Should You Jump on the GLP-1 Bandwagon?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you likely have heard about the magical GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs for obesity. These drugs include:

• Semaglutide: Ozempic (diabetes), Wegovy (weight loss), Rybelsus (oral diabetes).
• Dulaglutide: Trulicity (diabetes).
• Liraglutide: Victoza (diabetes), Saxenda (weight loss).
• Exenatide: Byetta, Bydureon (diabetes).
• Tirzepatide: Mounjaro (diabetes), Zepbound (weight loss) (Dual GIP/GLP-1).

With 74% of Americans being either overweight or obese, these drugs have taken on a magical reputation for helping people lose weight. If you are dealing with significant obesity, should you consider using one of these medications? This decision is somewhat more complex than the pharmaceutical companies would have you believe. Allow me to walk you through this timely topic.

First Understand the Disease You are Dealing With

Before you understand the role of a medication in treating a disease, you first must understand the pathology of the condition. Obesity has long been viewed as a simple mathematical problem: too many calories consumed versus calories expended in metabolism. Calories do count, but they are not driving the bus. In my opinion, your brain controls fat storage. How do I know?  It took a few decades for me to figure this out.

At the onset of the current obesity epidemic, rather than relying on BMI, I measured each patient’s body composition at every visit for decades. That’s because obesity is defined as “excess body fat”. Over time, I noticed an odd association between various brain dysfunction symptoms and changes in body composition. The symptoms consistently preceded changes in body composition, suggesting that the brain regulates fat storage. This certainly makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

A New Disease Hits the Scene

I eventually identified 22 such symptoms associated with obesity. I then encountered the concept of Affective Spectrum Disorder, proposed by Harvard researchers Hudson and Pope in 2003. They proposed that 16 common brain conditions were part of the same disease, but they didn’t connect the dots with obesity. I later determined that the trigger of this condition is long-term exposure to ultra-processed food, so I decided to call the disease Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome.

If CARB syndrome is indeed driving most cases of obesity, how is it affected by the GLP-1 drugs? In my experience, these drugs can be beneficial for two reasons:

1. They help you shed excess body fat without traditional dieting.
2. They seem to improve brain function and suppress some of the 22 symptoms of CARB syndrome.

Treatment Versus Reversal

If that’s the case, are these drugs magical “cures”? When it comes to chronic diseases like CARB syndrome, you have two choices:

1. You can use medications to “manage or treat” the disease.
2. You can use various methods to prevent or “reverse” the disease.

Prevention and reversal are always preferable to treating a chronic disease if you hope to achieve optimal health. With treatment, the disease is still lurking under the surface, ready to suddenly re-emerge at any opportunity, and you need to deal with the side effects of the treatment. With disease prevention or reversal, your body is once again functioning as Mother Nature intended without the need for medical treatments.

Follow Dr. Wilson’s Fabulous Seven Steps to Optimal Health

GLP-1 drugs appear to be highly effective in treating CARB syndrome and thereby reducing body fat, but there’s no evidence that they reverse the condition. As is the case with all medications, these drugs are expensive and are associated with some potentially serious side effects, so they are not the ideal solution. I view this type of treatment drug as a stopgap measure to get things moving in the right direction so you can then institute measures to put the rabbit back in the hat. To do so, you need to follow Dr. Wilson’s fabulous seven elements to reverse CARB syndrome:

1. Because depleted monoamine neurotransmitters cause the symptoms of CARB syndrome, the key to treatment is to take a balanced neurotransmitter precursor product like CARB-22.Start with two capsules twice daily, then increase to four capsules twice daily if needed to control symptoms. The only precaution is to keep the dose low if you are taking any psychiatric medications.
2. Avoid ultra-processed foods and opt for minimally processed whole foods.
3. Exercise for 30-60 minutes at least five days per week. A combination of aerobic exercise and strength training is ideal.
4. Try to get at least 7-8 hours of restful sleep every night.
5. Maintain healthy social relationships and consider meditating daily.
6. Eat a variety of small fish and take a high-quality omega-3 supplement to maintain an optimal AA/EPA ratio between 1 and 3. I take OmegaRx from Dr. Barry Sears of Zone Diet fame.
7. Alcohol is a neurotoxin, so the ideal dose is zero.

If you decide to use a GLP-1 medication, it is essential to adhere to the seven measures outlined above if your true goal is optimal health. As your brain function improves and you lose significant excess fat, it’s time to consider tapering the medication. It’s never a good idea to continue medication long-term when you don’t need to do so. Folks who don’t use the above seven measures will always quickly relapse when the medication is discontinued. The bottom line:  don’t just treat your disease, put the rabbit back in the hat and reverse it!