May 20, 2025 • 6 mins
Em Gillespie investigates the complex world of medicated weight-loss.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
My Heart podcasts, hear more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Playlists and listen live on the Free iHeart.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
App Jersey and Amanda jam.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nation m Gillespie. That's entertainment is here. She's fresh back
from Switzerland for Eurovision.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yeah, he was the goss. Did you see Gojo perform?
I did.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
It was incredible, the craziest best thing I've ever done.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How did Gojo lose? Come on, that's.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
You say lose? Didn't even get a foot in.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The door and got beaten by this Sheila.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
That's a man, this man Austria. But what happened to Gojo?
Because I thought it was great?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
So Gojo performed in the second semi final. I was
there in the room. He was fantastic. He was first
cub off the rank, though, which can be a bit
of a curse in these settings because by the time
you get through there were sixteen performances in the semifinals,
so by the time you get to number sixteen, people
kind of forget who number one was. But I'm telling you,
Switzerland absolutely loved Gojo. I was there for the whole
(01:01):
thing as a guest of Booking dot Com. It was
an absolute amazing it was my Footies finals, it was
my Eras Tour, it was Disneyland on crack. It was amazing.
And everyone I met over the course of a few
days who found out I was Australian, they were.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Like, justice for the milkshake man, We love gold Joe,
what happened? He was so great?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Everyone was obsessed with him, so it was a huge
crowd favorite. I think he just got let down in
the vote because it's a listener of your vote for
the semifinals, so purely relies on people texting in, and
it's five am for us here. I just don't think
that there's enough kind of love and tobody mind for us.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
But then the Grand Final is decided by jury vote
and text vote, and that's how we ended up with Austria.
But as I said, in Switzerland, you can't spell Australia
without Austria. So basically we kind of won.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Let's assume we want investigating a zen everyone talks about
is a story in the news, a zepic sending people blind.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, wee latest and the cost of a zepic face.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, in a harsh pivot. I'm here to talk to
you today about Moonlight on the side is a semi
serious journalist. When I'm not here talking to you guys,
this is of course my number one priority in passion,
But in my day job, I'm a journalist, and I
started investigating ozepic. We've seen all these headlines for years, right,
It's all over the news all the time. But we
wanted to kind of look a little bit closer at
(02:19):
what is the Australian relationship to ozempic. How many people
are actually taking these drugs, how popular is it, what
are the side effects that maybe aren't being talked about.
Because it's prescribed for weight loss, that's an off label
use what doctors call off label use, so it's not
subsidized by the PBS. So unless you take it for
diabetes type two treatment, you have to pay about four
(02:41):
hundred dollars a month, so it's really expensive. But these
are private prescriptions and that means there's no tracking, so
there's no data that really tells us how many people
take these meds. When I say ozmpic, I'm talking about
other medications like we go via munjarro, the call glp
ones same thing, but we just call them all ozen pic.
And what we discovered we kind of did polling of
our audience. Twenty five thousand people responded to a pole
(03:04):
that The Daily I was conducted. We found out eleven
percent said that they had taken it, but nearly half
said that they want to take it. So we know
there's this really big appetite part of the can for
these medications, and you know what does that actually mean
for our health system, for social media, for the culture.
We interviewed dozens of really incredible young people who were
(03:26):
super honest and vulnerable with us and came forward with
some horrifying side effects, so we kind of wanted to
explore that a bit more. There are some really underreported
mental health side effects opic. Yeah, we spoke to an
amazing young woman. Her name's McKenzie. She's twenty six years old.
She started taking ozenpic for weight loss, and then within
weeks she was in hospital suicidal ideation, horrific mental health
(03:50):
side of the drug because of the drug, because she
was on antidepressants long term, but ozepic stuffed up the
way her body was absorbing those antidepressants and doctors never
flagged that with her. Studies are kind of inconclusive, but
there's a database from the therapeutic goods administration here in Australia,
where doctors can log adverse side effects to medications, and
(04:11):
one in twenty negative side effects from ozenpic is suicidal ideation.
