The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
Wed, 25 Dec 2024
Like most things in life, when it comes to optimizing metabolic health, a nuanced perspective can help. Rather than viewing it as a black-and-white issue, we can take into consideration the big-picture social context we’re facing that encourages ultra-processed foods, obesity, and lifelong medication as well as the micro-level of what people are experiencing as individuals and understanding how to help them when all else fails. Today I’m thrilled to sit down with Dr. Tyna Moore and Calley Means for a grounded discussion that explores both sides of the spectrum, and everything in between. In this episode, we discuss: The controversial discussion of GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic, weighing the pros and cons of these new drugs in treating obesity and metabolic crises (3:34) Challenging the notion of treating obesity with drugs like Ozempic (10:35) An unsettling revelation about the push for using Ozempic in children (12:04) Digging deeper into GLP-1 research and some of the benefits (32:51) Why are children being born metabolically challenged? (41:11) Dr. Moore’s approach to using peptides with her patients and for her own crippling pain, and what they’ve seen (45:19) How our current healthcare system lacks policies and support for behavior change (1:27) While there are always differing views, we know for sure that our food and drug policies aren’t serving the best interests of creating sustainable, empowered health for the masses. I hope you’ll tune in to hear more from this comprehensive and lively discussion. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BIOptimizers, Pique, and Big Bold Health. Streamline your lab orders with Rupa Health. Access more than 3,500 specialty lab tests and register for a FREE live demo at RupaHealth.com. Don’t let stress take over your holidays. Try Magnesium Breakthrough from BiOptimizers. Head to Bioptimizers.com/Hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%. Head over to PiqueLife.com/Hyman20 and get up to 20% off + a complimentary beaker and rechargeable frother. Big Bold Health is offering my listeners 30% off their first order of HTB Rejuvenate Superfood. Head to Bigboldhealth.com and use code DrHyman30.
Chapter 1: What are GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic?
Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Thank you so much for being a loyal listener to The Doctor's Pharmacy. For the holidays, I've decided to give my team a little break to rest up and prepare for more content and the new year ahead. So The Doctor's Pharmacy will be replaying some older episodes for the next two weeks.
But don't worry, we'll be back with more content and brand new episodes starting Tuesday, December 31st. So for now, here are some of my favorite past episodes of The Doctor's Pharmacy and see you next year. Coming up on this episode.
These peptides have been shown to heal heart tissue and to reverse heart failure. So I've got one patient on it for high blood pressure, tiny little dose, high blood pressure, blood pressure's down. I personally take it because I have psoriatic arthritis and I have crippling pain from tip to toe. It doesn't matter how clean of a life I live. It doesn't matter how clean my fish tank is.
I, menopause hit me. So tiny little doses mitigates my autoimmune conditions like nothing I've ever used.
So just to give you a little more detail on our guest today, Dr. Tina Moore has nearly three decades of experience in the medical field. She's a leading holistic expert in regenerative medicine and resilient metabolic health. She fixed people who are metabolically busted. She's trained in alternative science and medicine as a naturopathic doctor and chiropractor.
And she's a podcast host, a speaker, kettlebell devotee, a mother, an advocate for health autonomy. She's got a great podcast called The Dr. Tina Show. She's passionate about making people actually better. And Callie Means, who has been on the podcast before, is the founder of TruMed, a company that enables tax-free spending on food and exercise.
He's also the co-author with his sister, Dr. Casey Means, of Good Energy, The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, which is available right now. Earlier in his career, Callie was a consultant for food and pharma companies and is now exposing those practices that they use to weaponize our institutions of trust.
In the past year, he's met with 50 members of Congress and presidential candidates advocating policies to combat the corruption of pharma and food industries. He's a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Business School. And this podcast is going to be a doozy. It's a bit long, but I encourage you to stay with us the whole time.
We get into all of it from the macro, what is causing our obesity epidemic, our metabolic crisis, and what we can do about it from the social and political level, but also on the micro. What about that person sitting in our office or struggling with weight and struggling with being obese and not knowing how to get out of that pickle? And what is the right way to do it?
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Chapter 2: What are the concerns with treating obesity using Ozempic?
wrong is there another way using microdosing or compounded pharmaceutical versions of these peptides that might be actually safer and better used with a 360 approach for lifestyle so we're going to get all of these and you're going to be in a very robust sometimes heated discussion about ozempic and the glp-1 agonist so stay with us for the whole thing and i know you'll love it let's dive in right now all right welcome tina and welcome callie it's great to have you both on the show pump the beer thank you
Okay, so this is such a rich topic, and it's so deep, and I spent probably 15 hours preparing for this podcast, my reading, everything that both of you read, reading study after study after study, looking at the data very carefully.
Chapter 3: What revelations exist about Ozempic's use in children?
