October 31, 2024 • 29 mins
In Episode 47 of the Pound of Cure Weight Loss Podcast, Dr. Matthew Weiner and Zoe Schroeder, RD dive into weight loss topics like compounded GLP-1 medications, ultra-processed foods and their link to heart disease, and processed meat alternatives.
Ultra-processed Foods: Are Some Worse Than Others?
A recent study published in The Lancet found that ultra-processed foods make up a shocking 73% of the U.S. food supply, with significant consequences for heart health.
Dr. Weiner and Zoe discuss how this study highlighted an 11% increased risk of heart disease for those who consumed the most ultra-processed foods. The study particularly focused on the worst offenders: processed meats and sugar-sweetened beverages. These foods were shown to have the strongest links to heart disease.
One fascinating finding from the study is that not all ultra-processed foods have the same impact. When processed meats and sugary drinks are removed from the equation, the difference in heart disease risk between people who eat a lot of ultra-processed foods and those who don’t becomes much smaller. This reinforces the idea that not all ultra-processed foods are equal when it comes to heart disease risk. Avoiding processed meats and sugary drinks can significantly lower your risk, while focusing on healthier food choices can improve your long-term health.
Nutrition and Heart Health: How to Eat Smarter
When it comes to improving heart health, Dr. Weiner and Zoe offer practical advice on what foods to choose instead of processed meats. Zoe emphasizes the importance of focusing on whole, unprocessed foods, such as:
- Fruits and vegetables: These are packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that help support heart health.
- Lean animal proteins: Opt for fish, chicken, and lean cuts of red meat as alternatives to fatty cuts of red meat and processed meats. These options provide high-quality protein without the unhealthy fats found in processed meats.
- Nuts and seeds: Rich in healthy fats, fiber, and protein, these are great plant-based alternatives to meat.
- Legumes: Beans, lentils, and chickpeas are nutrient-dense and provide a satisfying source of protein and fiber.
The key is to focus on nutrient-dense, whole foods rather than simply trying to restrict calories or follow fad diets. The Pound of Cure philosophy encourages a shift in mindset toward eating for nutrition and long-term health and weight loss rather than fast weight loss which will, ultimately, come back.
Zoe also mentions the importance of minimizing food noise—the constant mental distraction and cravings for unhealthy foods—by incorporating satisfying, high-quality meals into your daily routine. By making smarter food choices, you can naturally reduce your cravings for processed foods and improve both your heart health and overall well-being.
Replacing processed meats with nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, nuts, seeds, and legumes is a smart strategy for improving heart health and managing weight.
The Role of GLP-1 Medications in Weight Loss
The episode concludes with an in-depth discussion on the role of GLP-1 medications in weight loss, particularly focusing on the recent shortages and their implications. These medications, like Wegovy and Zepbound, have been highly sought after due to their ability to lower the body’s set point. However, earlier shortages led many patients to seek compounded versions of these drugs.
Dr. Weiner explains that compounded GLP-1 medications are custom-made by compounding pharmacies, which mix the active ingredients (Semaglutide or Tirzepatide) with saline, B12 or other additives.
Release the GLP-1 Vials
The shortage of GLP-1 medications, like Wegovy and Zepbound, was primarily caused by the manufacturing of inj
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Weiner (00:00):
When you leave it to the marketers and the food
manufacturers to handle yourconvenience, you're going to
sacrifice the health.
Zoe (00:08):
And nobody's going to care more about your health than you,
especially not food companiestrying to make you buy their
product.
Dr. Weiner (00:13):
No, I mean if you go and sit in their meetings.
Metrics of the Americanpeople's health is not one of
the metrics that they're tryingto optimize.
No, it's sales.
Zoe (00:23):
Absolutely of the metrics that they're trying to optimize
it's sales Absolutely.
Dr. Weiner (00:33):
Welcome back to the Pound of Cure Weight Loss
Podcast.
Is this the end of compounding?
You know there's a lot of talkabout this.
This is, yeah, I think.
Well, we'll dig into it.
You're going to have to hearthe whole episode, but I you
know we've talked a lot aboutcompounding.
It's complicated.
Yes, it's complicated.
There's pros and cons.
There certainly are a lot ofpeople out there having pretty
good success on compoundedmedications.
So before we get into that,we're going to talk about our In
(00:57):
the News segment.
This comes from the New YorkTimes and the title of the
article is Are SomeUltra-Processed Foods Worse Than
Others?
They talk about a study thatwas done.
It was published in Lancet.
Lancet is a UK-based journal.
They really focus on morepublic health, global medical
(01:20):
issues, as opposed to gettinginto the weeds on specific
medical problems.
It's certainly a very, verywell-respected journal In the
medical journal world.
There are some journals where,when you see an article in there
, you can pretty much assureyourself that this is a
well-done article.
There are others.
If you see an article in there,you can pretty much assure
(01:41):
yourself that it was rejected bysome of the better journals
first.
You can pretty much assureyourself that it was rejected by
some of the better journalsfirst.
So this article points out that73% of the US food supply is
considered ultra-processed.
That's a lot Three quarters.
Zoe (01:54):
Yeah, I think we can think about it and know that that's
the case.
Dr. Weiner (01:58):
Yeah, I mean just go to a grocery store.
Zoe (02:03):
walk around and you'll see that that's how it is you have
the produce section you haveeverything.
Dr. Weiner (02:08):
So, anyway, this was focused on heart disease.
So I think that's the firstimportant thing.
This is about heart disease,not about weight loss.
But there's some reallyimportant things that came out
of this study and I think itreally syncs a lot with most
people's experience out thereand what I see in the office
every day.
They found that those peoplewho consumed the most processed
(02:33):
foods so they broke everybody inand said, ok, here's the people
who consume the most processedfoods and here's the people who
consume the least processedfoods they found that they had
an 11% increased risk ofdeveloping cardiovascular
disease if you ate a lot ofultra-processed food, which,
truthfully, isn't that much.
No, yeah, they combined thestudy.
(02:56):
It was actually 1.25 millionpeople in this study, so there
was a lot of people in thisstudy.
Most of the people were whiteand most of the people were
actually health professionalsand when you look at a lot of
the nutritional or longevitypublic health data, they often
target health professionals.
One of the reasons is becauseif you give a health
(03:17):
professional a questionnaire tofill out, they're going to be
much more accurate with theiranswers than someone who's not
in the health field.
So a lot of these kind oflarge-scale questionnaire-based
studies because that's withnutrition, almost no studies are
observational, right?
What are you going to do?
Lock somebody in a closet andhere's what you eat for for six
months?
