GLP-1s

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01:16:47:02 – 01:16:57:19
Lori
Fun conversation. Kelly, I know you, I do too. I know what you’re getting at your clinic. I know what your team is getting. I know what my team is getting in the way of questions, and we’re getting them from our friends to, like, our friends and our family members. So I think it’s a very controversial topic for functional medicine in Ridgeland MS.

01:17:06:03 – 01:17:33:11
Lori
I think that it’s one that we, as you know, providers of care that are working directly with our clients. These are questions we need to be talking to them about. These are answers we need to be able to provide. So can’t wait to really discuss with you specifically what kind of questions you are getting in your clinic about GLP ones that you believe that people need to know?

01:18:01:19 – 01:18:44:07
Kelly
I agree.

01:18:44:09 – 01:18:57:16
Kelly
That’s right.

01:18:57:18 – 01:19:11:17
Lori
Yeah. So I like to equate a GLP one we call it a glucagon like peptide. That’s what GLP stands for. And I like to explain it as it’s a natural hormone to the body.

01:19:11:22 – 01:19:22:06
Kelly
Right. It’s natural and it basically signals the body’s production in the intestines. And it basically signals the body to do a couple of things.

01:19:22:06 – 01:19:57:13
Kelly
It kind of tells you you’ve eaten enough or you’re full. And in that signaling what happens phenomenally for people that have a lot of food noise, a lot of things, you know, eat this, keep eating. They’ve, you know, people who have ended up, you know, in situations historically that they have gained weight, have become metabolically in balance with high blood sugar, among other things, hormonally imbalanced as a result of poor signaling, chemical signaling in the body.

01:19:57:13 – 01:20:17:14
Lori
So this GLP one, which we’re going to talk about other ways that we can enhance our own bodies production of GLP one. So you guys are all going to have to hang on for that. But it really is an important messenger in the body. And it really does quiet that food noise and allow people. And it’s not just food noise,

01:20:17:17 – 01:20:19:16
Lori
it’s other noise too.

01:20:19:17 – 01:20:32:13
Lori
For other things like I’ve seen benefits with alcohol. You know, I’ve seen benefits with other, you know, addictions, basically things that, you know, in the way of even nicotine. I’ve seen some improvements in people having less for whatever reason. Again, I don’t know the science of that, but they have a lot of that less noise as a result of it.

01:20:38:18 – 01:20:56:15
Kelly
So it lowers it, improves that signaling, lowers that desire to eat as much, and tends to help people really enhance. If they are on an improvement plan in respect to their food, it helps them to actually eat smaller amounts of good things. And in doing that, it really helps them to offload body fat and control their blood sugar better.

01:22:07:22 – 01:22:28:04
Lori
I think I think the question though, and I love that you brought it up earlier, is like, why has it created so much? Can I feel like I can equate it to camps? There’s a camp over here that is. Absolutely. This is, you know, this is a good thing, right? And over here, this, this camp of. It’s a bad thing. Why has it been such, in your opinion, why has this created some so much emotional charge?

01:23:36:00 – 01:23:48:22
Kelly
100%. Yeah, absolutely. So what I hear you saying is that, you know, the foundations of foundation, really working with individuals to understand what is going on in their body, to make them metabolically imbalanced,helping them, bringing them to a place of understanding what their body actually needs. Right. Lower that inflammatory burden to allow their own body to get back into balance.

01:24:00:10 – 01:24:12:20
Kelly
You know, because a healthy body composition, by and large, is a byproduct of living. Well, we know that. And being in balance like we know that. So sprinkling in these other modalities can be very effective in the right person, at the right time, in the right amount.

01:24:51:08 – 01:24:59:11
Kelly
And that’s a reasonable concern. And that is when people raise that that is a reasonable concern.

01:24:59:13 – 01:25:10:05
Lori
So if you’re out there, I mean, again, and there are certain populations of people that are at greater risk of what we call sarcopenia, right. So that’s muscle wasting. So there are people that are at greater risk of that.

01:25:10:05 – 01:25:15:23
Lori
So in those populations you have to be even more keen. And you got to be careful. Right. You have to judiciously use these tools specifically in certain populations. And monitoring is key in metrics because, you know, if you are just looking at wait, that’s when you’re going to see a gauntlet by temporal wasting, nutritional devoid, you know, deficits.

01:25:36:00 – 01:26:02:05
Kelly
People are truly not just losing muscle, which, by the way, is the organ system of longevity and the currency of health, which is, you know, very scary to lose that. But in addition to that, when we’re eating less and not eating the right things, because that’s what’s happening to people as well. They’re eating less and they’re still choosing to eat the wrong things back food, processed foods.