So it's this really underreported issue, so we wanted to
explore more about the mental health side effects. We also
explored more about prescribing practices. I don't know if you've
heard of Juniper, but you might have seen it on
the back of the bus or advertised during maths. It's
a huge telehealth provider in Australia and almost everyone we
(04:33):
spoke to was prescribed a weight loss medication through that platform.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So they're not seeing their family doctor, is what you say, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
So then there are the questions of well, why why
aren't people going to face to face GPS.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And no one's really admitting that they take a zempic.
There's a bunch of how many people have we noticed,
like large people that suddenly look thin.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But not even large people.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I think we can we know the health benefits to
our society of the cost of obesity, but there's a
lot of people taking it just to lose a couple.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Of keilers exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And I've interviewed a bunch of women who started taking it.
You know, they were perfectly healthy. They might have lied
about their BMI to get it, and how easy is
it to lie to get it? Well, listen to the
podcast to find out. But spoiler alert, if you are
that determined, you probably can access it. And then the ramifications,
you know, eating disorders. So many young people who are
(05:19):
taking it too far are and there aren't the kind
of safety nets in place. They're falling through the system.
There's all these gaps and no one knows that all
these people are taking it and possibly need help for
other issues. And then, you know, what's the social impact
of when we see all these dramatic transformations around us,
when it's the celebrities on the red plumpets, but then
when it's the people down the hall in our workplaces,
(05:40):
when all those bodies are changing, what does that mean
for us psychologically?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Just Magula cuddy up the shops and suddenly looks in terms.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Of body acceptance, what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
So interviewed a range of people with lived experience with experts, doctors,
science and nutrition experts, the whole gamut. It's a three
part series. You can search the Daily OZ wherever you
listen to your podcasts at a US for OZ and
it's called Investigating Zimbic. It's all over my social media
at M Underschool Gillespie if you want to find it there.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Absolutely, I think fascinating.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I like when you put on your journalists.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Very elaborate M. Gillespie check out at the Daily OS.
Thank you for join M. We'll catch you next week
My Heart podcasts, hear more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Playlists and listen live on the Free iHeart.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
App Jersey and Amanda jam.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nation m Gillespie. That's entertainment is here. She's fresh back
from Switzerland for Eurovision.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yeah, he was the goss. Did you see Gojo perform?
I did.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
It was incredible, the craziest best thing I've ever done.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How did Gojo lose? Come on, that's.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
You say lose? Didn't even get a foot in.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The door and got beaten by this Sheila.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
That's a man, this man Austria. But what happened to Gojo?
Because I thought it was great?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
So Gojo performed in the second semi final. I was
there in the room. He was fantastic. He was first
cub off the rank, though, which can be a bit
of a curse in these settings because by the time
you get through there were sixteen performances in the semifinals,
so by the time you get to number sixteen, people
kind of forget who number one was. But I'm telling you,
Switzerland absolutely loved Gojo. I was there for the whole
(01:01):
thing as a guest of Booking dot Com. It was
an absolute amazing it was my Footies finals, it was
my Eras Tour, it was Disneyland on crack. It was amazing.
And everyone I met over the course of a few
days who found out I was Australian, they were.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Like, justice for the milkshake man, We love gold Joe,
what happened? He was so great?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Everyone was obsessed with him, so it was a huge
crowd favorite. I think he just got let down in
the vote because it's a listener of your vote for
the semifinals, so purely relies on people texting in, and
it's five am for us here. I just don't think
that there's enough kind of love and tobody mind for us.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
But then the Grand Final is decided by jury vote
and text vote, and that's how we ended up with Austria.
But as I said, in Switzerland, you can't spell Australia
without Austria. So basically we kind of won.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Let's assume we want investigating a zen everyone talks about
is a story in the news, a zepic sending people blind.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, wee latest and the cost of a zepic face.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, in a harsh pivot. I'm here to talk to
you today about Moonlight on the side is a semi
serious journalist. When I'm not here talking to you guys,
this is of course my number one priority in passion,
But in my day job, I'm a journalist, and I
started investigating ozepic. We've seen all these headlines for years, right,
It's all over the news all the time. But we
wanted to kind of look a little bit closer at
(02:19):
what is the Australian relationship to ozempic. How many people
are actually taking these drugs, how popular is it, what
are the side effects that maybe aren't being talked about.
