Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Gupta, an obesity medicine physician and founder of Mindful Wellness and Mindful
Weight Loss. I want to talk today about the impact of medications like Semaglutide (known as Ozempic mostly), and the broader food system. I am a radical when it comes to these medications. Let me explain...
Every day, this food system spends trillions of dollars trying to manipulate bodies and minds to get us to put calories into our GI tract for the sole purpose of maximizing value for their shareholders. Now, I'm sure the people who work in all these industries are fine people, but the end result is countless morbidity and mortality from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancers, etc.
With the advent of these new medications, however, for the first time in 70 years, we have molecules that can help us counteract all of these forces that have led 70 percent of us to struggle with weight. I hope one day, Semaglutide (brand names Ozempic and Wegovy), and Tirzepitide (brand names Mounjaro and Zepbound) will be sold in CVS's everywhere, over the counter, in a million different formulations.
I got a public health degree, and before I was more Bernie Sanders about this; we should take on the farm bill, the subsidies, etc to truly change our food system. More recently, I have gotten more cynical about the calcified special interests in American politics. However, I think that these molecules have the potential to be game-changers.
I am seeing these articles now that food companies like Pepsi are starting to get worried about this, and I say GOOD! Again, I don't want to demonize the people working in these industries, but so often the blame is placed on us; we just need to work harder, move more, and eat less; that's bull shit!
If 7/10 people are suffering from this, it clearly isn't an individual thing. Big pharma isn't the most beloved industry, but hoping for change in this world isn't enough. I think right now, we have tools, and yes, we need them to go generic, and more availability, but just maybe, they are part of the answer to why this issue is so hard for so many of us.
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