kind of makes you think
about this, is that there is this disease out there,
which is obesity. It does cause all sorts of health
(13:25):
related problems. These drugs are really ideal for that in
many ways. But there's also a lot of people, and
I've spoken to a lot of these people as well,
who want to lose twenty pounds and they want to
get back to what they were in their early thirties,
late twenties. They really want that, and that is like paramount,
Like they'll go onto a website and buy a knockoff
version of these drugs just to get that back. And
(13:48):
I often say to them, I like, you know, would
you do that with anything else? Would you buy any
other hormone on the internet and just take it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Without a thought?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
And that is the desperation of fitting in.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I look at my girls. I have four daughters, and
I look at how life has been through elementary school,
middle school, and high school, and just the size of
kids compared to when I was young. And you talk
about the food industry having changed, when you talked about
the fact that women are not able to spend three
hours cooking at home anymore, it's not just that. It
(14:32):
is that we are buying food that is quick and convenient,
but also has addictive qualities that we didn't know we're
in there. So oftentimes we go to the grocery store
and we're like, oh, this says something on it that
looks like it's got vitamins, or it's got protein, or
it's got something that makes you go that means that
must mean it's healthy. But there's an addictive quality. So
(14:55):
not only did we start to gain weight, but the
food industry. We saw us as like, I mean, it's
almost like, oh, we can get them addicted to this,
and we can get them addicted to that, just like
nicotine or alcohol.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So I don't The thing is, I struggled a little
bit with this idea because I don't necessarily think that
there was I don't know if they were.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It was lilious. It just happened.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yes, yes, I don't think it was as calculated as that.
That's just my impression.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
It was sort of like an awful accident in a
way that they put all these things into these foods
really to kind of prolong.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Their shelf life, to boost their margins.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I think that was really the point of this was
to make these companies more profitable.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
They could sell was a change in life. We had
to make food faster.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That's right. There are.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
But there were some sort of cynical things that they did,
like the cereal boxes, having the cartoons like you know,
the tiger that actually makes eye contact with kids when
they're on like a certain shelf like that. To me,
that feels like you're manipulating a consumer in order to
get them to these things and.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Shoals in Saturday morning cartoons Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Yes, exactly exactly. And I used to eat lots of
cereal when I was a kid. Now I kind of
think when I look at my kids, I'm like, they
should really be eating protein in the morning, they should
be eating yogurt, they should be eating all these different things.
But and I do like to your point about like
the supermarkets, I do go into a grocery store and
I spend a lot of time reading the back of labels.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I spend like.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
More time than I would like to thinking about how
much sugar is in this? You know, what's stabilizer? Are
there excess ingredients that don't need to be in there?
If there are, can I can I buy something else?
And I think that's that's very tiresome that we're even
in the situation where that is you know, that is
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, you feel betrayed that you have to do that,
Like why do I have to read to see if
you are putting something poisonous? Which I agree, I think
it kind of was the perfect storm of we have
to create something that has long shelf life but also
can be made quickly and actually consist of a meal.
And ultimately we've been putting this into our body with
(17:00):
and I think the sugar content seems to be really
high on a lot of these things. I mean, you
talk about Nestli and some of the foods that they have,
and they're I mean, oftentimes those foods are like breakfast
type foods, and they have vitamins and all these like
important things, but they're also filled, filled, filled with sugar.
