August 25, 2024 • 25 mins
You’ve likely heard the headlines gushing about the weight loss effects of the GLP-1 agonist class of drugs, agents that go by names like Wegovy, Mounjaro, Rebelsus and others. Doctors are declaring these drugs as breakthroughs or even magical, witnessing the rapid and dramatic weight loss they can achieve.
People appear willing to accept the side-effects of nausea, vomiting, even bowel obstruction, a catastrophic complication, or thyroid cancer, or pancreatitis that can irreversibly damage your pancreas and make you a type 1 diabetic. They also accept the costs that vary widely, depending on who dispenses it, but not uncommonly hundreds of dollars, even over a thousand dollars a month. And doctors jump at the chance to prescribe these drugs, as they often have arrangements with the dispensing pharmacy for kickbacks in one form or another. Prescribe the drug, make a lot of money, for many doctors an irresistible temptation.
People lose weight and even can become non-type 2 diabetic and modestly reduce risk for heart disease—so what’s not to like?
Plenty. That is the topic of discussion today on the Defiant Health podcast, a place where you hear ideas you cannot hear anywhere else because we dig deeper, are not swayed by big payoffs, and thumb our nose at conventional wisdom. The GLP-1 agonist drugs are not miraculous, but invite health disaster or hold you hostage for the rest of your life, shelling out money to enrich the pharmaceutical industry and doctors.
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Books:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You've likely heard the headlines gushing about the
weight loss effects of the GLP-1agonist class of drugs agents
that go by names like Wegovi,monjaro, rebelsis and others.
Doctors are declaring thesedrugs as breakthroughs or even
magical, witnessing the rapidand dramatic weight loss they
can achieve.
People appear willing to acceptthe side effects of nausea,
(00:29):
vomiting, even bowel obstruction, a surgical emergency and
pancreatitis and thyroid cancer.
They also accept the costs.
That can vary widely dependingon who dispenses it, but not
uncommonly hundreds of dollarsor even over a thousand dollars
every month.
And doctors jump at the chanceto prescribe these drugs as they
often have arrangements withthe dispensing pharmacy for
(00:52):
kickbacks in one form or another.
Prescribe the drug, make a lotof money for many doctors and
irresistible temptation.
People lose weight and even canbecome non-type two diabetic
and modestly reduce risk forheart disease.
So what's not to like?
Plenty?
That is the topic of discussiontoday on the Defiant Health
podcast, a place where you canhear ideas you cannot hear
(01:15):
anywhere else, because we digdeeper, are not swayed by big
payoffs and thumb our nose atconventional wisdom.
And later in the podcast let'stalk about Define Health's
sponsors Paleo Valley, ourpreferred provider for many
excellent organic and grass-fedfood products and BiotiQuest, my
number one choice forprobiotics that are
(01:36):
scientifically formulated,unlike most of the other
commercial probiotic productsavailable today products
available today.
The GLP agonist world now earnsthe pharmaceutical industry
about $10 billion a year, andgrowing rapidly.
Celebrities gush about theeffects of these drugs People
like Kelly Clarkson, oprahWinfrey, elon Musk, boris
(01:59):
Johnson and they've lost weight.
Doctors and pharmacies havejumped on board and they seem to
not be able to even dispensethem fast enough.
There's even been shortages forpeople who need these drugs for
reducing their blood sugar andtype 2 diabetes.
Doctors receive kickbacks inmany instances.
They have arrangements withpharmacies, often incorporating
pharmacies into their practicesso that they can get a kickback
(02:23):
by prescribing these drugs.
So doctors have a hard timeresisting this impulse to make a
lot of money by dispensingthese popular drugs.
Now, because these drugs arebeing dispensed so freely, they
are increasing overall healthinsurance costs for people like
you and me.
In other words, even if you'renot taking it, but your neighbor
or co-worker or somebody elseis taking it, that adds to
(02:46):
overall health care costs andthat is passed on to you.
Now health care costs wereincreasing to terrible levels
already.
Now it's even worse because ofthis class of drugs and people
are willing to endure the commonside effects like nausea and
vomiting and regurgitation thatcan lead to aspiration, which
has happened in a number ofpeople, including pregnant moms,
(03:08):
because of the increase in theintra-abdominal pressure that
caused them to regurgitate or tovomit.
And there have been episodes ofaspiration pneumonia where you
inhale your stomach contents and, of course, bowel obstruction
and other catastrophic sideeffects.
So people are willing to riskthese things in order to lose
weight, and these drugs do work.
(03:28):
There's no denying it thatpeople do lose a lot of weight.
How do they work?
Well, the GLP-1 agonists reduceappetite.
They reduce your interest infood.
They also slow digestion or thepassage of food through the
stomach, so much so thatanesthesiologists have
recognized that you must stopthe drug about a week ahead of
(03:48):
time before any kind of surgicalprocedure where you're going to
undergo general anesthesia,because if you have food in your
stomach from a meal you had,say, three days ago, you can
aspirate that when you're undergeneral anesthesia.
So anesthesiologists insistthat you stop taking these drugs
about a week ahead of time.
Now here's something to ponder.
So GLP-Agnus caused weight lossby reducing your interest in
(04:13):
food, reducing calorie intakesimilar to what is achieved with
bariatric procedures such aslap band or gastric bypass,
situations in which the stomachvolume is reduced, or methods of
reducing calorie intake.
We could call it move more, eatless.
We could call it weightwatchers we just push the plate
away.
(04:33):
All the methods that people use, apps that identify stress
triggers for eating these areall variations on the same theme
reducing calorie intake.