And I can honestly say that after not just reading the headlines, but between the lines, reading the research, I've come to understand that this is a very nuanced conversation. It's not just good or bad. It's not just we should do it or we shouldn't do it. It's really about understanding, one, the bigger social context in which this is happening.
The bigger social context is we are facing a metabolic health and obesity crisis that's never been seen before in the history of humanity. There's over a billion people who are obese, up two billion people who are overweight in the world.
We have in America, it's even worse, we have 42% obese, we have 75% overweight, and 93.2% metabolic and healthy, meaning they're on the spectrum of some poor metabolic dysfunction, which is making them on their way towards prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. And the costs are staggering. We know our health care costs are now $4.3 trillion in direct costs.
And probably 80% of that is for chronic disease, mostly caused by our food and primarily driven by this phenomenon of insulin resistance, which is part of what Ozempic and these drugs purport to fix. So...
as we start to think about how do we solve this problem you know i've been thinking about it from the very macro view which is how do we deal with the food environment the toxic food environment has caused us to be in this situation this is not a genetic problem there may be genetics that load the gun but the environment pulls the trigger and the environment has changed in the last 50 years so dramatically that it's led to an abundance of toxic food ultra processed food high starch and sugar in our diet
ingredients we've never had before that are destroying our microbiome, that are destroying our nutritional resilience, that are causing poor metabolic health, and are really at the root of so much of what's going on. So I focused on policy issues. I wrote my book, Food Fix, which is an attempt to kind of lay out why this is happening. Because I realized I couldn't cure diabetes in my office.
It's cured on the farm. It's cured in the factory where they make the food. It's cured... you know, in the grocery store, in the kitchen. That's where diabetes is cured. And ultimately, I realized I had to go upstream to deal with the root causes, which is our bigger food system.
And we're going to get to talk about that with Callie because he's been talking about it and thinking about it for a long time. And I think his new book, Good Energy, addresses a lot of these issues around metabolic health. It's his sister, Casey Means, who's been on the show. No, I often get them confused. Callie, Casey, I don't know what their parents are thinking about it.
I think I've sorted it out, you know? And Tina has a very different perspective, which is really around the micro, not the macro, which is how do we deal with individuals struggling with metabolic dysfunction who tried everything, done everything, hit the wall, can't make it work, struggle, white knuckle, and just can't get their bodies back into a state of good metabolic health.
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Chapter 4: How does the current healthcare system impact metabolic health?
This is a lifetime drug and there's actually some serious warnings if you go off the drug and gain the weight back and actually unknown metabolic effects. So that's what Novo Nordic says. And they're actually saying with the help of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which early in my career I helped pay by pharma companies. This is a subsidiary of pharma companies.
This Danish company is one of the top contributors to it. They're saying that a 12-year-old, it should be the first line of defense. It shouldn't be after dietary interventions fail. It's as if a 12-year-old gains a little bit of weight, put them on this drug for life.
So the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn't have first-line therapy as lifestyle?
They're saying that they need urgent, quick interventions on surgery and Ozempic and not after dietary interventions fail. That's what the recent press release and guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Well, that seems pretty messed up. The American Academy of Pediatrics has not spoken out about Coca-Cola machines in pediatric wards and classrooms.
Chapter 5: What are the benefits of peptides in treating metabolic dysfunction?
Chapter 6: Why are children being born metabolically challenged?
And actually, if you have obesity, the doctor's able to prescribe exercise and a keto diet that's subsidized by the government. Ozempic is not the standard of care. for obesity. When you actually look at the stock analysis, 80% to 90% of profit expectations are coming from the United States. They're taking advantage of the United States. So we have a dirty fish tank, right?
The problem is not an ozempic deficiency. The problem is when are we going to say we're going to stop poisoning kids?
They're talking about using this in kids. But we're filling the schools with ultra-processed junk food that these kids are eating for lunch, and that the school lunch program is so messed up that these kids aren't getting healthy, nutritious food that's helping them be metabolically healthy or mentally healthy.
Right. So then we look at, okay, what do you use this for? The instructions on Ozempic is it's a lifetime drug. It actually is a warning. So let's just look at what Novo Nordic says. They said this is not like a quick use. This is not for a kickstart.
This is a lifetime drug and there's actually some serious warnings if you go off the drug and gain the weight back and actually unknown metabolic effects. So that's what Novo Nordic says. And they're actually saying with the help of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which early in my career I helped pay by pharma companies. This is a subsidiary of pharma companies.
This Danish company is one of the top contributors to it. They're saying that a 12-year-old, it should be the first line of defense. It shouldn't be after dietary interventions fail. It's as if a 12-year-old gains a little bit of weight, put them on this drug for life.
So the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn't have first-line therapy as lifestyle?