(17:23):
And we've gotten used to saying, well, if they're getting
chocolate milk, it's okay because they're getting milk.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
But then you look at the amount.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I mean, it's like, why don't you just pour in
three tablespoons of sugar into their mouths in the morning.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I one thing as well that also really kind
of gets to me is the sort of double speak
about nutrition, like nutrition that it has all these vitamins
as you said, and all of these things, but the
fact is it's not food in terms of like a
whole food that you would I would know it, or
or food that you know, because whole food fills you
up like a chicken breast, a salmon fillis.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
These things fill you up.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
But actually the types of ready meals and all those
things slots about it, they actually don't make you feel full,
and typically you're I'm going to be beat a McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You're often hungrier an hour later.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And it is this kind of, as you said, this
kind of cocktail of fat and sugar and salt, which
which do nothing for us, I think in terms of
our health.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I guess that's been kind of the stunning thing to
find out, is that we're eating food that is making
us want to eat more food, and that it makes
so much sense now you can see it. I mean,
I remember when I was young and in high school,
everybody decided to go fat free, which was silly. Now
we know that we would have an entire pantry filled
(18:36):
with fat free cookies. What a stupid thing, I mean,
but we were like, oh, we're not going.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
To get any weight. We're eating a massive amount of
fat free cookies.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But I think that is funny.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
But I think also in a way which I think
is terrible, is you were you thought you were doing
the right thing. You were responding to a company telling
you that this was somehow healthier than if you had
just eaten one full fat chocolate chip cookie, and you
would have known that that was how many calories were
in it. And it wasn't healthy for you. It would
have been seen as a treat. But I think these companies,
(19:12):
which again I kind of delve into with the book,
is they are really now facing a reckoning, which is
that the people who are going on these drugs don't
want their food. And there was this very interesting daily
podcast from the New York Times where they kind of
followed people around who were on the drugs and they
walk right past the Doritos, all of the processed food,
(19:33):
and they go straight for the produce style.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
They're going vegetables. I've spoken to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
A lady I spoke to for the book who told
me basically that she her and her husband were trying
to buy a house, so they were really watching what
they spent, so she knew how much she was spending
on takeout every month, and then she goes on these
drugs and that takeout bill goes down to zero. So
she said, I was just craving salmon and vegetables and
really healthy food. That's all I wanted, and all that
(19:59):
other stuff made me feel kind of sick. But then
she decides she wanted to have a baby, so she
goes off the drugs, and she watches that takeout, they'll
go right back to where it was before she went
on them.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So that's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
It's a hormone, So it makes you think like, okay,
so I must be missing something and if I'm taking this,
then this must be like the answer to everything. And
I've always been told if it's too good to be true,
it cannot possibly be true. But people are losing a
massive amount of weight, their heart disease is getting better,
diabetes is getting better, heart our blood pressure is getting better.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
So why is in everybody on this?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So there's a few things. It's a hormone, first of all,
and it's a very very powerful foremone. This is the
hormone that is created in your stomach when you eat
like a Thanksgiving dinner. So this is the hormone that
basically tells you you're full, you don't need anymore. It
sends a message up your vegus nerve up to your
brain and it's like stop eating. It's a very important hormone.
So I think that there is very specific prescription rules
(21:01):
about this drug, which is that you need to have
a BMI of over thirty, which means that you are
living with obesity, and typically in a lot of countries
in Europe anyway, you need another sort of ailment that's associated.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So that's like type two diabetes.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
It could be kidney disease, it could be fatty liver disease.
So I think at the moment, there's no trials going
on of healthy people taking these drugs, as in like
healthy weight weighted people taking these drugs.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's like we're hearing though that doctors are telling people,
healthy people, people with a.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Lower BMI to microdose this.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yes, like oh, you should just just to keep yourself
at that.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Weight or even lower.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I mean, I know for a fact that I know
people who are at an unhealthy weight who are using
somehow they've gotten this. I don't know if it's tele
medicine or what, but somehow they're getting it. I don't
know if they're lying or what.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
There is.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Again, like whenever I go to like dinner parties or drinks,
people tell me all the lengths that their friends have
gone to get these drugs. So one thing people will
do for telehealth is a good example. They'll stand on
a weighing scales and they'll hold like a weight, like
you know, like a ten kilogram weight or like twenty
pound weight, and that will show that the scales is higher,
because that's one of the things that like telehealth want
to see is that you have a like obviously they
(22:16):
know what your height is, and then they know what
your weight is. Another thing is that they might like
wear a bulky coat so they look bigger.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Other people have kind of squeezed folds into their stomach.
And think about that. That goes to what you were saying, like,
would you do this with anything else? Would you just
put any other hormone in your body? We're so desperate
to be thin.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, So I think that there And again there is
a chapter of the book that really kind of goes
through the side effects. And for some people they're okay
and they can manage them, but there is for most people,
they experience some level of nausea, diarrhea, like gastric issues
because they it's your gut that these hormones are affecting.
(22:55):
Then there's the people who have really kind of then
they have like really chronic, terrible symptoms where they really
can't stomach any food and eventually they come off them.