Now we know with good sciencemany clinical studies have told
us this when you reduce calorieintake, regardless of the method
used GLP agonist diet,bariatric procedure doesn't
(04:54):
matter.
Regardless of the method used,when you reduce calories,
approximately 25% of the weightlost is muscle.
In some instances, with GLP-1agonists, it can be as much as
50 percent of weight loss ismuscle.
So let's say you paid $12,000to lose 40 pounds by injecting
yourself with Wegovi for a year.
(05:16):
Well, most people can't affordto do that forever, so they stop
the drug.
Of that 40 pounds they lost, 10pounds was muscle, 30 pounds
was fat.
They stopped the drug, theyregained typically 32 to 34
pounds of almost all fat, andmost of that fat is abdominal
fat.
Abdominal fat is the mostproblematic form of fat as
(05:40):
compared to, say, subcutaneousfat, that's fat just beneath the
skin that tends to accumulatein places like the neck, chest,
buttocks, thighs.
So it's the intra-abdominal fat, that is, fat that surrounds
the abdominal organs, that's thesource of most of the problems
associated with obesity andleads to effects like heart
disease risk, risk for dementia,breast cancer, other cancers.
(06:04):
That risk is increased byabdominal fat, abdominal
visceral fat.
So when you stop the GLP-1agonist, you regain fat, and you
mostly in the abdomen, and soyou are more prone to
prediabetes, type 2 diabetes,coronary heart disease, dementia
, alzheimer's, breast cancer andother conditions.
You're at greater risk nowafter having regained the fat
(06:27):
than you were at the start.
So you paid pharma $12,000 tobe less healthy, to have more
common health conditions.
And, by the way, the loss ofsubcutaneous fat in the face,
coupled with loss of muscle, isresponsible for this phenomenon
that some people call ozympicface.
It's not unique to ozympic,it's shared by all GLP-1
(06:49):
agonists.
But it's the loss ofsubcutaneous fat and muscle in
the face that makes people oftenlook 10 to 20 years older, with
sagging jowls, deeper wrinkles,etc.
All from losing the fat andmuscle in the face.
Another thing to know about theGLP-1 agonists is they
preferentially cause loss ofsubcutaneous fat.
(07:10):
Now wait a minute.
If abdominal visceral fat isthe source of most of the
problems associated with obesity, why would you take a drug that
preferentially targetssubcutaneous fat?
You do lose some abdominalvisceral fat, but GLP-1 agonists
favor the loss of subcutaneousfat.
When you stop it, the fat comesback, mostly in the abdomen.
(07:30):
So the GLP-1 agonist world setsyou up for deterioration in
health.
Now that loss of muscle is acritical thing, because muscle
is the principal driver of yourmetabolic rate, of your basal
metabolic rate.
We say BMR, that is the rate atwhich your body burns calories
for the work of living, the workof breathing, digestion,
(07:53):
production of various proteinsin the body.
That all requires energy andyour body's doing this even when
you're sleeping, even whenyou're sitting watching TV, at
this rate called basal metabolicrate.
Well, when you lose muscle,basal metabolic rate plummets to
very low levels.
So there's a recent study, forinstance, called the biggest
loser study.
(08:13):
You remember that TV show wherepeople are put through an
extreme program of cuttingcalories and extreme exercise,
like Danny Cahill, for instance,who won the eighth season by
dropping weight.
From 430 pounds he lost 200, anincredible 239 pounds,
incredible will and effort.
So over seven months he lost239 pounds.
(08:37):
He won the show.
He looked great.
He won the $250,000 prize.
Left the show, won the $250,000prize.
Left the show.
Continued a very low-calorielifestyle and two hours a day
exercising.
I had a conversation with himand he said he kept on a very
extreme effort and regained theweight.
Now he and the graduates ofthat eighth season were studied
(08:58):
formally studied by a researchgroup at the National Institutes
of Health, the NIH, and theymeasured the basal metabolic
rate of these people after theyleft the show and they saw a
dramatic reduction in basalmetabolic rate, about 27%.
That persisted for as long asthe study continued, which was
six years.
So, for all practical purposes,when you lose weight by cutting
(09:22):
calories in this case evenincorporating strength training,
resistance training to increasemuscle despite that, they still
lost a lot of muscle and theyregained all the weight due to
the reduction in basal metabolicrate.
So cutting calories is aloser's game.
It guarantees that you losemuscle and will thereby regain
the weight.
Now, do these phenomena apply tothe GLP-1 agonist world?
(09:44):
Yes, they do.
There is evidence that peoplecan lose a lot of weight when
they stop the drug.
They regain the fat due to theprecipitous loss of muscle.
So people have to make a choice.
You can stop the drug andaccept that you'll regain a lot
of fat and be less healthy thanyou were at the start, or you
can continue the drug forever.
(10:06):
That, of course, is what thepharmaceutical industry wants.
They have this great flow ofrevenue from people who are
essentially held hostage by theneed, the reliance, and, of
course, over time you're moreand more likely to develop some
of those catastrophic sideeffects.
So you're stuck on these drugs.
This is what the pharmaceuticalindustry has created, this way
to hold the public hostage tothe use of these drugs, and it's
(10:28):
aided and abetted by mostdoctors.
You may also see headlinesannouncing that the use of these
GLP-1 agonists reduce thelikelihood that you have type 2
diabetes or heart disease.
By the way, the studies suggestabout a 1% reduction not a big
one, very small reduction incardiovascular events Only if
you stay on the drug.