It's just not feasible to dothese direct observational
(03:40):
studies the way you can with,say, medications or other
medical problems, and so theseare mostly healthcare workers,
so it's a little bit of a biasedgroup.
It's not a cross-section of,say, the American population,
and so this study provescorrelation, not causation.
To prove causation you reallyneed a double-blinded randomized
(04:01):
control trial.
Hey, here's two treatments.
We're going to split them up,nobody knows who's getting which
treatment, and then we're goingto see what the results are.
That's how you prove causation.
That eating processed foodscauses heart disease.
This just says, hey, if peoplewho eat a lot of processed foods
, they tend to also have ahigher rate of heart disease.
I think when you're dealingwith numbers this large and when
(04:23):
you're looking at something, Ithink when you're dealing with
numbers this large and whenyou're looking at something, we
kind of know that's true, right,you eat like crap, you have a
higher chance of dying of aheart attack.
We know that it's very likelythat this is causation.
They found that there was an11% increase in your risk of
heart disease and they broke itdown a little bit.
There were some other ways thatthey analyzed it Broke it down
(04:43):
a little bit and there was someother ways that they analyzed it
.
They got up to, I think, 17%higher risk, but certainly not
double or triple the risk.
And, very interestingly, theythen separated it out into
different types of processedfoods.
What do you think were the twoworst processed foods for
causing heart disease?
Zoe (05:00):
Heart disease, definitely processed meats.
Dr. Weiner (05:03):
Processed meats.
No question, how about?
Zoe (05:07):
the other one.
Well, because I read thearticle, I'm going to go with
sugar-sweetened beverages.
Dr. Weiner (05:12):
Yes, sugar-sweetened beverages.
So those were the two foodsassociated with the higher risk
of heart disease.
In fact, if you took those twofoods out, there almost was no
difference.
Which?
Is crazy, it's crazy, yeah,it's crazy, and so I think
(05:34):
that's something that's reallyinteresting.
They also found that some foodswere protective and foods I
wouldn't necessarily havesuspected, but they all have.
There's two things they have incommon.
The first is breakfast cereals.
Zoe (05:43):
Fortification.
Right Vitamins and fiber well,some right, depending on the
breakfast.
Dr. Weiner (05:49):
Cereal breakfast here, yeah uh yogurt yeah,
protein protein and alsoprobiotics, right.
And then popcorn and crackers,fiber, fiber and so I.
They showed that people who atea lot of breakfast cereals tend
to have a lower risk of heartdisease.
Now again, this is not weightloss, right, right and not
causation.
(06:10):
And not causation.
But I don't think Zoe and Iwould recommend breakfast
cereals, some yogurts, but not alot of the sugar.
Sweetened yogurts, for sure,right.
Popcorn, not so bad.
Crackers probably best to steeraway from as much as possible,
(06:33):
but anyway.
So some of these foods wereprotective.
So it was really interestingthat this, this didn't show.
You know, you read all thesebooks and you know, honestly, my
book might even be one of thesethings where you're like, oh my
God, if I just ate, right, it'sgoing to cure every disease.
It's going to cure diabetes,it's going to cure heart disease
.
It's amazing, diabetes, it'sgoing to cure heart disease.
It's amazing.
And as we really dig into it,we find that that might be the
case for a small group of people, but for the majority of people
it's not the case,unfortunately.
So I think, some interestingpoints here.
(06:55):
There's always been this bigdebate about nature versus
nurture right, is it your genesor is it your environment?
What causes heart disease?
And we've kind of gone back andforth and for many years we
thought, oh, it's prettybalanced.
As we start to really dig in,as we get a better understanding
of genetics, we can look at DNA.
There are certain genes thatgive you a 50% increase in your
(07:24):
risk of heart disease.
If you have two family memberswho've had substantial heart
disease by the age of 50, whichis pretty early but I think you
have like a 600% higher risk ofdeveloping heart disease.
Wow.
So, no matter what you eat,that 11% deduction against that
600% increase, it doesn't make awhole lot of difference.
(07:46):
And so I don't want anybody toread this article here to say,
oh, I can just eat whatever Iwant, because that's absolutely
not the truth, because right nowthere's people working on this,
but right now our genes are notmodifiable.
So if you want to take stepsthat can reduce your risk of
heart disease, then your diet isa big one, and I think also
(08:08):
it's important that they lookedat all processed foods.
But there's this small group ofpeople who eat incredibly well
and I don't know that we can saythat those people, those strict
vegans, those people who eatlike really, really perfectly.
If that level of dietimprovement, maybe that's
protective.
I don't think the study showedanything about that.
(08:31):
So I think if you're out thereand you have a history of heart
disease, maybe going all the wayto that vegan or near-vegan
diet I don't know that thisstudy really was sophisticated
enough to find out if that makesa big difference, and that
might.
And there is some other datafrom Dean Ornish and some other
people where there is somesuggestion that that really
(08:53):
low-fat vegan-type diet isprotective.
So I thought this was reallyinteresting because it pointed
out that our nutrition, while itplays an important role, it
doesn't change everything.
It's, and our philosophy andour program is really it's
(09:13):
nutrition plus the meds, plusthe surgery.
That's how we get the reliableresults.
And again, doing the medswithout or the surgery without
the nutrition, that's a hugemistake.
But doing the nutrition alonefor the majority of people,
we're just not going to getwhere you need to be.
Zoe (09:30):
Well, if we think about the percentages, you know, maybe
we'll see a 10% reduction inbody weight with nutrition alone
, kind of like that 11%reduction in heart disease.
So you know, I think again thatnature versus nurture.
Dr. Weiner (09:47):
Right, right, and so many of our patients, so many,
have a family history.
One question I ask people ishey, if you go to a family
reunion, are you shaped likeeverybody else?
And so many people are like, ohmy God, we're all shaped
exactly the same, you know, andthere's just a.
You take our processed foodenvironment and you put our
genes together and and thatwe've got the epidemic of
(10:10):
obesity.
Yeah, so what do we have forour nutrition segment today?
Zoe (10:15):
Zoe Well keeping with the theme of the, the processed
meats.
You know if we're thinkingabout okay, if this is one of
the heavy hitters that can causeheart disease, but also we know
that it's not great for weightloss and even diabetes and lots
of other comorbidities as well.
So I wanted to chat throughsome alternatives to those
(10:37):
processed meats.
So let's define processed meatsRight.
It's going to be the bacon,it's going to be the deli meats,
the sausages, what else?
What are some other processed?
Dr. Weiner (10:47):
meat, ham, ham, yeah , yeah, anything.
They're adding a lot of salt toa meat Exactly Salted meat.
Zoe (10:53):
Salted meat, salted preserved meat, yeah.