And about fifty percent of people who go on these
drugs a year later they come off them, and that
could be a number of factors. That could be they
just get fatigued taking a drug. It could be that
the side effects are too bad. It could be that
(23:17):
the cost is too high. But to your point, why
is everybody not taking them? Even the people who are
taking them are not staying on them. So that shows
that there are flaws in these drugs, and I think
that side effects would probably be a very big one,
which is why when a lot of friends of mine say,
who are ten to fifteen pounds, that they see above
what they should be, I do say to them, this
(23:39):
is a very powerful drug, and yeah, we've got about
twenty years of data, and that's a lot of data.
That's that's enough, I think to probably say that it's
unlikely that these things will cause cancer and things like that.
But at the same time, you are using a very
powerful pharmaceutical drug that was intended for people living with
a deadly disease that causes cancers and type two diabetes
(23:59):
and all sorts of other awful things. They are not
intended for people, in my opinion, to microdos unless a
doctor is really properly telling you that. In the FDA
has told you that that's okay.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right, because there's this situation where you start to lose muscle,
it's not just that you lose weight. So I find
it interesting because the big food market, I guess big
food industry is looking at this now and they're like, Okay,
people aren't eating art doritos, so let's put protein into
pasta and tell them this is healthy. And let's make
(24:32):
high fiber, like this is high fiber.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
And then the.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Supplement industry gets in because people's hair is falling out.
I'm like, what in the world if I already have
my hair falling out, I don't need more hair. I mean,
I'm thin but bald, Like, this is not a good compromise.
And then you see Starbucks. Starbucks has these protein infuse coffees.
I'm like, why do I need protein infuse coffee? And
I don't, And then I don't know that, so I
(24:56):
think I'm not on ozembic am. I like, oh, because
I am also Marketer's dream. When I see that, I'm like, amazing,
I must need a protein infused coffee, but I don't,
So then I'm buy it, and I think this is
also a disaster.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It goes back to your fat free cookies, like it is,
it's it is, It's true, it's all this, it's all
this idea your so calls exactly. I think that that
is probably, in my opinion, the most depressing thing that
has happened, which is that if, as you said, if
these strokes are so good at controlling your you know,
heart disease and preventing strokes and you know, preventing people
(25:34):
from going a kidney dialysis, which there is data to
suggest that as well, but then the food industry actually decides, well, actually,
you might be craving a salmon pilet, but I can
make you this ready meal that can sit on a
shelf for a year and it tastes just like that
salmon pillt that you're craving, and it and the problem
goes on. And I think that is that's not a
(25:55):
good place to be in. And I think that I
did mention this to one of the scientists who was
involved and creating things, and she was just so mad
when I told her that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
She just was like, oh my god, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
This was these are supposed to be fixing this problem.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So yeah, I think so they figured out a way
because I find it interesting that you're like, Okay, so
people start craving salads and they go to the pro
or the produce section. They're getting like, you know, those fresh,
crunchy foods, and then you read that big food is like,
we've decided it's a mouthfeel thing that they don't like
from our old food that they got addicted to, so
(26:31):
now we're gonna make it crunchier. They are kind of
mimicking the mouth feel, which I don't like that word.
It freaks me out for some reason, but the mouthfeel
of fresh food in a highly processed food to get
us back into eating bad food, which is crazy. I mean,
I get it, it's this is capitalism, this is an industry,
(26:53):
but I still am like, oh my gosh, this is
how crazy what we're eating actually is.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think I think the mouthfeel I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I remember hearing that term for the first time and
I was like, that is the most disgusting thing I've
ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Like that this that like yogurt.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Apparently low fat yogurt really doesn't have a good mouthfeel
to it, like doesn't have the same as like full
fat yogurt does. So they're always trying to figure out
ways to tweak it chalky and not smooth.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, yes, so they do. They spend a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But I think that what food manufacturers are thinking is
that people are ultimately lazy and not even like time poored,
just a bit lazy. So if you think to yourself
that you don't like soda anymore, so you like are
squeezing your lemons into your water and you're you know,
that's what you're craving. They're like, don't squeeze the lemon.
We'll squeeze the lemon for you. And we have to
(27:40):
do with some other things to it too, but we'll
do that and then you can buy it in cans,
you put it into your shelf and it's all great.