(10:49):
If you stop the drug, you'remore prone to type 2 diabetes,
more prone to heart disease,heart attack, sudden cardiac
death.
So there's only a modestreduction in these things if you
stay on the drug and continuethat flow of revenue into the
pockets of the pharmaceuticalindustry.
Now let me pause for a momentto tell you something about
Defiant Health's sponsors, andwhen we come back let's pick up
(11:11):
the conversation on how you dohave a choice when you don't
start the GLP-1 agonist at alland don't get tangled up in that
mess.
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Now let's get back to ourdiscussion.
So, to avoid being tangled upin this GLP-1 agonist mess, the
key is to never start the drugsin the first place, because
there are effective ways to loseweight.
But I would say a better way tothink about this is don't think
(14:07):
about weight loss per se, let'sthink about improving your
shape and body composition.
That is, let's find ways tospecifically target the most
problematic form of fatabdominal visceral fat and also
some subcutaneous fat also butalso preserve or even increase
(14:27):
muscle and thereby maintain oreven increase your basal
metabolic rate, so that weightdoesn't come back and may even
accelerate weight loss.
Well, how do you do that?
How do you achieve all that?
Well, you follow what we do inour programs.
We follow a smarter diet.
We don't cut calories.
We never cut calories.
We don't cut fat or saturatedfat or cholesterol.
(14:49):
We follow a diet thateliminates wheat, grains and
sugars.
Recall that wheat has a proteinin it called gliadin and
related proteins in other grains, like the cecilin and rye, the
hortian in barley and the zeanin corn.
These proteins are notdigestible, fully digestible by
humans.
We lack the enzymes that breakthem down into single amino
(15:11):
acids, so we break theseproteins down to four or five
amino acid long peptides peptidefragments that are able to
cross into the brain andstimulate opioid receptors.
They don't make you high,however, they stimulate appetite
.
So when you eliminate wheat,grains and sugars, you thereby
eliminate glide and drive opioid, peptide appetite stimulants
(15:36):
and you will find yourselfmiraculously freed from hunger
and you're not tempted anymore.
It may take a few days for thisto occur, but it happens
typically within the first fewdays after you banish all wheat,
grains and sugars and therebyglide and derive opioid, peptide
appetite stimulants.
We never limit fat, we neverlimit calories.
We also restore nutrients thatare largely lacking in modern
(16:00):
life Magnesium, iodine, omega-3fatty acids and vitamin D.
Now, when you replace thosethings, they synergize to
minimize insulin resistance.
Recall that insulin resistancesimply means that your body no
longer responds well to insulin,so your pancreas
overcompensates by producinghuge amounts of insulin, and
(16:21):
insulin causes expansion ofabdominal fat.
So we're going to take thosenutrients vitamin D, omega-3
fatty acids, iodine, magnesiumthat synergize to minimize or
reduce insulin resistance,accelerating the loss of the
most problematic form of fatabdominal visceral fat.
And I say those nutrients aremissing because of modern life,
(16:43):
not because of the diet, butbecause of modern life.
So magnesium, for instance,we're supposed to get from
drinking water, from water thatruns over rocks and minerals and
rivers and streams, and fromwild food, wild plants.
But we can't drink water freelyfrom rivers and streams.
Right, it's tainted, it'scontaminated by sewage and other
things.
So we have to filter the water,and water filtration is very
(17:04):
effective, very efficient atremoving all magnesium.
Likewise, modern produce hasabout 80, maybe as much as 90%
less magnesium than it used tohave.
So we're getting very littlemagnesium from our produce.
So we supplement magnesium.
Vitamin D, of course we aresupposed to get from exposure of
the skin to sun, but many of uslive our lives indoors, we wear
(17:27):
clothes in public and we alsolose the capacity to activate
vitamin D in the skin upon sunexposure as we get older,
especially after age 40.
Iodine we're supposed to getfrom seafood and seaweed, but
most of us don't consume thosethings very often, so we don't
get much iodine.
And fish is now contaminated bymercury, shellfish by cadmium,
(17:48):
the heavy metals, so we can'tget those things, we can't eat
those foods as much as we'd like, so we supplement iodine.
And then, lastly, omega-3 fattyacids are supposed to come from
the consumption of brain, brainas well as seafood and
shellfish.
But once again we can't eat allthis seafood and shellfish we
want because of mercury andcadmium contamination.
And most modern people havelost interest in consuming organ
(18:10):
meats like brain.
So we supplement omega-3 fattyacids from fish oil.
Lastly, we address disruptedbowel flora.
So almost everybody has atleast dysbiosis, that is,
disruption of the microbialcomposition in the colon,
colonic dysbiosis.
But approximately half of youalso have small intestinal
bacterial overgrowth, or we saySIBO, s-i-b-o.
(18:33):
What that means is that ouroverexposure to antibiotics, to
other factors like glyphosate,the herbicide in food, many
foods, other herbicides andpesticides, stomach acid
blocking drugs, food additiveslike preservatives that are
antimicrobial, emulsifyingagents like polysorbate 80 and
carboxymethylcellulose, on andon and on we are swimming in a
(18:56):
sea of factors that havedisrupted the gastrointestinal
microbiome.
One of the consequences of thisdisruption is that fecal
microbes in a class calledproteobacteria, fecal microbes,
have overproliferated.
These are species like E coli,salmonella, campylobacter.
They've overpopulated and,remarkably, in about one of
(19:18):
every two people, about 150million Americans, these fecal
microbes have been allowed toascend into the small intestine,
the 24 feet of small intestine,and take up residence.