So I mean, and then we didn'teven kind of discuss the sodium
aspect, right, but that playsinto that heart disease role.
So we think about why somebodymight gravitate towards
processed meat or at leastpeople in our practice working
towards weight loss.
Most of the time it's forconvenience.
(11:13):
Yeah Right, it's like aconvenient protein source ready
to go, and so I have a couple oftips to get your convenient
protein source ready to go thatmight not be as high in
preservatives and high in sodium.
That's not necessarilyconsidered.
A processed meat is kind ofmaking your own snack packs or
(11:33):
your own ready to go protein.
Dr. Weiner (11:35):
They all have processed meats in them.
Yeah, all the snack packs.
Zoe (11:39):
Yeah, you're right even if they're like chunks of, like
chunks of turkey, it's going tobe that like deli turkey that's,
you know, smushed up and turnedout into a different shape.
So cooking up your own.
For example, I did this lastweek a crock pot of instant pot
(12:01):
of chicken and then portioned itout so that I have some in the
refrigerator, some in thefreezer easily add for a salad
or as part of a meal or a snackor something like that.
So doing some of that batchcook prep work ahead of time can
be really helpful for havingready to go convenient protein
sources, making your own snackpack.
So we think about those.
What are they?
The P3?
(12:22):
something, so it has like nuts,cheese and hunks of processed
meat.
So yeah, make your own littlebento boxes that maybe you have
some raw almonds, maybe you havesome edamame and maybe you have
some of your shredded chickenand cherry tomatoes or snap peas
.
You can buy actually Tupperwarethat is like those bento box
(12:45):
style Tupperwares, so that canbe really helpful.
Canned tuna is not convenientto open up and get into, but the
pouches we don't really want toget, the ones that are seasoned
, because again, that's highsodium.
You can get them, the plaintuna pouches in water.
You can just open it up andstart around.
(13:05):
You probably wouldn'tappreciate it, but you're
getting your convenient proteinin roasted chickpeas um, you
know edamame and our shellededamame.
These are all convenientprotein sources that you can do.
Just a little bit of prep work,maybe keep it in the freezer,
keep it in the refrigerator,have it ready to go so you don't
need to lean on those.
(13:27):
You know meat sticks.
Dr. Weiner (13:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think I've always kind of
struggled with processed meatbecause, first of all, I'm not a
cardiologist so I'm not reallyfocused on the heart disease,
but it takes such a small amountto give you a lot of flavor,
true.
But I think we do have toacknowledge that and you know,
(13:55):
even though we're not, we'retalking about weight loss
processed meats probably do alsodramatically increase your risk
of diabetes.
I think there's quite a bit ofevidence that supports that too.
Diabetes is essentiallyimpaired glucose metabolism.
We know diabetes and obesityare linked.
So I think you know you kind ofmake a couple of jumps of logic
and processed meats areprobably also going to cause
some weight gain too.
I like your idea of thoseprocess, of making your own
things so that you can reallycontrol them Probably much less
(14:16):
expensive.
Zoe (14:17):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Dr. Weiner (14:18):
Yeah, much less expensive.
And also, when you leave it tothe marketers and the food
manufacturers to handle yourconvenience, you're going to
sacrifice the health.
Zoe (14:31):
And nobody's going to care more about your health than you,
especially not food companiestrying to make you buy their
product.
Dr. Weiner (14:37):
No, I mean if you go and sit in their meetings,
they're not sitting.
The metrics of the Americanpeople's health is not one of
the metrics that they're tryingto optimize.
It's sales.
Zoe (14:48):
Absolutely.
And thinking about what yousaid with the a little bit for
flavor.
So no, bacon is not going togive you a good source of
protein, but if you having halfa slice of bacon crumbled up on
your salad that you have alongwith maybe a hard boiled egg and
lots of veggies, and you justget that little bit of flavor,
well then that could be maybe away to add it in in moderation,
(15:11):
in a way that it doesn't makeyou feel deprived but that
you're not sacrificing yourhealth quite as much yeah, um,
okay.
Dr. Weiner (15:20):
So our last segment is the economics of obesity.
This is kind of a little bit ofa follow-up when we had Dave on
the man on Monjaro and Dave wasmaking a big push for releasing
the vial.
So, as most people out thereknow, glp-1 medications are sold
in a single-use pen and it'sthis single-use pen that's
(15:41):
responsible for a lot of theshortages out there.
Single-use pen that'sresponsible for a lot of the
shortages out there.
They actually can make plentyof the medication, but the pen
manufacturing is what's holdingthis up.
Shortages are much less of anissue now, but they have been a
significant issue in the past.
They finally released the vials.
You can now get ZepBound invials as opposed to in a
(16:07):
single-use pen.
They've had Monjaro in Canadain vial format for a while now,
but now in the US they've gotZepBound.
So they only released it for2.5 and 5 milligrams.
Why do you think?
Why only those two doses?
Zoe (16:23):
Because people aren't on them for long term.
Dr. Weiner (16:28):
No think, why only those two doses?
Because people aren't on themfor long term?
No, because that that's whatyou would think if you were
concerned about people.
But let's maybe switch thataround and make it you're
concerned about profit.
What's going to happen if youget a 15 milligram vial?
What are you going to do?
Just take out a little uh-huhvery easy to just take that one
dose that you paid.
(16:48):
You know people are paying 650bucks for these things for a
month.
So they're paying each.
Each dose is over 150 dollars.
If you could make that doselast, I mean 15 milligrams.
The starting dose is 2.5.
That's a factor of six.
You could take that 150 insteadof 150 bucks a week.
It's 150 bucks for six weeks,so they're not going to release
(17:12):
the vials because and and to methis really shows that this
single use pen is not so muchabout making it easy to inject,
but really very much about beingable to control the dose and
prevent people from stretchingit out and kind of making and
(17:32):
driving the demand for theproduct.
Zoe (17:34):
That's crazy, I didn't even think about that.
Dr. Weiner (17:37):
No question, that's why they released it, so they do
have it.
The self-pay price of the 2.5and the 5 milligram is a little
bit lower than the $6.50 thatthey charge for the remaining
ones.
It's $400 a month, $3.99 forthe 2.5 milligram and $5.49 for
the 5 milligram dose.
Up until now it's been $6.50 amonth for every dose.
(17:59):
You want the 15 milligram pen?
It's $650.
You want the 2.5 milligram pen?
It's $650.
Pen it's $650.
You want the 2.5 milligram penit's $650.
The vials are going to be alittle cheaper than that.
Eli Lilly's stock price hasdoubled this year.
It's doubled.
That company is worth twice asmuch now than it was.