So I do think that that's the way they're going
to get around this. But I think when you look
at the valuations of these companies, to stop price these companies,
I don't think that's invest what investors think is going
to happen. I think investors think that these guys are
going to get smaller and that is just going to
be a reality that maybe they can do tweaks around
(28:02):
the edges. But if you're not if you're not creating
this stuff, and you walk into a supermarket and you
see this lovely chicken breast that looks great. Maybe that
is what you gotta go for rather than the ready meal,
and I think, yeah, I think hopefully that's the future.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
It has made me rethink everything.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I mean, and I had already I had already been looking,
you know, I'd already been curious about what's in the
labels and how do I just what the girls are eating,
and how do I try to be more focused on
what we're eating?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
But you do you get busy to run back to
the office.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh, I'll just get Chick fil A on my way home.
I mean, I am guilty of that. And then you
just said that thing about the water, and I'm like,
I fell for this. Yesterday I went to the airport
and there was a water that was called Hint because
it had a hint of watermelon flavor, and I'm like,
that sounds lovely. What else was in it I've done?
And where did the watermelon flavor come from? Because it
(28:53):
didn't look like watermelon. H Yes, I'm still falling for.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It, absolutely absolutely, But I mean I have spoken to
people who say that this will be like statins in
the future, like these drugs will be like Staaten's that
you will reach a certain age and most people will
be on them. And I think that that does speak
to the fact that in America, for example, about seventy
percent of people are overweight or living with obesity, so
(29:18):
that that would be most people would be on these drugs.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Okay, but you are thin, but
you look different.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
It's not the same thin as just a healthy thin.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
And you can definitely tell that the muscle tone is
not there, or it's like weird. The muscles are sticking
out and the skin is hanging. It's like a weird look.
I mean, you brought up Katy Perry, and I'm not
saying Katy Perry is on this, but I did see
a picture of her with the Prime Minister who is
apparently now her boyfriend of Canada with the Prime Minister
of Japan, I think, and I was like, this is
(29:58):
going to be your best look, right, because you are
gonna look as good as you can to go meet
the Prime Minister of Japan, I mean, I would think,
and she looked like hell I have to say, and
I'm not someone that like rips some people. I mean,
she looked beautiful because she's Katy Perry, but she just
didn't look like Katy Perry. I should say that, not
like hell. I didn't like the way she had her hairstyled,
(30:19):
but you know what, to each their own. But her
face does look sunken in and she has it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Look like her face.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It's just like she looks very different in her and
her body is not there's no shape to it.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
It's just like she was like a line with arms.
It's a strange look. It doesn't look the.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Same as you yourself if you just lost weight working out,
which I and I also understand that that's also not
something everybody can do. But I feel like there are
certain people who Katy Perry was never like obese.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
So I think the one thing that I would say
about all of this, and I have to say, I
the one thing I guess I'm uncomfortable about is even
like discussing people who might be on these drugs or
might not be on these drugs, just because I think
that speaks to like, again, this whole idea of like
people's bodies are sort of like a commodity that we
could just like you didn't mean like we could just discuss.
(31:15):
But I think to the point about, there are side
effects that go along with these drugs.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
So for example, you get hollowed out cheeks.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So one of the people I spoke to for the book,
she talked about having actually to go through a lot
of plastic surgery after losing a lot of weight.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
She said that she.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Could hold literally like handfuls of her skin and her
back and her buttocks because she was losing so much weight.
And I think to your point about is if you
were to diet and exercise, you lose about twenty five
percent muscle mass when you do that.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That's a lot, But.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's not that's what they'll be another like we'll call
it a natural diet. If you're on a zempic, you
lose forty percent muscle mass.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Forty percent?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
And that's and that is really bad if you are older,
because you've become more prone to full There was a
there was a lady I listened to. I went to
a conference in Texas last year and it was an
obesity conference. So everyone there was like an expersion obesity
and there was a lady who was running a trial
with veterans who were taking ozembic and these weight loss drugs,
(32:16):
and she got a call from the guy who was
running the day that was like, you need to stop
this trial and she said why and he said, they're
losing too much muscle. This is really dangerous for them.
They're going to start having falls. They're going to start
having bad falls. And then she said that they had
this big kind of discussion about the fact that they
which was worse, which was worse of the obese effects,
(32:36):
like basically the problems with the disease or these falls.