Now, these fecal microbes don'tlive very long.
They live for a few hours atmost.
So there's trillions ofmicrobes turning over rapidly in
the 24 feet of small intestine.
(19:40):
The small intestine is poorlyequipped to handle this flood of
fecal microbes.
It's very penetrable by design,because that's where the small
intestine is where you'resupposed to absorb amino acids,
fatty acids, vitamins andminerals.
But when the small intestine isinvaded by fecal microbes that
live and die rapidly, they shedsome of their byproducts
(20:05):
especially something calledlipopolysaccharide endotoxin or
LPS endotoxin into theintestines that then penetrate
across the intestinal wall andget into your bloodstream.
And the entry of LPS endotoxininto the bloodstream is called
endotoxemia.
Has endotoxin into thebloodstream is called
endotoxemia.
That's a major driver ofinsulin resistance, inflammation
and weight gain, especially inthe abdomen.
(20:27):
So we address SIBO, colonicdysbiosis and endotoxemia.
How do we do that?
Well, that's our program forrebuilding a healthy
gastrointestinal microbiome.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, please refer to
my Super Gut book, to my otherepisodes of the Defiant Health
podcast where I discuss SIBO andhow to manage it.
Also my blog.
I have several thousand postson my blog,
(20:49):
drdavisinfinitehealthcom blog.
You'll see that we do thingsvery, very differently.
For instance, one of thereasons I believe that so many
people now have seabone, besidesantibiotics and other factors,
is we've lost microbes, healthymicrobes, probiotic species that
previously colonized the smallintestine, especially two in
(21:12):
particular Lactobacillus rhoderiand Lactobacillus gasseri.
These are two species that areable to colonize the small
intestine.
Most microbes can't colonizethe small intestine, they only
colonize the colon.
But these two species colonizethe 24 feet of small intestine,
where they take up residence andproduce what are called
bacteriocins.
(21:33):
These are natural antibioticseffective in killing fecal
microbes natural antibioticseffective in killing fecal
microbes.
So what we do is we take thosetwo microbes and we make a
yogurt.
It looks like yogurt, smellslike yogurt, but it's not yogurt
.
Nothing like the stuff in thestore.
You cannot buy this in a store.
You make it yourself using mymethod of prolonged fermentation
, because what we want is reallyhigh numbers of these microbes.
(21:56):
When you buy as a probiotic,there might be a billion or two
or five something like that percapsule.
We're going to proliferate it ahundredfold, maybe even a
thousandfold, depending on whatproduct you start with and the
eventual product.
That smells like yogurt.
I call it SIBO.
Yogurt has 300 billion countsof microbes per half cup serving
(22:17):
.
That's what we get when westudied these yogurts with flow
cytometry a means of countingmicrobes.
So we consume half cup per day.
Do that for a minimum of fourweeks and so far, of about 50
people who've done this, 90%have gotten rid of their SIBO,
as evidenced by measuringhydrogen gas on the breath.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, please see all
(22:45):
those other resources where Italk about the AIR device
A-I-R-E.
It's a way to measure hydrogengas on the breath as a mapping
device to tell you wheremicrobes are living in the GI
tract.
You don't have to have the AIRdevice it is very helpful but
you can just do the SIBO yogurtand you can follow whatever's
happening to you.
For instance, if you have a lotof food intolerances, they
should go away, and when they goaway, you now know that you've
corrected the SIBO.
Or if you have fatmalabsorption, if you see fat
(23:06):
droplets in the toilet or fatstanding of the porcelain,
that's fat malabsorption fromfecal microbes in the duodenum.
If you have conditions that arevirtually synonymous with SIBO,
like fibromyalgia or irritablebowel syndrome or inflammatory
bowel disease, like ulcerativecolitis or Crohn's, restless leg
syndrome, or if you're obese ortype 2 diabetic, those
(23:30):
conditions are so highlyassociated with SIBO that you
can safely assume that you haveit, and the solution is so
benign that you don't have to beabsolutely certain that you
have it or not.
Now also bear in mind you'rerestoring, for instance,
lactobacillus roteri.
Besides helping you eradicateSIBO.
What else does it do?
It has a whole range of otherbeneficial effects Smoother skin
, a restoration of youthfulmusculature, a 50% rise in
(23:54):
testosterone in males,restoration of vaginal moisture
in elderly females, preservationof bone density and, because a
lot of these effects are exertedvia oxytocin, increased release
of the hormone oxytocin fromthe brain.
There's an increase in theintensity of love and affection.
There's an increase ingenerosity.
There's an increased acceptanceof other people's opinions.
(24:14):
There's a reduction of socialanxiety.
In other words, we don't haveto worry about side effects.
There's a reduction of socialanxiety.
In other words, we don't haveto worry about side effects.
We see side benefits when youdo this.
When you replace lactobacillusroteri lactobacillus gastri and
now put that all together thechange in diet, the loss of
glide and drive, opioid peptides, common nutrient deficiency
when corrected, that help youget rid of insulin resistance
(24:36):
that was causing weight gain inthe abdomen and then address a
disrupted microbiome,gastrointestinal microbiome you
have now a huge advantage youlose abdominal visceral fat
preferentially.
You will lose subcutaneous fatas well over time and you
preserve or even increase muscle.
And you preserve basalmetabolic rate and you don't.
(24:58):
When you lose the weight.
You don't regain the weight,provided you stay in the program
.
So I think it's a far morerational, safe and effective way
and it's not going to cost youhundreds of thousands of dollars
per month.
