DR. JOE GALATI - KTRH Medical Expert Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Five fifty one. Now, as promised here, let's talk a
little bit about the weight loss fad. New weight loss
medication might be a medical marvel. Some are calling it
at the next health crisis for a variety of reasons.
Doctor Joel Glotti's joining us now KTRH Medical analyst.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Doctor. Good morning, Bob, how are you this morning?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
We're doing wonderfully. Thank you, appreciate you spending some time
with us. So we can't turn on a TV without
seeing a commercial for one of these multiple weight loss drugs.
They're not supposed to be weight loss drugs. They're supposed
to be diabetes treatment. But they have been so successful
at dropping weight for so many people that has become
the craze. What is the potential harm here?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, there's a couple of things here. When you look
at the sheer numbers, the hundreds of millions of people
that have obesity that is going to lead to diabetes,
diabetes and its complications heart disease, heart failure, what I
see is fatty liver and patients developing cirrhosis. You have
to look and say we need some sort of a solution.

(01:02):
And these GLP one agonists have shown up on the scene,
and they do work, you will lose fifteen to twenty
percent of your body weight, get your risk for heart
disease down. But the one thing that I see while
they do work, we are seeing patients that are not
learning the life skills, the behaviors that will support a

(01:26):
healthy lifestyle long term. So if they're off the drug,
that prescription runs out, they have a side effect, they're
back to gaining weight, and they're in the same boat
like any new medicine or any new therapy long term,
what is the effect? And that's the pivotal point that
we're at right now, and I believe the basis for

(01:47):
the article and the discussion right now.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I think maybe people who are on the right now
we're part of the Denny Pig expression of this because
long term drug studies depend on long term so we
don't really know what side effects may be.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, you know, we do know already that there is
a chance of thyroid cancer, albeit on the low side,
and you have to weigh out the small risk of
developing thyroid cancer with the likelihood of having a fatal
heart attack or stroke. So again it's going to come
down to risk benefit. We do know that patients that

(02:26):
are on these medicines have a number of GI complaints nausea, vomiting, bloating, constipation,
and so these are uncomfortable side effects that people may
have to stop the treatment on. But again, long term,
that's still a little bit of a black box when
you're looking five ten years into the future.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Tuchri Claudie, I'm curious a bigger picture aside from just
these particular types of drugs. How do these things get
approved if they don't have long term studies. You know,
we all talked about the COVID shots, so hey, we
didn't have a long term study, and now we're starting
to find out what some of those long term effects are.
We're about three four years into this whole thing, right, so,
you know they got emergency use authorization. How do drugs

(03:08):
like this get approved without knowing what those long term
impacts are.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, every single medicine that the FDA approves is really
under constant scrutiny, where if we start seeing a certain
side effect, a complication, some sort of phenomena that we
don't see. Of course, these are all reported back to
the manufacture and then back to the FDA, And certainly

(03:32):
we've seen this with many many drugs where the indication
or the dosage may change, or a certain population shouldn't
be on these medications. So while I believe the entire
COVID debacle caused a great deal of mistrust of the
medical profession, the FDA, the government, rightfully, so in many

(03:53):
cases there is ongoing observation with these medications. Yes, we
cannot start a drug for twenty years and then say
let's approve it. We have to approve it with the
best data, the number of patients, look for these signals
and then proceed forward with caution. And I think for
everybody listening with any medicine, you the consumer, the patient,

(04:16):
you have to proceed with caution, realizing that there is
no panacea out there for any therapy, including these GLP
one agonist drugs.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Okay, well that's good advice, no question about it, because
that's exactly how a lot of people do see it.
So caution is indeed indicated. Doctor Joe Bondi, KTRH Medical Analyst, Doctor,
thank you, appreciate it. Have a great day, all right
you as well. All right, it's five fifty six now
this is Houston's Morning News.