01:26:02:05 – 01:26:05:05
Kelly
So then they’re becoming nutritionally depleted as well. And on a cellular level, cells die when they don’t have the energy that they need, the nutrients that they need to run. I mean, go back and look. Listen to our last podcast on, you know, mitochondrial Health. The body needs those mitochondria, those powerhouse of the cell needs so many nutrients to run.

01:27:14:15 – 01:27:31:13
Lori
Yeah for sure. So what are some things you know? We get asked the question: what are some things that we can do to naturally enhance the production of our body’s own GLP one.
01:28:59:18 – 01:29:21:16
Kelly
Yeah. Well, I think about even supplementing supplemental use of certain probiotics. So for people that really do have a hard time while they’re working on getting their fiber intake up, taking things specifically that have like a specific strain of probiotic that naturally increases GLP one as well.

01:29:21:17 – 01:29:33:03
Kelly
I think about anything that a person can do truly to balance blood sugar as a whole, you know, getting the body in balance as a whole, you know, the big picture, right?

01:29:33:04 – 01:30:02:03
Lori
So eating regularly, you know, timing, eating quality foods like your protein, keeping your blood sugar nice and stable, you know, bringing in, you know, whether that be that that eating window. I think sometimes people nibble throughout the entire day. And that’s why we don’t really recommend that, you know, eating, you know, set meal times and making sure within those meal times that we’re getting a nice rounded plate with good quality protein and fats.

01:30:02:03 – 01:30:09:19
Lori
And to your, to your point, fiber. And I think that most people have no clue how much fiber they’re even getting in their diet. You ask them how much.

01:30:09:21 – 01:30:26:14
Lori
And I rarely have a situation unless they’ve been challenged by someone else to log their food, that they even know how much fiber they’re getting in.

01:34:07:23 – 01:34:27:16
Kelly
Yeah. So you know what we’re saying. Is that the choice to add GLP ones into your wellness plan isn’t a good choice or a bad choice. You know, I think that polarized way of thinking can be extremely dangerous.

01:34:27:18 – 01:34:46:05
Kelly
It is a tool in the toolbox that should be used again at the right time, in the right amount for the right person to move the needle of a person’s wellness plan their trajectory right.

01:34:46:05 – 01:35:08:19
Kelly
And in micro steps. And sometimes that’s in the short term because we get asked that all the time is like, if I go on this, how long are you recommending? Or if, you know, my cardiologist, you mentioned it earlier. They’re recommending it for me. How long do you think I’ll need to be on it? And you know, my response back is it’s always about, why are we using this?

01:35:08:21 – 01:35:28:11
Kelly
What’s the purpose? What we are doing this for is going to drive and what your body’s response is to it. It drives how long we’re going to remain on it. So it is not a go on it and stay on it for all people. Now there is a sub. There is a subgroup that may need it longer.

01:35:28:12 – 01:35:36:00
Lori
You know, people that have an undercurrent of metabolic dysregulation, insulin resistance,
those individuals regardless of the amount of activity. And I mean, I can raise my hand, you know, right here familiarly with a big Italian family. And I’m not just talking about numbers, you know, Sally and family. I mean, there are some cultures that just have a tendency towards more of that.

01:35:54:05 – 01:35:56:22
Kelly
You know, we were talking earlier today in our Mindshare mastermind group, just about first gen and second gen Americans, you know, being more likely. But, you know, when I think about that, there are subsets of individuals that may need to have this as a part of their plan long term, but their dosing should change. It’s not a set it and forget it either.

01:36:19:15 – 01:36:43:20
Kelly
But there are others that it’s a short term tool to move the needle in the direction towards wellness, to give them for a time again, what we’re looking for. Maybe that’s reduction of that food noise, stabilization of that blood sugar, the things and they may be able to come off of it and transition to something like a cholo curb and, you know, getting their gut microbiome improved.

01:36:43:20 – 01:37:11:16
Kelly
And there are some that if you haven’t exhausted every effort and worked with a qualified health care practitioner to improve your overall metabolic picture, please start there. Please start there. Because if and I’ve seen it and Kelly, you could probably speak to this as well as I’ve seen where people have not done those foundational things. They have been placed on that product.

01:37:11:17 – 01:37:29:12
Kelly
They ended up either having side effects, which they had to come off, and they were very difficult. Side effects that didn’t just go, didn’t end when they stopped it. For many of them, they got put on it and it didn’t make a difference at all. And they spent a lot of money and they didn’t get a result.

01:37:29:13 – 01:37:37:03
Lori
How often do you see that?

01:37:37:05 – 01:37:52:12
Kelly
Often, yeah.