It's going to cost you almostnothing a few dollars for some
of the supplements, maybe theorganic half and a half.
You might need to make the SIBOyogurt, but know that you get
(25:21):
all kinds of benefits and that'swhy I say let's forget it,
let's stop talking about weightloss.
Let's instead talk about makingbetter shape and body
composition.
Now, if you learned somethingfrom this episode of the Defiant
Health Podcast, I invite you tosubscribe to your favorite
podcast directory.
Post a review.
Post a comment.
Thanks for listening.
You've likely heard the headlines gushing about the
weight loss effects of the GLP-1agonist class of drugs agents
that go by names like Wegovi,monjaro, rebelsis and others.
Doctors are declaring thesedrugs as breakthroughs or even
magical, witnessing the rapidand dramatic weight loss they
can achieve.
People appear willing to acceptthe side effects of nausea,
(00:29):
vomiting, even bowel obstruction, a surgical emergency and
pancreatitis and thyroid cancer.
They also accept the costs.
That can vary widely dependingon who dispenses it, but not
uncommonly hundreds of dollarsor even over a thousand dollars
every month.
And doctors jump at the chanceto prescribe these drugs as they
often have arrangements withthe dispensing pharmacy for
(00:52):
kickbacks in one form or another.
Prescribe the drug, make a lotof money for many doctors and
irresistible temptation.
People lose weight and even canbecome non-type two diabetic
and modestly reduce risk forheart disease.
So what's not to like?
Plenty?
That is the topic of discussiontoday on the Defiant Health
podcast, a place where you canhear ideas you cannot hear
(01:15):
anywhere else, because we digdeeper, are not swayed by big
payoffs and thumb our nose atconventional wisdom.
And later in the podcast let'stalk about Define Health's
sponsors Paleo Valley, ourpreferred provider for many
excellent organic and grass-fedfood products and BiotiQuest, my
number one choice forprobiotics that are
(01:36):
scientifically formulated,unlike most of the other
commercial probiotic productsavailable today products
available today.
The GLP agonist world now earnsthe pharmaceutical industry
about $10 billion a year, andgrowing rapidly.
Celebrities gush about theeffects of these drugs People
like Kelly Clarkson, oprahWinfrey, elon Musk, boris
(01:59):
Johnson and they've lost weight.
Doctors and pharmacies havejumped on board and they seem to
not be able to even dispensethem fast enough.
There's even been shortages forpeople who need these drugs for
reducing their blood sugar andtype 2 diabetes.
Doctors receive kickbacks inmany instances.
They have arrangements withpharmacies, often incorporating
pharmacies into their practicesso that they can get a kickback
(02:23):
by prescribing these drugs.
So doctors have a hard timeresisting this impulse to make a
lot of money by dispensingthese popular drugs.
Now, because these drugs arebeing dispensed so freely, they
are increasing overall healthinsurance costs for people like
you and me.
In other words, even if you'renot taking it, but your neighbor
or co-worker or somebody elseis taking it, that adds to
(02:46):
overall health care costs andthat is passed on to you.
Now health care costs wereincreasing to terrible levels
already.
Now it's even worse because ofthis class of drugs and people
are willing to endure the commonside effects like nausea and
vomiting and regurgitation thatcan lead to aspiration, which
has happened in a number ofpeople, including pregnant moms,
(03:08):
because of the increase in theintra-abdominal pressure that
caused them to regurgitate or tovomit.
And there have been episodes ofaspiration pneumonia where you
inhale your stomach contents and, of course, bowel obstruction
and other catastrophic sideeffects.
So people are willing to riskthese things in order to lose
weight, and these drugs do work.
(03:28):
There's no denying it thatpeople do lose a lot of weight.
How do they work?
Well, the GLP-1 agonists reduceappetite.
They reduce your interest infood.
They also slow digestion or thepassage of food through the
stomach, so much so thatanesthesiologists have
recognized that you must stopthe drug about a week ahead of
(03:48):
time before any kind of surgicalprocedure where you're going to
undergo general anesthesia,because if you have food in your
stomach from a meal you had,say, three days ago, you can
aspirate that when you're undergeneral anesthesia.
So anesthesiologists insistthat you stop taking these drugs
about a week ahead of time.
Now here's something to ponder.
So GLP-Agnus caused weight lossby reducing your interest in
(04:13):
food, reducing calorie intakesimilar to what is achieved with
bariatric procedures such aslap band or gastric bypass,
situations in which the stomachvolume is reduced, or methods of
reducing calorie intake.
We could call it move more, eatless.
We could call it weightwatchers we just push the plate
away.
(04:33):
All the methods that people use, apps that identify stress
triggers for eating these areall variations on the same theme
reducing calorie intake.
Now we know with good sciencemany clinical studies have told
us this when you reduce calorieintake, regardless of the method
used GLP agonist diet,bariatric procedure doesn't
(04:54):
matter.
Regardless of the method used,when you reduce calories,
approximately 25% of the weightlost is muscle.
In some instances, with GLP-1agonists, it can be as much as
50 percent of weight loss ismuscle.
So let's say you paid $12,000to lose 40 pounds by injecting
yourself with Wegovi for a year.
(05:16):
Well, most people can't affordto do that forever, so they stop
the drug.
Of that 40 pounds they lost, 10pounds was muscle, 30 pounds
was fat.
They stopped the drug, theyregained typically 32 to 34
pounds of almost all fat, andmost of that fat is abdominal
fat.