Zoe (18:18):
The year's not even over yet.
Dr. Weiner (18:20):
Yeah.
So there's no question thatthey've been maximizing profits.
They've been doing this very,very effectively.
And so the president of CEO ofEli Lilly he actually called
Dave and was like, hey, we'regoing to release the vials and
they've marketed this like we'redoing this great thing to
(18:42):
alleviate the shortages.
But again, looking back atprofits over patients, which I
think is what we're seeing withthese glp-1 meds, they release
these vials, I think also for avery specific reason because it
alleviated the shortage, whichis good.
But they also, if there's noshortage, there's no compounding
(19:06):
.
So 503b pharmacies, which arethe large compounding pharmacies
, are only allowed to compoundor get medications from someone.
Besides, the manufacturer holdsthe patent if the medication is
on the fda shortage list.
Guess what's not on the fdashortage list anymore?
Zoe (19:24):
so now there's no more compounding.
Dr. Weiner (19:26):
No more compounding of triseptide.
People will do it, but now EliLilly has a legal basis to go
after it.
Oh, wow, so I think, and sothere was actually.
When this all came out, therewas a lot of chatter on social
media about how this wasactually a really bad thing.
Huh, there was a lot of chatteron social media about how this
(19:47):
is actually a really bad thing,because it signals the end of
compounding, at least forterzepatide.
Semaglutide Wegoviozepic isstill on the shortage list, but
terzepatide is now officiallyoff the shortage list, and so I
think, as much as Eli Lilly'smarketing, this is like hey,
we're doing this great thing,we're listening to the public,
we're releasing the vials.
(20:08):
There was a lot of strategy, alot of strategy.
They got themselves off the FDAshortage list.
They can go after thecompounders.
It's no secret that thesemanufacturers are very against
the compounders and they'veplugged it as a safety issue and
there is a little bit of thatthere really is but I think it's
(20:28):
very much that they'reprotecting their product.
These are going to betrillion-dollar drugs.
Zoe (20:35):
Yeah.
Dr. Weiner (20:36):
And so they want to be able to capitalize on this.
I think, if you think back tothe history of the pharma
industry, this, if you thinkback to the history of the
pharma industry, one of thefirst mass-produced pharma
products was the polio vaccine.
Jonas Salk, when he discoveredthe polio vaccine, basically
(20:56):
said I will not patent this.
I want as many people aspossible to be able to produce
this so that we can have anadequate amount of the vaccine
so that we can vaccinate theworld and eradicate polio.
And they did Right, right, theyreally did Putting the people
(21:17):
first, putting the people first,that idea.
Now if someone produced thisthing and was like I'm not going
to patent it, I want everybodyto benefit.
Zoe (21:25):
That would be like crazy thing and was like I'm not going
to patent it.
I want everybody to benefit,that would be like crazy.
Dr. Weiner (21:28):
It would be like what is wrong with this guy?
He's a nut job.
Like it would never.
Something like that would neverhappen today.
It would never happen today.
So, anyway, interesting,there's a real interesting
history of that.
Do you know where themanufacturing came from, how
they got this thing manufactured?
(21:48):
They started a charity and theywent around they're like, hey,
we have this vaccine, we needthese companies to manufacture
it.
And they went to all thesepeople and what happened was a
bunch of people would give likea tiny amount, like five cents,
10 cents, and it was through allof these small donations that
(22:10):
they got the money together inorder to be able to manufacture
the polio vaccine.
And that became the March ofDimes and that's where the name
March of Dimes comes from isthat they went around collecting
dimes and they took all thedimes and then that's how they
were able to fund themanufacturing of the polio
vaccine.
I thought that was a reallyinteresting story and, looking
(22:34):
back at that, versus what we'vegot now, where we've got Bernie
Sanders on September 24thcertainly by the time this airs,
and we'll cover that testimonyin future episodes Bernie
Sanders has the CEO of NovoNordisk coming in and he's got
an article out there.
Search that letter up that hewrote to the CEO.
(22:55):
It's a good letter.
It really is a good letter.
But anyway, I think this wholething to me.
They have this fantasticmedication.
Look at the number of peoplesuffering.
Let's just talk about childhoodobesity.
We've talked about childhoodobesity in the past and how
there's a socioeconomiccomponent.
These meds are, withoutquestion, the best weapon
(23:16):
against childhood obesity.
How many people do you thinkdeveloped paralysis from polio
in the United States in the 40sand 50s per year?
Guess, oh, I have no idea.
About 20,000.
About 20,000 people every yeardevelop polio, became paralyzed.
Zoe (23:33):
Oh, I know where this is going.
Dr. Weiner (23:35):
How many kids are suffering from childhood obesity
?
A lot more than that millions.
I wrote it down here somewhere.
What did I?
What number did I come up with?
Definitely not 20 000 millionkids 14 million kids in the
united states are suffering fromchildhood obesity.
Uh, and so we're really talkingabout exponentially larger
(23:58):
amounts of kids suffering fromchildhood obesity.
And I don't know that obesityis paralysis, but man, it can be
close, it can be.
Childhood obesity is a cripple.
I mean it sets people off on areally difficult emotional path.
Zoe (24:12):
I was going to say the mental health aspect.
Dr. Weiner (24:13):
The mental health aspect, the physical aspect, and
so I think we have to start tohold the pharma companies
accountable.
It's time for us to recognizethat this pendulum has swung too
far toward the pharma companyprofiting.
They did not create thismedication all by themselves.
(24:34):
They act like it, they'remanufacturing it, they're trying
to profit like they did.
But the science that went intothese meds, the science that
went into everything that's intheir laboratory, the training
of the people who are working intheir company there was public
funding that went into that.
(24:54):
This is, to some degree, apublic good.
We have to get this balanceright between incentivizing
production and development ofmedical breakthroughs, but also
making sure that people getaccess to them once they're out.
This medicine costs $5 a monthto manufacture.
There's been some good articlesin science that that have said
(25:18):
that that's probably what thiscosts.
We're selling it for fifteenhundred dollars a month.
It's crazy, it's gone too far.
And I'm not saying we give itaway for free, and I'm not
saying that, eli lily, should,you know, close up shop and just
give the patent away, likeJonas Salk did.
Let's just swing it back alittle bit more.
(25:38):
Anyway, all right, that was alot, a lot, but I think we need
to be calling these people out.
I think we have an electioncycle coming up and look
carefully at who you're votingfor and how they stand and where
they are on health care andhealth insurance reform and
pharma.
And look at who's're voting forand how they stand and where
they are on health care andhealth insurance reform and
(25:58):
pharma.
