GLP-1 Medications

"Robbing Peter to Pay Paul"

Let’s talk about the magic needle of the moment: GLP-1s. The class of drugs with names like Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and Mounjaro that sound more like boutique hotels than pharmaceutical interventions. They're being hailed as the long-awaited breakthrough in the fight against obesity. And look, for a lot of people, they’re working…really well. Pounds are dropping, blood sugar's regulating, and wardrobes are being revisited with optimism.

And yet… doesn’t it all feel a little familiar?

This kind of pharmaceutical fanfare isn’t new. We’ve been here before. Remember Fen-Phen? In the ‘90s, this was touted as the wonder duo for weight loss…until it was pulled from the market for causing heart valve damage and deadly lung conditions. Or thalidomide in the ‘50s, prescribed for morning sickness, until it became one of the worst medical tragedies of the 20th century. OxyContin? Originally pushed as a non-addictive pain reliever. We know how that one played out.

These drugs were once marketed with the same breathless optimism GLP-1s now enjoy. Until they weren’t.

None of this is to suggest GLP-1s are destined to be the next cautionary tale. Science moves forward, not in circles. But the pattern is hard to ignore. We throw another pill (or in this case, an injection) at a problem deeply embedded in how we live, hoping it’ll work around the dysfunction rather than confront it.

Our bodies and metabolisms aren’t broken. They’re responding and adapting, with exquisite biological logic, to an environment we’ve engineered to be nearly impossible to thrive in. We live in a world where food is engineered for addiction, movement is optional, stress is deeply rooted and chronic, and rest is radical. And when our bodies react (by gaining weight, losing metabolic flexibility, breaking down, developing chronic or autoimmune conditions) we call it disease and reach for a pill to “fix” it. But we're not fixing anything, we're silencing the signals of our bodies that make us uncomfortable.

GLP-1s do their job well: they slow digestion, regulate insulin, and make us feel fuller, faster. But that job doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Users are reporting nausea, vomiting, severe constipation, gastroparesis, and in some cases, gallbladder issues and pancreatitis. There been been more life altering side effects, such as nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAIOM) thought to be associated with the use of these medications. Though further research is being conducted on the exact correlation, I think permanent blindness is a good reminder that there is no free lunch when we play God with our biology. Muscle loss is another major concern. People are shedding pounds, but not necessarily fat. That’s not ideal. Your body’s lean mass matters a lot more than the number on the scale when it comes to long-term health and resilience.

Even more quietly concerning: some studies are finding a steep rebound in weight once people stop taking the drug. Because, surprise! The environment hasn’t changed. The body remembers, and adapts. Again. So for all of those patients who plan to “just go on it for a little while to meet my goal weight.” Okay. Valid. Then what? What happens when you start seeing that number creep back up on the scale? Does that unaddressed and uncomfortable part of your ego (sense of “self”), in desperation, reach back out for the medication? And, if so, when does that cycle end?

There’s something heartbreakingly predictable about it all. We’re obsessed with the idea of fixing ourselves, but allergic to the notion of fixing the world that broke us in the first place. We treat the body like a machine that should keep running regardless of fuel quality, road conditions, or whether the engine's been screaming for maintenance for years.

I’m not here to shame anyone taking these meds. Quite the opposite. I have prescribed a number of them. When you're navigating a world that makes health feel like an uphill sprint in molasses, grabbing the rope someone throws you is human. Especially if it actually helps. Especially if you've been fighting your body your whole damn life.

But we’ve got to look at the broader picture. Because this moment isn’t just about one drug. It’s about our tendency to medicate disease while leaving its roots to fester. We call weight the issue, but it’s really just the most visible symptom of a society in metabolic freefall.

What if, instead of viewing these drugs as the final answer, we saw them for what they are—a tool. A powerful one, sure, but not a substitute for rebuilding the ecosystem our biology depends on. Clean food. Restorative sleep. Meaningful movement. Community. A pace of life that doesn’t burn us out before 25. These aren’t sexy solutions. They don’t come in sleek pens with a weekly injection schedule and a $10 billion marketing campaign. But they’re what our bodies are actually asking for.

GLP-1s offer relief. But unless we pair that relief with reflection on how we got here, and why, we’re just setting ourselves up for another cycle of surprise side effects, soaring costs, and collective disappointment.

We’ve been seduced by miracle drugs before. And every time, the honeymoon ends. The fallout begins. And the truth-unprofitable, unmarketable, and often inconvenient—remains standing: we cannot medicate our way out of a lifestyle that is killing us.

But maybe, just maybe, we can start listening to what our bodies are really trying to tell us. Not just when they lose weight, but when they hold on to it. When they slow down. When they ache, or bloat, or rebel. They’re not the enemy. They’re the feedback system screaming to us that our world desperately needs change.

As a believer and regular practitioner in the power of science, I also believe that the increased information we gain through research has also led us down a path of arrogance. With every discovery we make, we get sucked down the path of believing we can “solve” our biology and “biohack” our way to health and happiness. On the contrary, if you really pay attention, our physiology sends us millions of subtle signs per day. These signs are not meant to be ignored, overridden, or medicated. They're meant to be acknowledged…embodied. The happy signals AND the not-so-happy ones. That is the human experience.

So yeah. Inject if you need to. No shame. But let’s not mistake symptom suppression for transformation. Because until we face the mess, it’ll just keep finding new ways to surface. Even in the most promising syringe.