Abdominal fat is the mostproblematic form of fat as
(05:40):
compared to, say, subcutaneousfat, that's fat just beneath the
skin that tends to accumulatein places like the neck, chest,
buttocks, thighs.
So it's the intra-abdominal fat, that is, fat that surrounds
the abdominal organs, that's thesource of most of the problems
associated with obesity andleads to effects like heart
disease risk, risk for dementia,breast cancer, other cancers.
(06:04):
That risk is increased byabdominal fat, abdominal
visceral fat.
So when you stop the GLP-1agonist, you regain fat, and you
mostly in the abdomen, and soyou are more prone to
prediabetes, type 2 diabetes,coronary heart disease, dementia
, alzheimer's, breast cancer andother conditions.
You're at greater risk nowafter having regained the fat
(06:27):
than you were at the start.
So you paid pharma $12,000 tobe less healthy, to have more
common health conditions.
And, by the way, the loss ofsubcutaneous fat in the face,
coupled with loss of muscle, isresponsible for this phenomenon
that some people call ozympicface.
It's not unique to ozympic,it's shared by all GLP-1
(06:49):
agonists.
But it's the loss ofsubcutaneous fat and muscle in
the face that makes people oftenlook 10 to 20 years older, with
sagging jowls, deeper wrinkles,etc.
All from losing the fat andmuscle in the face.
Another thing to know about theGLP-1 agonists is they
preferentially cause loss ofsubcutaneous fat.
(07:10):
Now wait a minute.
If abdominal visceral fat isthe source of most of the
problems associated with obesity, why would you take a drug that
preferentially targetssubcutaneous fat?
You do lose some abdominalvisceral fat, but GLP-1 agonists
favor the loss of subcutaneousfat.
When you stop it, the fat comesback, mostly in the abdomen.
(07:30):
So the GLP-1 agonist world setsyou up for deterioration in
health.
Now that loss of muscle is acritical thing, because muscle
is the principal driver of yourmetabolic rate, of your basal
metabolic rate.
We say BMR, that is the rate atwhich your body burns calories
for the work of living, the workof breathing, digestion,
(07:53):
production of various proteinsin the body.
That all requires energy andyour body's doing this even when
you're sleeping, even whenyou're sitting watching TV, at
this rate called basal metabolicrate.
Well, when you lose muscle,basal metabolic rate plummets to
very low levels.
So there's a recent study, forinstance, called the biggest
loser study.
(08:13):
You remember that TV show wherepeople are put through an
extreme program of cuttingcalories and extreme exercise,
like Danny Cahill, for instance,who won the eighth season by
dropping weight.
From 430 pounds he lost 200, anincredible 239 pounds,
incredible will and effort.
So over seven months he lost239 pounds.
(08:37):
He won the show.
He looked great.
He won the $250,000 prize.
Left the show, won the $250,000prize.
Left the show.
Continued a very low-calorielifestyle and two hours a day
exercising.
I had a conversation with himand he said he kept on a very
extreme effort and regained theweight.
Now he and the graduates ofthat eighth season were studied
(08:58):
formally studied by a researchgroup at the National Institutes
of Health, the NIH, and theymeasured the basal metabolic
rate of these people after theyleft the show and they saw a
dramatic reduction in basalmetabolic rate, about 27%.
That persisted for as long asthe study continued, which was
six years.
So, for all practical purposes,when you lose weight by cutting
(09:22):
calories in this case evenincorporating strength training,
resistance training to increasemuscle despite that, they still
lost a lot of muscle and theyregained all the weight due to
the reduction in basal metabolicrate.
So cutting calories is aloser's game.
It guarantees that you losemuscle and will thereby regain
the weight.
Now, do these phenomena apply tothe GLP-1 agonist world?
(09:44):
Yes, they do.
There is evidence that peoplecan lose a lot of weight when
they stop the drug.
They regain the fat due to theprecipitous loss of muscle.
So people have to make a choice.
You can stop the drug andaccept that you'll regain a lot
of fat and be less healthy thanyou were at the start, or you
can continue the drug forever.
(10:06):
That, of course, is what thepharmaceutical industry wants.
They have this great flow ofrevenue from people who are
essentially held hostage by theneed, the reliance, and, of
course, over time you're moreand more likely to develop some
of those catastrophic sideeffects.
So you're stuck on these drugs.
This is what the pharmaceuticalindustry has created, this way
to hold the public hostage tothe use of these drugs, and it's
(10:28):
aided and abetted by mostdoctors.
You may also see headlinesannouncing that the use of these
GLP-1 agonists reduce thelikelihood that you have type 2
diabetes or heart disease.
By the way, the studies suggestabout a 1% reduction not a big
one, very small reduction incardiovascular events Only if
you stay on the drug.
(10:49):
If you stop the drug, you'remore prone to type 2 diabetes,
more prone to heart disease,heart attack, sudden cardiac
death.
So there's only a modestreduction in these things if you
stay on the drug and continuethat flow of revenue into the
pockets of the pharmaceuticalindustry.
Now let me pause for a momentto tell you something about
Defiant Health's sponsors, andwhen we come back let's pick up
(11:11):
the conversation on how you dohave a choice when you don't
start the GLP-1 agonist at alland don't get tangled up in that
mess.
The Defiant Health Podcast issponsored by Paleo Valley makers
of delicious grass-fed beefsticks, healthy snack bars and
other products.
We're very picky around hereand insist that any product we
(11:34):
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of course, no gluten nor grains.
One of the habits I urgeeveryone to get into is to
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Now let's get back to ourdiscussion.