And what they decided was they would monitor the falls
make sure that their falls weren't happening, but that would
be something that you would start to see with people
losing a lot of muscle mass. So that is and
when I speak to endochronologists to these are the people.
This is another reason I think why everyone shouldn't be
on these drugs is if you're being prescribed these drugs
(32:57):
properly under the guidance and supervision of doctor, they will
see the symptoms and they will be looking at your
body going okay, so enough of that, let's keep you
on the stoves a little bit longer because your stomach
side effects are too bad or you're losing too much
muscle mass. But if you're at home and you've just
bought these as like a compound from your pharmacy, nobody's
(33:17):
watching you, nobody's observing you. I do think that this
would have a lot of effects on your body, and
effects that, like, as you said, effects that maybe are
not the way they should be and or have to be,
you know. And but yeah, I think that's that's kind
of what we're seeing with certain people who lose a
huge bound of weight very very quickly.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I have so many more questions, but I know we're
out of town time. I have seen, you know, we've
seen like people that it shows it's in their refrigerator
when they're doing some reality show or something, and you
can you see that hollowed out cheek look. And you know,
I think we're all very curious. Everyone is curious because
no matter what I mean, as you get older, you're right,
(33:59):
your body changed, and you're like, this seems so easy
all I have to do. I want to not have
to work out, I want to not have to change
what I eat. I want something that I inject that
just makes me change what I eat. I want it
to just happen, you know, because I'm lazy and we
are all lazy. Let's face it, that sounds lovely. It's
(34:20):
just going to do it for me. But that's why
we are so curious as to like, Okay, what is
it really like? I read this terrible story which I
don't even know if this is true, but I read
this story where some people's skin is almost like it's
not attached to their body anymore, like the ozembic had
some weird effect on them.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
That sounds terrible. Does it reattach if you stop? I
doubt it. I don't know. It freaks me out.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I haven't heard that, but I will lady with one anecdote,
which again I think speaks to what you're talking about
about how desperate people are. A woman I spoke to
said that she was really trying to get these drugs
and now she is not overweight in by any means,
and every doctor she w to. The doctor was like, no,
absolutely not. You do not fit the criteria for these drugs.
I'm not prescribing them to you. So she's talking to
(35:07):
one of the mothers that drop off and they are
a doctor and they're like, I could get you some ozampic.
I'll get you some osampic. So she goes on ozempic
and we had this discussion and I said, why are
you taking this? This is crazy and you're not overweight
and she said, I have this weight, I've had three kids.
I want to lose this weight. I'm just going to
do this. And then I said, but what happens if
(35:28):
this causes you long term problems? What if this shortens
your life somehow? And she said, I would rather die
thin at sixty than live until I was eighty and
be fat.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Isn't that terrible that we feel that way?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And I said, you would miss grandkids, weddings, all sorts
of things, and she said, yep, but that's how That's
how important it was to her.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So obviously our body positivity campaign didn't actually work well.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
It stinks, and I don't like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
It's not this is not something that I take joy in.
I didn't think it was working. But I also it
was a weird situation because we felt like we were
celebrating being unhealthy. But then now when I read your book,
you go through all of the different body types and
how people react differently. I'm like, well, maybe we just
needed to be smarter about the fact that our everybody's
(36:20):
body is processing something differently, and it is really hard
to get good food, and maybe we need to be
pushed back on the big food industry to say you've
got to take some of the stuff out, which I
think we're starting to say that, but it is.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
All crazy, all crazy, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Okay, So tell people where they can get the book
because it is very insightful and I do think that
if you're curious about ozempic and you're curious about your
weight off the scales, the inside story of Ozempic and
the race to kier obesity is for you.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
So tell us where to find it.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
You can find it on Amazon. You can find it
on Barnes and Noble. It can find it on Target.
You find a pretty much at any bookstore.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And where can people follow you?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
You can follow me. I'm on X and I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I have like a personal account which nobody will be
interested in because it's my kids basically on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
But I think X, basically at LinkedIn is where you
can find me.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Okay, awesome. Amy Donohan Thank you so much for being
on the podcast. I appreciate it. It was an enlightening conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Very nice to talk to you too, Tutor, thank you absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And thank you all for listening to the Tutor Dixon podcast.
You know where you can get it, the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and you
can watch it on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor Dixon.
But make sure you join us next time and have
a very blessed day.
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Buck Sexton
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