Because it's prescribed for weight loss, that's an off label
use what doctors call off label use, so it's not
subsidized by the PBS. So unless you take it for
diabetes type two treatment, you have to pay about four
(02:41):
hundred dollars a month, so it's really expensive. But these
are private prescriptions and that means there's no tracking, so
there's no data that really tells us how many people
take these meds. When I say ozmpic, I'm talking about
other medications like we go via munjarro, the call glp
ones same thing, but we just call them all ozen pic.
And what we discovered we kind of did polling of
our audience. Twenty five thousand people responded to a pole
(03:04):
that The Daily I was conducted. We found out eleven
percent said that they had taken it, but nearly half
said that they want to take it. So we know
there's this really big appetite part of the can for
these medications, and you know what does that actually mean
for our health system, for social media, for the culture.
We interviewed dozens of really incredible young people who were
(03:26):
super honest and vulnerable with us and came forward with
some horrifying side effects, so we kind of wanted to
explore that a bit more. There are some really underreported
mental health side effects opic. Yeah, we spoke to an
amazing young woman. Her name's McKenzie. She's twenty six years old.
She started taking ozenpic for weight loss, and then within
weeks she was in hospital suicidal ideation, horrific mental health
(03:50):
side of the drug because of the drug, because she
was on antidepressants long term, but ozepic stuffed up the
way her body was absorbing those antidepressants and doctors never
flagged that with her. Studies are kind of inconclusive, but
there's a database from the therapeutic goods administration here in Australia,
where doctors can log adverse side effects to medications, and
(04:11):
one in twenty negative side effects from ozenpic is suicidal ideation.
So it's this really underreported issue, so we wanted to
explore more about the mental health side effects. We also
explored more about prescribing practices. I don't know if you've
heard of Juniper, but you might have seen it on
the back of the bus or advertised during maths. It's
a huge telehealth provider in Australia and almost everyone we
(04:33):
spoke to was prescribed a weight loss medication through that platform.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So they're not seeing their family doctor, is what you say, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
So then there are the questions of well, why why
aren't people going to face to face GPS.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And no one's really admitting that they take a zempic.
There's a bunch of how many people have we noticed,
like large people that suddenly look thin.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But not even large people.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I think we can we know the health benefits to
our society of the cost of obesity, but there's a
lot of people taking it just to lose a couple.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Of keilers exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And I've interviewed a bunch of women who started taking it.
You know, they were perfectly healthy. They might have lied
about their BMI to get it, and how easy is
it to lie to get it? Well, listen to the
podcast to find out. But spoiler alert, if you are
that determined, you probably can access it. And then the ramifications,
you know, eating disorders. So many young people who are
(05:19):
taking it too far are and there aren't the kind
of safety nets in place. They're falling through the system.
There's all these gaps and no one knows that all
these people are taking it and possibly need help for
other issues. And then, you know, what's the social impact
of when we see all these dramatic transformations around us,
when it's the celebrities on the red plumpets, but then
when it's the people down the hall in our workplaces,
(05:40):
when all those bodies are changing, what does that mean
for us psychologically?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Just Magula cuddy up the shops and suddenly looks in terms.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Of body acceptance, what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
So interviewed a range of people with lived experience with experts, doctors,
science and nutrition experts, the whole gamut. It's a three
part series. You can search the Daily OZ wherever you
listen to your podcasts at a US for OZ and
it's called Investigating Zimbic. It's all over my social media
at M Underschool Gillespie if you want to find it there.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Absolutely, I think fascinating.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I like when you put on your journalists.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Very elaborate M. Gillespie check out at the Daily OS.
Thank you for join M. We'll catch you next week
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