Look at who's giving them money, and if you're seeing a lot of
money coming from the pharmaindustry, from health insurance
companies, then you can prettymuch be assured that that person
is not necessarily going torepresent your best interests
when it comes to health care.
If you're frustrated about notbeing able to get these meds,
look for candidates who aretaking a stance against this.
There's a few out there.
(26:18):
All right.
Zoe (26:22):
Well, on that note.
Dr. Weiner (26:23):
On that note.
Zoe (26:24):
If you've been enjoying our podcast.
We would really appreciate itif you would leave us a review.
Share it with somebody youthink would find it valuable as
well.
That would be really helpful.
Dr. Weiner (26:35):
Our mission is to get valid, scientific, clinical
information out to you so thatyou can make good decisions
about your health.
For so many years, obesity hasbeen treated as this thing that
you just have to outwill and ifyou only tried harder.
And we now understand it's ametabolic disease and it's time
(26:59):
for us to get the informationtogether to start mapping out a
plan, like we do with all theother medical problems out there
.
The science is out there.
The science with the meds, thescience with the surgery, the
nutrition all of it's out there.
We can pretty much get almostanyone who walks into our office
to lose a lot of weight.
It's a matter of getting theinsurance coverage and getting
(27:21):
the information out there sopeople are able to participate,
to walk in with their head heldhigh, to not look at this as
something that's shameful orthat they should be embarrassed
about.
They're getting treatment for amedical problem.
The deck is stacked against youin terms of trying to lose
weight on your own, but nowwe've got the medicine, We've
(27:42):
got the surgery, We've got thenutrition.
It's all out there and we wantto get that message out to
people.
Zoe (27:48):
Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next
time.
When you leave it to the marketers and the food
manufacturers to handle yourconvenience, you're going to
sacrifice the health.
Zoe (00:08):
And nobody's going to care more about your health than you,
especially not food companiestrying to make you buy their
product.
Dr. Weiner (00:13):
No, I mean if you go and sit in their meetings.
Metrics of the Americanpeople's health is not one of
the metrics that they're tryingto optimize.
No, it's sales.
Zoe (00:23):
Absolutely of the metrics that they're trying to optimize
it's sales Absolutely.
Dr. Weiner (00:33):
Welcome back to the Pound of Cure Weight Loss
Podcast.
Is this the end of compounding?
You know there's a lot of talkabout this.
This is, yeah, I think.
Well, we'll dig into it.
You're going to have to hearthe whole episode, but I you
know we've talked a lot aboutcompounding.
It's complicated.
Yes, it's complicated.
There's pros and cons.
There certainly are a lot ofpeople out there having pretty
good success on compoundedmedications.
So before we get into that,we're going to talk about our In
(00:57):
the News segment.
This comes from the New YorkTimes and the title of the
article is Are SomeUltra-Processed Foods Worse Than
Others?
They talk about a study thatwas done.
It was published in Lancet.
Lancet is a UK-based journal.
They really focus on morepublic health, global medical
(01:20):
issues, as opposed to gettinginto the weeds on specific
medical problems.
It's certainly a very, verywell-respected journal In the
medical journal world.
There are some journals where,when you see an article in there
, you can pretty much assureyourself that this is a
well-done article.
There are others.
If you see an article in there,you can pretty much assure
(01:41):
yourself that it was rejected bysome of the better journals
first.
You can pretty much assureyourself that it was rejected by
some of the better journalsfirst.
So this article points out that73% of the US food supply is
considered ultra-processed.
That's a lot Three quarters.
Zoe (01:54):
Yeah, I think we can think about it and know that that's
the case.
Dr. Weiner (01:58):
Yeah, I mean just go to a grocery store.
Zoe (02:03):
walk around and you'll see that that's how it is you have
the produce section you haveeverything.
Dr. Weiner (02:08):
So, anyway, this was focused on heart disease.
So I think that's the firstimportant thing.
This is about heart disease,not about weight loss.
But there's some reallyimportant things that came out
of this study and I think itreally syncs a lot with most
people's experience out thereand what I see in the office
every day.
They found that those peoplewho consumed the most processed
(02:33):
foods so they broke everybody inand said, ok, here's the people
who consume the most processedfoods and here's the people who
consume the least processedfoods they found that they had
an 11% increased risk ofdeveloping cardiovascular
disease if you ate a lot ofultra-processed food, which,
truthfully, isn't that much.
No, yeah, they combined thestudy.
(02:56):
It was actually 1.25 millionpeople in this study, so there
was a lot of people in thisstudy.
Most of the people were whiteand most of the people were
actually health professionalsand when you look at a lot of
the nutritional or longevitypublic health data, they often
target health professionals.
One of the reasons is becauseif you give a health
(03:17):
professional a questionnaire tofill out, they're going to be
much more accurate with theiranswers than someone who's not
in the health field.
So a lot of these kind oflarge-scale questionnaire-based
studies because that's withnutrition, almost no studies are
observational, right?
What are you going to do?
Lock somebody in a closet andhere's what you eat for for six
months?
It's just not feasible to dothese direct observational
(03:40):
studies the way you can with,say, medications or other
medical problems, and so theseare mostly healthcare workers,
so it's a little bit of a biasedgroup.
It's not a cross-section of,say, the American population,
and so this study provescorrelation, not causation.
To prove causation you reallyneed a double-blinded randomized
(04:01):
control trial.
Hey, here's two treatments.
We're going to split them up,nobody knows who's getting which
treatment, and then we're goingto see what the results are.
That's how you prove causation.
That eating processed foodscauses heart disease.
This just says, hey, if peoplewho eat a lot of processed foods
, they tend to also have ahigher rate of heart disease.
I think when you're dealingwith numbers this large and when
(04:23):
you're looking at something, Ithink when you're dealing with
numbers this large and whenyou're looking at something, we
kind of know that's true, right,you eat like crap, you have a
higher chance of dying of aheart attack.
We know that it's very likelythat this is causation.
They found that there was an11% increase in your risk of
heart disease and they broke itdown a little bit.
There were some other ways thatthey analyzed it Broke it down
(04:43):
a little bit and there was someother ways that they analyzed it
.
They got up to, I think, 17%higher risk, but certainly not
double or triple the risk.
And, very interestingly, theythen separated it out into
different types of processedfoods.
What do you think were the twoworst processed foods for
causing heart disease?
Zoe (05:00):
Heart disease, definitely processed meats.
Dr. Weiner (05:03):
Processed meats.
No question, how about?
Zoe (05:07):
the other one.
Well, because I read thearticle, I'm going to go with
sugar-sweetened beverages.
Dr. Weiner (05:12):
Yes, sugar-sweetened beverages.
