Transcript
A (0:07)
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here on today's show. The Tony nominations came out yesterday and we'll break them down with vulture critic Jackson McHenry. His Golden messenger will perform live in WNYC Studio 5. I heard them warming up. They sound fabulous. I can't wait for that. And we'll finish up this month's full bio conversation about Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer with Andrew Graham Dixon, the author of Vermeer A Life Lost and Found. That's our plan. So let's get this started with the Great Ozempic Experiment. As more people begin to take GLP1s for weight loss, many are reporting unexpected positive side effects, including relief from chronic migraines, help with arthritis, and even reduced addiction cravings. But doctors still aren't sure why these medications have so many unintended upsides or what it could mean for their future use. Julia Belous, contributing writer for the New York Times, joins us to discuss her piece the Great Ozempic Experiment. In the piece, she breaks down new data explaining how GLP1s work, their effectiveness, and why some people have decided to keep taking them even though they don't always help them lose weight.
B (1:35)
Morning.
A (1:35)
She published a piece about Ozempic and kids. I'll ask her about that as well. Julia Belous joins us now. She's the co author of Food Intelligence, the Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us. Julia, welcome.
B (1:48)
Thank you so much for having me.
A (1:50)
Listeners. We'd like to hear from you. If you've taken a GLP1 medication like Ozempic, Wegovy Mounjaro, have you experienced any unexpected side effects, positive or negative? Have you noticed changes beyond what you or your doctor anticipated, like shifts in chronic pain, cravings, mood, other health conditions? And if you stop taking one of these medications, what led to that decision? Our Phone lines are open. 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc Julia. Experts initially theorized the drugs mimic the body's own hormonal signal. What was the original thinking of why it made people lose weight?
B (2:31)
Oh, yeah. So we have our bodies produce a hormone called GLP1 as well. And the idea was that this hormone that we produced in the acted as a satiety signal. So when we eat, basically the hormone is released from the gut and it tells us, you know, we've eaten, you've had enough and now stop. And the idea behind the drugs for weight loss was that we get this souped up, kind of boosted, longer lasting version of that gut satiety signal. And that helps, yeah, basically make us feel fuller, faster and eat less. And it turns out that's not at all how the drugs work. So I talked to lots of researchers who are working at the frontier of this science and they said basically that, you know, the way these drugs work has very little to do with our natural GLP1 physiology and the way they understand the mechanisms for weight loss. The idea is that the drugs actually need to reach the brain and there they have this effect of lowering appetite. And it's really interesting the way they actually cross the blood brain barrier at this point that alerts the body about toxins. And that's where you know, if you've eaten bad food food and you start to feel a bit nauseous and like you're going to vomit and you don't want to eat, it's that same effect that these drugs seem to be having. And so yeah, it's quite something different from what the original proposals were.