So, to avoid being tangled upin this GLP-1 agonist mess, the
key is to never start the drugsin the first place, because
there are effective ways to loseweight.
But I would say a better way tothink about this is don't think
(14:07):
about weight loss per se, let'sthink about improving your
shape and body composition.
That is, let's find ways tospecifically target the most
problematic form of fatabdominal visceral fat and also
some subcutaneous fat also butalso preserve or even increase
(14:27):
muscle and thereby maintain oreven increase your basal
metabolic rate, so that weightdoesn't come back and may even
accelerate weight loss.
Well, how do you do that?
How do you achieve all that?
Well, you follow what we do inour programs.
We follow a smarter diet.
We don't cut calories.
We never cut calories.
We don't cut fat or saturatedfat or cholesterol.
(14:49):
We follow a diet thateliminates wheat, grains and
sugars.
Recall that wheat has a proteinin it called gliadin and
related proteins in other grains, like the cecilin and rye, the
hortian in barley and the zeanin corn.
These proteins are notdigestible, fully digestible by
humans.
We lack the enzymes that breakthem down into single amino
(15:11):
acids, so we break theseproteins down to four or five
amino acid long peptides peptidefragments that are able to
cross into the brain andstimulate opioid receptors.
They don't make you high,however, they stimulate appetite
.
So when you eliminate wheat,grains and sugars, you thereby
eliminate glide and drive opioid, peptide appetite stimulants
(15:36):
and you will find yourselfmiraculously freed from hunger
and you're not tempted anymore.
It may take a few days for thisto occur, but it happens
typically within the first fewdays after you banish all wheat,
grains and sugars and therebyglide and derive opioid, peptide
appetite stimulants.
We never limit fat, we neverlimit calories.
We also restore nutrients thatare largely lacking in modern
(16:00):
life Magnesium, iodine, omega-3fatty acids and vitamin D.
Now, when you replace thosethings, they synergize to
minimize insulin resistance.
Recall that insulin resistancesimply means that your body no
longer responds well to insulin,so your pancreas
overcompensates by producinghuge amounts of insulin, and
(16:21):
insulin causes expansion ofabdominal fat.
So we're going to take thosenutrients vitamin D, omega-3
fatty acids, iodine, magnesiumthat synergize to minimize or
reduce insulin resistance,accelerating the loss of the
most problematic form of fatabdominal visceral fat.
And I say those nutrients aremissing because of modern life,
(16:43):
not because of the diet, butbecause of modern life.
So magnesium, for instance,we're supposed to get from
drinking water, from water thatruns over rocks and minerals and
rivers and streams, and fromwild food, wild plants.
But we can't drink water freelyfrom rivers and streams.
Right, it's tainted, it'scontaminated by sewage and other
things.
So we have to filter the water,and water filtration is very
(17:04):
effective, very efficient atremoving all magnesium.
Likewise, modern produce hasabout 80, maybe as much as 90%
less magnesium than it used tohave.
So we're getting very littlemagnesium from our produce.
So we supplement magnesium.
Vitamin D, of course we aresupposed to get from exposure of
the skin to sun, but many of uslive our lives indoors, we wear
(17:27):
clothes in public and we alsolose the capacity to activate
vitamin D in the skin upon sunexposure as we get older,
especially after age 40.
Iodine we're supposed to getfrom seafood and seaweed, but
most of us don't consume thosethings very often, so we don't
get much iodine.
And fish is now contaminated bymercury, shellfish by cadmium,
(17:48):
the heavy metals, so we can'tget those things, we can't eat
those foods as much as we'd like, so we supplement iodine.
And then, lastly, omega-3 fattyacids are supposed to come from
the consumption of brain, brainas well as seafood and
shellfish.
But once again we can't eat allthis seafood and shellfish we
want because of mercury andcadmium contamination.
And most modern people havelost interest in consuming organ
(18:10):
meats like brain.
So we supplement omega-3 fattyacids from fish oil.
Lastly, we address disruptedbowel flora.
So almost everybody has atleast dysbiosis, that is,
disruption of the microbialcomposition in the colon,
colonic dysbiosis.
But approximately half of youalso have small intestinal
bacterial overgrowth, or we saySIBO, s-i-b-o.
(18:33):
What that means is that ouroverexposure to antibiotics, to
other factors like glyphosate,the herbicide in food, many
foods, other herbicides andpesticides, stomach acid
blocking drugs, food additiveslike preservatives that are
antimicrobial, emulsifyingagents like polysorbate 80 and
carboxymethylcellulose, on andon and on we are swimming in a
(18:56):
sea of factors that havedisrupted the gastrointestinal
microbiome.
One of the consequences of thisdisruption is that fecal
microbes in a class calledproteobacteria, fecal microbes,
have overproliferated.
These are species like E coli,salmonella, campylobacter.
They've overpopulated and,remarkably, in about one of
(19:18):
every two people, about 150million Americans, these fecal
microbes have been allowed toascend into the small intestine,
the 24 feet of small intestine,and take up residence.
Now, these fecal microbes don'tlive very long.
They live for a few hours atmost.
So there's trillions ofmicrobes turning over rapidly in
the 24 feet of small intestine.
(19:40):
The small intestine is poorlyequipped to handle this flood of
fecal microbes.
It's very penetrable by design,because that's where the small
intestine is where you'resupposed to absorb amino acids,
fatty acids, vitamins andminerals.