So those were the two foodsassociated with the higher risk
of heart disease.
In fact, if you took those twofoods out, there almost was no
difference.
Which?
Is crazy, it's crazy, yeah,it's crazy, and so I think
(05:34):
that's something that's reallyinteresting.
They also found that some foodswere protective and foods I
wouldn't necessarily havesuspected, but they all have.
There's two things they have incommon.
The first is breakfast cereals.
Zoe (05:43):
Fortification.
Right Vitamins and fiber well,some right, depending on the
breakfast.
Dr. Weiner (05:49):
Cereal breakfast here, yeah uh yogurt yeah,
protein protein and alsoprobiotics, right.
And then popcorn and crackers,fiber, fiber and so I.
They showed that people who atea lot of breakfast cereals tend
to have a lower risk of heartdisease.
Now again, this is not weightloss, right, right and not
causation.
(06:10):
And not causation.
But I don't think Zoe and Iwould recommend breakfast
cereals, some yogurts, but not alot of the sugar.
Sweetened yogurts, for sure,right.
Popcorn, not so bad.
Crackers probably best to steeraway from as much as possible,
(06:33):
but anyway.
So some of these foods wereprotective.
So it was really interestingthat this, this didn't show.
You know, you read all thesebooks and you know, honestly, my
book might even be one of thesethings where you're like, oh my
God, if I just ate, right, it'sgoing to cure every disease.
It's going to cure diabetes,it's going to cure heart disease
.
It's amazing, diabetes, it'sgoing to cure heart disease.
It's amazing.
And as we really dig into it,we find that that might be the
case for a small group of people, but for the majority of people
it's not the case,unfortunately.
So I think, some interestingpoints here.
(06:55):
There's always been this bigdebate about nature versus
nurture right, is it your genesor is it your environment?
What causes heart disease?
And we've kind of gone back andforth and for many years we
thought, oh, it's prettybalanced.
As we start to really dig in,as we get a better understanding
of genetics, we can look at DNA.
There are certain genes thatgive you a 50% increase in your
(07:24):
risk of heart disease.
If you have two family memberswho've had substantial heart
disease by the age of 50, whichis pretty early but I think you
have like a 600% higher risk ofdeveloping heart disease.
Wow.
So, no matter what you eat,that 11% deduction against that
600% increase, it doesn't make awhole lot of difference.
(07:46):
And so I don't want anybody toread this article here to say,
oh, I can just eat whatever Iwant, because that's absolutely
not the truth, because right nowthere's people working on this,
but right now our genes are notmodifiable.
So if you want to take stepsthat can reduce your risk of
heart disease, then your diet isa big one, and I think also
(08:08):
it's important that they lookedat all processed foods.
But there's this small group ofpeople who eat incredibly well
and I don't know that we can saythat those people, those strict
vegans, those people who eatlike really, really perfectly.
If that level of dietimprovement, maybe that's
protective.
I don't think the study showedanything about that.
(08:31):
So I think if you're out thereand you have a history of heart
disease, maybe going all the wayto that vegan or near-vegan
diet I don't know that thisstudy really was sophisticated
enough to find out if that makesa big difference, and that
might.
And there is some other datafrom Dean Ornish and some other
people where there is somesuggestion that that really
(08:53):
low-fat vegan-type diet isprotective.
So I thought this was reallyinteresting because it pointed
out that our nutrition, while itplays an important role, it
doesn't change everything.
It's, and our philosophy andour program is really it's
(09:13):
nutrition plus the meds, plusthe surgery.
That's how we get the reliableresults.
And again, doing the medswithout or the surgery without
the nutrition, that's a hugemistake.
But doing the nutrition alonefor the majority of people,
we're just not going to getwhere you need to be.
Zoe (09:30):
Well, if we think about the percentages, you know, maybe
we'll see a 10% reduction inbody weight with nutrition alone
, kind of like that 11%reduction in heart disease.
So you know, I think again thatnature versus nurture.
Dr. Weiner (09:47):
Right, right, and so many of our patients, so many,
have a family history.
One question I ask people ishey, if you go to a family
reunion, are you shaped likeeverybody else?
And so many people are like, ohmy God, we're all shaped
exactly the same, you know, andthere's just a.
You take our processed foodenvironment and you put our
genes together and and thatwe've got the epidemic of
(10:10):
obesity.
Yeah, so what do we have forour nutrition segment today?
Zoe (10:15):
Zoe Well keeping with the theme of the, the processed
meats.
You know if we're thinkingabout okay, if this is one of
the heavy hitters that can causeheart disease, but also we know
that it's not great for weightloss and even diabetes and lots
of other comorbidities as well.
So I wanted to chat throughsome alternatives to those
(10:37):
processed meats.
So let's define processed meatsRight.
It's going to be the bacon,it's going to be the deli meats,
the sausages, what else?
What are some other processed?
Dr. Weiner (10:47):
meat, ham, ham, yeah , yeah, anything.
They're adding a lot of salt toa meat Exactly Salted meat.
Zoe (10:53):
Salted meat, salted preserved meat, yeah.
So I mean, and then we didn'teven kind of discuss the sodium
aspect, right, but that playsinto that heart disease role.
So we think about why somebodymight gravitate towards
processed meat or at leastpeople in our practice working
towards weight loss.
Most of the time it's forconvenience.
(11:13):
Yeah Right, it's like aconvenient protein source ready
to go, and so I have a couple oftips to get your convenient
protein source ready to go thatmight not be as high in
preservatives and high in sodium.
That's not necessarilyconsidered.
A processed meat is kind ofmaking your own snack packs or
(11:33):
your own ready to go protein.
Dr. Weiner (11:35):
They all have processed meats in them.
Yeah, all the snack packs.
Zoe (11:39):
Yeah, you're right even if they're like chunks of, like
chunks of turkey, it's going tobe that like deli turkey that's,
you know, smushed up and turnedout into a different shape.
So cooking up your own.
For example, I did this lastweek a crock pot of instant pot
(12:01):
of chicken and then portioned itout so that I have some in the
refrigerator, some in thefreezer easily add for a salad
or as part of a meal or a snackor something like that.
So doing some of that batchcook prep work ahead of time can
be really helpful for havingready to go convenient protein
sources, making your own snackpack.
So we think about those.
What are they?
The P3?
(12:22):
something, so it has like nuts,cheese and hunks of processed
meat.
So yeah, make your own littlebento boxes that maybe you have
some raw almonds, maybe you havesome edamame and maybe you have
some of your shredded chickenand cherry tomatoes or snap peas
.
You can buy actually Tupperwarethat is like those bento box
(12:45):
style Tupperwares, so that canbe really helpful.