They're saying that they need urgent, quick interventions on surgery and Ozempic and not after dietary interventions fail. That's what the recent press release and guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Well, that seems pretty messed up. The American Academy of Pediatrics has not spoken out about Coca-Cola machines in pediatric wards and classrooms.
They've not spoken out about the fact that 10% of food stamp funding goes to Coca-Cola. They've not spoken out about our agriculture subsidies. But they have said that if your 12-year-old gains a little bit of weight, they need to be on this injection for the rest of their life. Now, what's the problem with this, right? As we know from your work,
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Chapter 7: How can we address the obesity epidemic beyond medication?
Correct, however, semaclutide and terzepatide are actually very closely, well, terzepatide's a little bit different.
That's one jar off for people listening.
Yeah, semaclutide is almost bioidentical to GLP-1. It's simply got as little tinkering on one of the amino acids to keep the half-life longer. So GLP-1 is produced naturally in the body. It's produced by the L cells of our gut. It's also produced in the brain, in the medulla. If it's produced in the brain, I immediately thought, well, it must have use in the brain. And it sure does.
It actually has impact on neuroinflammation beyond appetite signaling, beyond any of that. We've got it sort of in this box of being, it slows gastric motility. It decreases appetite by slowing gastric motility, very sort of basic kindergarten version. And then in the brain, it inhibits appetite. And that's how people have got it.
Well, I start looking into it and I'm like, this is a signaling peptide hormone. Why would we macro dose a hormone? You'd feel awful if you were cranking high levels of thyroid or testosterone or estrogen. And those are sex steroid hormones, but still hormones.
Or high doses of insulin, which was one of the first peptides ever synthesized and has been around for a long time.
Right. You die if you took high doses, too high of a dose. So I got to thinking, I do bioidentical hormone replacement by dosing physiologic doses, which are much, much lower even than some of the standard dosing. I've always been a fan of starting people very slow and low on any hormone. I ramp them up and I titrate them up until they get tissue saturation and until their symptoms resolve.
Then that's the dose. Then I test to make sure I'm not causing them any harm. That's how I manage patients on hormones. We've got leptin and ghrelin. Those are peptide signaling hormones. Turns out leptin and ghrelin, so leptin, for the audience listening, is secreted by your fat. It goes to your brain. It tells your brain you're full. It's basically the thermostat of the brain.
It lets the body know energy status, right? Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach, and it goes to the brain and tells you you're hungry. I always think grr, ghrelin, right? That's how I remember the two. Ghrelin and leptin don't work if GLP-1 isn't present.
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Chapter 8: What alternative approaches exist for managing metabolic health?
And so there are people who are at risk for increased obesity that's based on this sort of low hedonic drive to pleasure. And I think the question is, do these drugs modify that in some way? Do they actually not... do it in a bad way, but maybe they do it in a good way.
Because I think if there's something that can actually help people reduce their addiction and reduce that drive and actually have pleasure from things that are just things that we all get pleasure from, that would be better.
I'm just trying to use common sense here, right? I'm not saying it's a bad thing that people are eating a little bit less, that gambling less, engaging in alcohol less, engaging in drug use less. But if this drug is basically across the board making people want to do less of things, that to me demonstrates potential concerns, unknown concerns with impacts on our dopamine levels.
I think that's a serious concern. My joke always is that there's a study in the New England Journal years ago that said we should start to use these new drugs as soon as they come out before the side effects develop. We don't know if it's going to happen in 5, 10, 15 years. We really don't.
Well, we have 20 years of data on GLP-1s, just not semaclutide and terzapatide. And we weren't hearing all of this, these huge mainstream media headlines before that with exenatide that's been around for 20 years and loraclutide.
Yeah, I mean, there's mixed data on the suicide thing. And some of its population data, the clinical trials don't show that. There's Big horror studies of 240,000 people, 1.6 million patients with diabetes prescribed Ozempic, 240,000 on Wigobi. And there's a lower incidence of suicidal thoughts in patients. So I think, you know, I don't think we know. We just have to keep tracking it.
I think you're right. It's good to be concerned. And we do need to do post-market surveillance of what's going on with these drugs and how they impact people's health. But that's sort of, you know, like I'm sitting here, honestly, like kind of in the middle and also confused because part of me is like, God, wouldn't it be great to have a leg up?
Because I've been treating people with obesity and overweight issues for 30 years, and it's tough. It's really tough for them. They really struggle. They wanted the right thing, and they're highly motivated patients, and it's still tough. And so... I wonder, you know, this is not a miracle drug. I don't think Tina would say it's a miracle drug. I think, you know, like any compound, it has a role.
And so is there a role? How do we use it? Does it make sense to actually think about this differently from how the traditional pharmacological medical approach is doing something? and just not dismiss it wholesale as a part of an overall solution. So I think, you know, in the perfect world, we'd totally fix our food system. We would get rid of all the junk.
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