But when the small intestine isinvaded by fecal microbes that
live and die rapidly, they shedsome of their byproducts
(20:05):
especially something calledlipopolysaccharide endotoxin or
LPS endotoxin into theintestines that then penetrate
across the intestinal wall andget into your bloodstream.
And the entry of LPS endotoxininto the bloodstream is called
endotoxemia.
Has endotoxin into thebloodstream is called
endotoxemia.
That's a major driver ofinsulin resistance, inflammation
and weight gain, especially inthe abdomen.
(20:27):
So we address SIBO, colonicdysbiosis and endotoxemia.
How do we do that?
Well, that's our program forrebuilding a healthy
gastrointestinal microbiome.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, please refer to
my Super Gut book, to my otherepisodes of the Defiant Health
podcast where I discuss SIBO andhow to manage it.
Also my blog.
I have several thousand postson my blog,
(20:49):
drdavisinfinitehealthcom blog.
You'll see that we do thingsvery, very differently.
For instance, one of thereasons I believe that so many
people now have seabone, besidesantibiotics and other factors,
is we've lost microbes, healthymicrobes, probiotic species that
previously colonized the smallintestine, especially two in
(21:12):
particular Lactobacillus rhoderiand Lactobacillus gasseri.
These are two species that areable to colonize the small
intestine.
Most microbes can't colonizethe small intestine, they only
colonize the colon.
But these two species colonizethe 24 feet of small intestine,
where they take up residence andproduce what are called
bacteriocins.
(21:33):
These are natural antibioticseffective in killing fecal
microbes natural antibioticseffective in killing fecal
microbes.
So what we do is we take thosetwo microbes and we make a
yogurt.
It looks like yogurt, smellslike yogurt, but it's not yogurt
.
Nothing like the stuff in thestore.
You cannot buy this in a store.
You make it yourself using mymethod of prolonged fermentation
, because what we want is reallyhigh numbers of these microbes.
(21:56):
When you buy as a probiotic,there might be a billion or two
or five something like that percapsule.
We're going to proliferate it ahundredfold, maybe even a
thousandfold, depending on whatproduct you start with and the
eventual product.
That smells like yogurt.
I call it SIBO.
Yogurt has 300 billion countsof microbes per half cup serving
(22:17):
.
That's what we get when westudied these yogurts with flow
cytometry a means of countingmicrobes.
So we consume half cup per day.
Do that for a minimum of fourweeks and so far, of about 50
people who've done this, 90%have gotten rid of their SIBO,
as evidenced by measuringhydrogen gas on the breath.
If you don't know what I'mtalking about, please see all
(22:45):
those other resources where Italk about the AIR device
A-I-R-E.
It's a way to measure hydrogengas on the breath as a mapping
device to tell you wheremicrobes are living in the GI
tract.
You don't have to have the AIRdevice it is very helpful but
you can just do the SIBO yogurtand you can follow whatever's
happening to you.
For instance, if you have a lotof food intolerances, they
should go away, and when they goaway, you now know that you've
corrected the SIBO.
Or if you have fatmalabsorption, if you see fat
(23:06):
droplets in the toilet or fatstanding of the porcelain,
that's fat malabsorption fromfecal microbes in the duodenum.
If you have conditions that arevirtually synonymous with SIBO,
like fibromyalgia or irritablebowel syndrome or inflammatory
bowel disease, like ulcerativecolitis or Crohn's, restless leg
syndrome, or if you're obese ortype 2 diabetic, those
(23:30):
conditions are so highlyassociated with SIBO that you
can safely assume that you haveit, and the solution is so
benign that you don't have to beabsolutely certain that you
have it or not.
Now also bear in mind you'rerestoring, for instance,
lactobacillus roteri.
Besides helping you eradicateSIBO.
What else does it do?
It has a whole range of otherbeneficial effects Smoother skin
, a restoration of youthfulmusculature, a 50% rise in
(23:54):
testosterone in males,restoration of vaginal moisture
in elderly females, preservationof bone density and, because a
lot of these effects are exertedvia oxytocin, increased release
of the hormone oxytocin fromthe brain.
There's an increase in theintensity of love and affection.
There's an increase ingenerosity.
There's an increased acceptanceof other people's opinions.
(24:14):
There's a reduction of socialanxiety.
In other words, we don't haveto worry about side effects.
There's a reduction of socialanxiety.
In other words, we don't haveto worry about side effects.
We see side benefits when youdo this.
When you replace lactobacillusroteri lactobacillus gastri and
now put that all together thechange in diet, the loss of
glide and drive, opioid peptides, common nutrient deficiency
when corrected, that help youget rid of insulin resistance
(24:36):
that was causing weight gain inthe abdomen and then address a
disrupted microbiome,gastrointestinal microbiome you
have now a huge advantage youlose abdominal visceral fat
preferentially.
You will lose subcutaneous fatas well over time and you
preserve or even increase muscle.
And you preserve basalmetabolic rate and you don't.
(24:58):
When you lose the weight.
You don't regain the weight,provided you stay in the program
.
So I think it's a far morerational, safe and effective way
and it's not going to cost youhundreds of thousands of dollars
per month.
It's going to cost you almostnothing a few dollars for some
of the supplements, maybe theorganic half and a half.
You might need to make the SIBOyogurt, but know that you get
(25:21):
all kinds of benefits and that'swhy I say let's forget it,
let's stop talking about weightloss.
Let's instead talk about makingbetter shape and body
composition.
Now, if you learned somethingfrom this episode of the Defiant
Health Podcast, I invite you tosubscribe to your favorite
podcast directory.
Post a review.
Post a comment.
Thanks for listening.
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