Canned tuna is not convenientto open up and get into, but the
pouches we don't really want toget, the ones that are seasoned
, because again, that's highsodium.
You can get them, the plaintuna pouches in water.
You can just open it up andstart around.
(13:05):
You probably wouldn'tappreciate it, but you're
getting your convenient proteinin roasted chickpeas um, you
know edamame and our shellededamame.
These are all convenientprotein sources that you can do.
Just a little bit of prep work,maybe keep it in the freezer,
keep it in the refrigerator,have it ready to go so you don't
need to lean on those.
(13:27):
You know meat sticks.
Dr. Weiner (13:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think I've always kind of
struggled with processed meatbecause, first of all, I'm not a
cardiologist so I'm not reallyfocused on the heart disease,
but it takes such a small amountto give you a lot of flavor,
true.
But I think we do have toacknowledge that and you know,
(13:55):
even though we're not, we'retalking about weight loss
processed meats probably do alsodramatically increase your risk
of diabetes.
I think there's quite a bit ofevidence that supports that too.
Diabetes is essentiallyimpaired glucose metabolism.
We know diabetes and obesityare linked.
So I think you know you kind ofmake a couple of jumps of logic
and processed meats areprobably also going to cause
some weight gain too.
I like your idea of thoseprocess, of making your own
things so that you can reallycontrol them Probably much less
(14:16):
expensive.
Zoe (14:17):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Dr. Weiner (14:18):
Yeah, much less expensive.
And also, when you leave it tothe marketers and the food
manufacturers to handle yourconvenience, you're going to
sacrifice the health.
Zoe (14:31):
And nobody's going to care more about your health than you,
especially not food companiestrying to make you buy their
product.
Dr. Weiner (14:37):
No, I mean if you go and sit in their meetings,
they're not sitting.
The metrics of the Americanpeople's health is not one of
the metrics that they're tryingto optimize.
It's sales.
Zoe (14:48):
Absolutely.
And thinking about what yousaid with the a little bit for
flavor.
So no, bacon is not going togive you a good source of
protein, but if you having halfa slice of bacon crumbled up on
your salad that you have alongwith maybe a hard boiled egg and
lots of veggies, and you justget that little bit of flavor,
well then that could be maybe away to add it in in moderation,
(15:11):
in a way that it doesn't makeyou feel deprived but that
you're not sacrificing yourhealth quite as much yeah, um,
okay.
Dr. Weiner (15:20):
So our last segment is the economics of obesity.
This is kind of a little bit ofa follow-up when we had Dave on
the man on Monjaro and Dave wasmaking a big push for releasing
the vial.
So, as most people out thereknow, glp-1 medications are sold
in a single-use pen and it'sthis single-use pen that's
(15:41):
responsible for a lot of theshortages out there.
Single-use pen that'sresponsible for a lot of the
shortages out there.
They actually can make plentyof the medication, but the pen
manufacturing is what's holdingthis up.
Shortages are much less of anissue now, but they have been a
significant issue in the past.
They finally released the vials.
You can now get ZepBound invials as opposed to in a
(16:07):
single-use pen.
They've had Monjaro in Canadain vial format for a while now,
but now in the US they've gotZepBound.
So they only released it for2.5 and 5 milligrams.
Why do you think?
Why only those two doses?
Zoe (16:23):
Because people aren't on them for long term.
Dr. Weiner (16:28):
No think, why only those two doses?
Because people aren't on themfor long term?
No, because that that's whatyou would think if you were
concerned about people.
But let's maybe switch thataround and make it you're
concerned about profit.
What's going to happen if youget a 15 milligram vial?
What are you going to do?
Just take out a little uh-huhvery easy to just take that one
dose that you paid.
(16:48):
You know people are paying 650bucks for these things for a
month.
So they're paying each.
Each dose is over 150 dollars.
If you could make that doselast, I mean 15 milligrams.
The starting dose is 2.5.
That's a factor of six.
You could take that 150 insteadof 150 bucks a week.
It's 150 bucks for six weeks,so they're not going to release
(17:12):
the vials because and and to methis really shows that this
single use pen is not so muchabout making it easy to inject,
but really very much about beingable to control the dose and
prevent people from stretchingit out and kind of making and
(17:32):
driving the demand for theproduct.
Zoe (17:34):
That's crazy, I didn't even think about that.
Dr. Weiner (17:37):
No question, that's why they released it, so they do
have it.
The self-pay price of the 2.5and the 5 milligram is a little
bit lower than the $6.50 thatthey charge for the remaining
ones.
It's $400 a month, $3.99 forthe 2.5 milligram and $5.49 for
the 5 milligram dose.
Up until now it's been $6.50 amonth for every dose.
(17:59):
You want the 15 milligram pen?
It's $650.
You want the 2.5 milligram pen?
It's $650.
Pen it's $650.
You want the 2.5 milligram penit's $650.
The vials are going to be alittle cheaper than that.
Eli Lilly's stock price hasdoubled this year.
It's doubled.
That company is worth twice asmuch now than it was.
Zoe (18:18):
The year's not even over yet.
Dr. Weiner (18:20):
Yeah.
So there's no question thatthey've been maximizing profits.
They've been doing this very,very effectively.
And so the president of CEO ofEli Lilly he actually called
Dave and was like, hey, we'regoing to release the vials and
they've marketed this like we'redoing this great thing to
(18:42):
alleviate the shortages.
But again, looking back atprofits over patients, which I
think is what we're seeing withthese glp-1 meds, they release
these vials, I think also for avery specific reason because it
alleviated the shortage, whichis good.
But they also, if there's noshortage, there's no compounding
(19:06):
.
So 503b pharmacies, which arethe large compounding pharmacies
, are only allowed to compoundor get medications from someone.
Besides, the manufacturer holdsthe patent if the medication is
on the fda shortage list.
Guess what's not on the fdashortage list anymore?
Zoe (19:24):
so now there's no more compounding.
Dr. Weiner (19:26):
No more compounding of triseptide.
People will do it, but now EliLilly has a legal basis to go
after it.
Oh, wow, so I think, and sothere was actually.
When this all came out, therewas a lot of chatter on social
media about how this wasactually a really bad thing.
Huh, there was a lot of chatteron social media about how this
(19:47):
is actually a really bad thing,because it signals the end of
compounding, at least forterzepatide.
Semaglutide Wegoviozepic isstill on the shortage list, but
terzepatide is now officiallyoff the shortage list, and so I
think, as much as Eli Lilly'smarketing, this is like hey,
we're doing this great thing,we're listening to the public,
we're releasing the vials.
(20:08):
There was a lot of strategy, alot of strategy.
