Boarding alright, perfect, go ahead
and say and spell your name. Name
is Ken Ken. Last name Fujioka F
as in Frank UJIOKA Ken Fujioka,
MD Amazon, Mary Diaz and Dan I'm
director of nutrition and metabolic
research at Scripps Clinic in
the Department of Endocrinology.
Perfect and today we're talking about
a recently approved weight loss drug
and it's different than anything
we've kind of seen before, right?
Correct? It's the class we've had before,
but the results are way beyond our
wildest expectations. And what
does that mean? Well,
you know, typically we were happy
just getting 510% weight loss.
We just thought that was the
cat's meow and if you lose 5
or 10% you improve diabetes,
high blood pressure,
all the things you want to improve.
But now we ask something that's
giving us 15 and a lot of
patients over 20% weight loss.
This is twice as much weight
loss as we had before,
and we're now approaching the
weigh loss that you see with
bariatric surgery, so this
is uncharted water. And how does it work?
I mean, what makes it different
than some of the other? Why does
why is it so much more effective?
So relatively recently we figured
out why it's so hard to lose weight,
and it turns out our weight is
controlled by a set of hormones
we call satiety hormones.
So when you eat a meal.
You send hormones to tell your
brain one stop eating, but two.
It's OK to go ahead and lose weight and.
When you start losing weight,
you lower these hormones.
So now we're giving back these hormones.
We're giving the hormone that you are
supposed to have to help you lose weight,
but again,
because the body fights weight loss,
the technical term is metabolic adaptation.
But by giving this hormone back,
you're allowed to lose much
more weight than before,
and the body doesn't put on
the brakes and make it tough.
Now, is this something like?
Is it temporary?
Is it something that somebody would be
on like for the rest of their lives?
I mean, how does it have?
What is the long term effect?
So one is because this is really
a hormone and not really a drug.
It's very safe so this is something
you can use long term and here's
the tough part and This is why.
Again, weight loss is so much harder
than we ever dreamed of is that?
The set point in your brain apart you
can't control called the hypothalamus.
Whatever is the highest weight you've
been to, that becomes the new norm.
In other words,
the body thinks I need to weigh 220 or
250 or whatever for the rest of your life,
so the hormones will adjust down to
try and drive you back to that weight.
So by giving this hormone back,
you allow the person to lose more weight,
but they're going to need to
be on something like this,
probably for the rest of their life.
These.
We're just kind of like right on the tip of
the iceberg because we now figured this out.
So these hormones are coming out,
so we have these hormones available.
But you know what you're on
today may not be the same thing.
You're on five years from now.
Maybe something different,
but you really need to think
of this as long term,
because again,
the body will just keep trying
to drive back to the highest
weight forever.
Well, and that sounds like an
interesting idea for a girl who's
fought her weight for many years.
Now blame it on having children,
whatever, but that seems that's very
interesting to me and such a simple idea
that sounds like a real game changer.
Like for so many people who,
like you know you go out.
You've heard the like meta fast and
the you know this diet and that
diet and people trying their whole
lives and lose weight for a short
term and they just don't understand
why they can't keep the weight off.
And this sounds like a very
simple explanation and possibly
even a solution to that, right?
Yeah no, this is so true it it's really
neat and exciting to be in this field.
We call it obesity medicine because
we now know why it's so hard.
And again, you said it perfectly.
It's like you battle it your whole life.
So again, have something that is fixing
the metabolic issues or the hormones
is just huge and safe like that
right? 'cause a lot of a lot
of things you can take are,
you know they don't let fat go
into your system and that they
have like really bad side effects.
And you know, I mean this sounds like.
Almost magical, almost like magical to me.
Yeah, no, you're right.
The other drugs
that are really truly drugs,
you know will say fenter mean the
most commonly used weight loss drug.
It's a stimulant.
It raises blood pressure,
raises pulse, does bad things.
This is totally different.
This is now using something that's
normally in your body and we're
just putting it back to the normal
level and we're getting again weight
loss like we've never seen before.
So this is just amazing to us in the
future because it turns out there's about.
Eight or nine hormones,
all trying to control your weight.
That's how how hard it is to lose weight,
'cause you have eight or nine hormones.
Just trying to drive your hormone back,
and so will be able to replace two
or three or four of these hormones.
And again,
the preliminary data on some of these
newer treatments is that you will
be able to get to an ideal weight
for just about 8590% of patients,
which is
just, again, amazing.
Amazing that just yeah, amazing,
and this is available now.
Well, I mean, I know it was
just recently approved,
so is it ready to go?
Are you already giving it to?
Two people to patients, so you're
on the cutting edge 'cause it's today.
It's we just got it so it was approved
last week and and again nobody
expects to get approved this quickly.
But again, the efficacy.
The weight loss is so good the safety
is good so they got the green light
they moving forward so they're like
rushing trying to get it to the pharmacy.
And I hear it's going to be
in probably today, tomorrow,
but sometime this week you'll have it annual.
Your doctors will be able to
prescribe it and doctors are on board, right?
You don't doesn't sound to seem to be like a.
A negative side to it, like a medium
doctor sceptical and says well I don't
like the side effects or oh I don't
know about this so it doesn't sound
like there's that part to this story. So
here's the tough part, an.
I don't mean to put down my
own kind. Doctors always
sceptical though only spectacle. This is a
brand new concept of of treating
weight and you gotta remember that many
doctors unfortunately were taught well.
It's just a matter of willpower.
Well, no, it's not because you know when
your body is trying to to regain the weight,
it lowers your metabolism
by 500 calories a day.
It's not supposed to do that.
It drives the hormones that tell your
full down so you don't feel full,
so this is all new medicine now.
Medical students are getting taught this.
Some young doctors are getting taught us,
but again us older docs.
This is a brand new concept and so
were rapidly trying to disseminate this
education and I think when the doctors
are trained and understand this concept,
you're right,
they're going to be on board because I just
don't see a downside to this treatment.
Yeah, because so many people feel like
it's completely 100% either used to come
to the idea that oh, it's genetics.
You know my parents were heavy.
Or I'm getting old or I don't
exercise enough or I don't eat right?
You know whatever and it leads been kind
of more mental we we've learned that oh,
you do you do have the control?
But this is obviously scientifically
not true exactly.
You're fighting biology,
you're not fighting willpower,
and I'm always impressed how tough patients
are because they'll just cut it out.
They'll exercise their brains out there.
Do you know they'll just eat
despairingly and and then they lose
a little bit of weight and the body?
Fights it and adjust and they
can't seem to lose anymore.
Well guess what?
It's because of all these
adjustments so yeah this is this
is we have to change the mindset
of many health care providers.
Awesome. Is there anything
I didn't ask you that you
wanted to say? You know there is one
group of doctors that are going to
completely get this and understand it.
There's a new, specially called guess what?
Obesity, medicine and these folks are
all trained in this, so they're going
to be very used to these medications.
They understand how they work,
some of them maybe even studied
him such as myself.
So I think you're going to see
you know this specialty.
It's the fastest growing specialty
now in all of medicine Ann.
If you can find an obesity
medicine specialist who they have,
it's actually called American
Board of Obesity Medicine.
If they're certified in that,
they're going to
be good to go, awesome, perfect, that's.