They got themselves off the FDAshortage list.
They can go after thecompounders.
It's no secret that thesemanufacturers are very against
the compounders and they'veplugged it as a safety issue and
there is a little bit of thatthere really is but I think it's
(20:28):
very much that they'reprotecting their product.
These are going to betrillion-dollar drugs.
Zoe (20:35):
Yeah.
Dr. Weiner (20:36):
And so they want to be able to capitalize on this.
I think, if you think back tothe history of the pharma
industry, this, if you thinkback to the history of the
pharma industry, one of thefirst mass-produced pharma
products was the polio vaccine.
Jonas Salk, when he discoveredthe polio vaccine, basically
(20:56):
said I will not patent this.
I want as many people aspossible to be able to produce
this so that we can have anadequate amount of the vaccine
so that we can vaccinate theworld and eradicate polio.
And they did Right, right, theyreally did Putting the people
(21:17):
first, putting the people first,that idea.
Now if someone produced thisthing and was like I'm not going
to patent it, I want everybodyto benefit.
Zoe (21:25):
That would be like crazy thing and was like I'm not going
to patent it.
I want everybody to benefit,that would be like crazy.
Dr. Weiner (21:28):
It would be like what is wrong with this guy?
He's a nut job.
Like it would never.
Something like that would neverhappen today.
It would never happen today.
So, anyway, interesting,there's a real interesting
history of that.
Do you know where themanufacturing came from, how
they got this thing manufactured?
(21:48):
They started a charity and theywent around they're like, hey,
we have this vaccine, we needthese companies to manufacture
it.
And they went to all thesepeople and what happened was a
bunch of people would give likea tiny amount, like five cents,
10 cents, and it was through allof these small donations that
(22:10):
they got the money together inorder to be able to manufacture
the polio vaccine.
And that became the March ofDimes and that's where the name
March of Dimes comes from isthat they went around collecting
dimes and they took all thedimes and then that's how they
were able to fund themanufacturing of the polio
vaccine.
I thought that was a reallyinteresting story and, looking
(22:34):
back at that, versus what we'vegot now, where we've got Bernie
Sanders on September 24thcertainly by the time this airs,
and we'll cover that testimonyin future episodes Bernie
Sanders has the CEO of NovoNordisk coming in and he's got
an article out there.
Search that letter up that hewrote to the CEO.
(22:55):
It's a good letter.
It really is a good letter.
But anyway, I think this wholething to me.
They have this fantasticmedication.
Look at the number of peoplesuffering.
Let's just talk about childhoodobesity.
We've talked about childhoodobesity in the past and how
there's a socioeconomiccomponent.
These meds are, withoutquestion, the best weapon
(23:16):
against childhood obesity.
How many people do you thinkdeveloped paralysis from polio
in the United States in the 40sand 50s per year?
Guess, oh, I have no idea.
About 20,000.
About 20,000 people every yeardevelop polio, became paralyzed.
Zoe (23:33):
Oh, I know where this is going.
Dr. Weiner (23:35):
How many kids are suffering from childhood obesity
?
A lot more than that millions.
I wrote it down here somewhere.
What did I?
What number did I come up with?
Definitely not 20 000 millionkids 14 million kids in the
united states are suffering fromchildhood obesity.
Uh, and so we're really talkingabout exponentially larger
(23:58):
amounts of kids suffering fromchildhood obesity.
And I don't know that obesityis paralysis, but man, it can be
close, it can be.
Childhood obesity is a cripple.
I mean it sets people off on areally difficult emotional path.
Zoe (24:12):
I was going to say the mental health aspect.
Dr. Weiner (24:13):
The mental health aspect, the physical aspect, and
so I think we have to start tohold the pharma companies
accountable.
It's time for us to recognizethat this pendulum has swung too
far toward the pharma companyprofiting.
They did not create thismedication all by themselves.
(24:34):
They act like it, they'remanufacturing it, they're trying
to profit like they did.
But the science that went intothese meds, the science that
went into everything that's intheir laboratory, the training
of the people who are working intheir company there was public
funding that went into that.
(24:54):
This is, to some degree, apublic good.
We have to get this balanceright between incentivizing
production and development ofmedical breakthroughs, but also
making sure that people getaccess to them once they're out.
This medicine costs $5 a monthto manufacture.
There's been some good articlesin science that that have said
(25:18):
that that's probably what thiscosts.
We're selling it for fifteenhundred dollars a month.
It's crazy, it's gone too far.
And I'm not saying we give itaway for free, and I'm not
saying that, eli lily, should,you know, close up shop and just
give the patent away, likeJonas Salk did.
Let's just swing it back alittle bit more.
(25:38):
Anyway, all right, that was alot, a lot, but I think we need
to be calling these people out.
I think we have an electioncycle coming up and look
carefully at who you're votingfor and how they stand and where
they are on health care andhealth insurance reform and
pharma.
And look at who's're voting forand how they stand and where
they are on health care andhealth insurance reform and
(25:58):
pharma.
Look at who's giving them money, and if you're seeing a lot of
money coming from the pharmaindustry, from health insurance
companies, then you can prettymuch be assured that that person
is not necessarily going torepresent your best interests
when it comes to health care.
If you're frustrated about notbeing able to get these meds,
look for candidates who aretaking a stance against this.
There's a few out there.
(26:18):
All right.
Zoe (26:22):
Well, on that note.
Dr. Weiner (26:23):
On that note.
Zoe (26:24):
If you've been enjoying our podcast.
We would really appreciate itif you would leave us a review.
Share it with somebody youthink would find it valuable as
well.
That would be really helpful.
Dr. Weiner (26:35):
Our mission is to get valid, scientific, clinical
information out to you so thatyou can make good decisions
about your health.
For so many years, obesity hasbeen treated as this thing that
you just have to outwill and ifyou only tried harder.
And we now understand it's ametabolic disease and it's time
(26:59):
for us to get the informationtogether to start mapping out a
plan, like we do with all theother medical problems out there
.
The science is out there.
The science with the meds, thescience with the surgery, the
nutrition all of it's out there.
We can pretty much get almostanyone who walks into our office
to lose a lot of weight.
It's a matter of getting theinsurance coverage and getting
(27:21):
the information out there sopeople are able to participate,
to walk in with their head heldhigh, to not look at this as
something that's shameful orthat they should be embarrassed
about.
They're getting treatment for amedical problem.
The deck is stacked against youin terms of trying to lose
weight on your own, but nowwe've got the medicine, We've
(27:42):
got the surgery, We've got thenutrition.
It's all out there and we wantto get that message out to
people.
Zoe (27:48):
Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next
time.
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