01:37:52:14 – 01:38:27:11
Kelly
And it breaks my heart because they also come in with a very strong emotional burden so they got a little taste of what it felt like to be in more comfortable clothes, smaller clothes, being able to get around better. And now they’re gaining on that same dose and wondering what happened.

01:38:45:08 – 01:39:13:15
Lori
Yeah. And much like the conversation many years ago when people were going on and on very low calorie diets and, you know, they were much harder to treat too, because when the body has been yo yo, you know, you know, up and down with, with body weight and calorie deprivation and, and all kinds of change of diets, it does become harder and harder to convince the body to give up that comfy, warm blanket of cellulite, fat.

01:40:08:06 – 01:41:36:01
Kelly
Yeah, that’s so common. It should actually be on the wall as a mural because people are going to be like, oh my gosh, they said that to you. People say that to you all the time. Yes, people say that all the time and it is frustrating. Let’s be honest. Like it is very, very frustrating that unfortunately what worked for us in our 20s and 30s doesn’t work as well in our 40s, absolutely doesn’t work well in our 50s and it just goes downhill from there if we don’t figure it out, right?

01:41:36:03 – 01:42:03:03
Lori
Yeah, I think the same thing, you know, the same rules apply. You have to really understand what’s metabolically happening to the body. And let’s face it, hormones change dramatically, at least in the 40s. But the reality is we’re seeing it a lot earlier because of what’s happening in our environment with environmental toxins and plastics and heavy metals and all the things.

01:42:03:03 – 01:42:28:19
Kelly
And so, you know, the first thing is, acknowledging that what you’re feeling is real. Like what? It’s not going to work. It’s not. And it’s going to change basically every decade. Like how we do what we do is going to have to change the core principles: don’t change eating whole food, farm to play, moving our body, getting good rest, mitigating stress.

01:42:28:21 – 01:42:51:15
Lori
But how and what we have to do to do those things is going to have to change. And I think it first starts with an inventory you just said it is doing an inventory of where are you currently at? How is it making you feel? Does it align with what you want? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something.

01:42:52:17 – 01:44:24:16
Lori
You know, I feel like there was that superhero in all of us in her 30s. Like we can do it.

01:44:24:18 – 01:44:51:22
Lori
So I could ask all the time, are there specific diagnostic tests that would be important prior to starting on any form of GLP. And you know that. Yes. The answer is a very loud yes. You know, we should diagnostically be looking at labs that more predictably look at your health. And that’s the real challenge between traditional medicine and the labs that are done there.

01:44:51:22 – 01:45:15:00
Lori
A typical CDC chemistry panel, liver enzymes like yes, those are important. But really looking at other hormones, you know, you mentioned earlier adrenals and stress mitigation, but adrenal health needs to be looked at thyroid and metabolism because that’s also a time when hormones as a whole go wonky. Right. So we’re talking about thyroid adrenal pancreas. So that’s blood sugar.

01:45:15:00 – 01:45:36:01
Lori
That’s stress mitigation and stress response and that’s metabolism. So all of those hormones and our sex hormones need to definitely be looked at. But I think the one thing is traditional medicine, unfortunately they have access to it. I think that there’s this thinking that they don’t have access to some of these lab tests that functional medicine does.

01:45:36:01 – 01:46:02:05
Lori
All of us have access. The reality is that a lot of these tests are not covered by insurance and therefore do not come up in the conversation within your traditional medical visit. But we do have to look at gut microbiome. The average female gains anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds per year to year and a half, with a completely disrupted gut microbiome, and that can be doing a lot of things right.

01:46:05:21 – 01:46:20:20
Lori
But you’re bacteria, you have bacterial overgrowth, or you have low commencals, or you’re not digesting and absorbing your food, or you have inflammation. And that got, well, lining like all the things. So I truly believe that doing some proactive labs, looking at your level of inflammation, it’s not if you’re inflamed, it’s to what degree you’re inflamed. I do believe that looking at your gut microbiome is really important to what other testing?

01:46:30:02 – 01:46:33:07
Lori
Or are there other tests or or other tests within a blood test that you would recommend, Kelly?

01:47:45:11 – 01:48:22:02
Lori
And at no time, as a clinical provider who truly, Kelly and I both say this very loudly and repetitively and and I’m hoping all of our listeners understand how important this is. At no time is it appropriate to risk a person’s overall health and well-being for the sake of weight loss at no time is that appropriate. So when you think about the lab test that one should have, and you think about what GLP wants or any weight loss drug that’s ever been on the market or will be in the future, right?

01:48:22:02 – 01:48:52:10
Lori
Do all of them impact the volume of food eaten? And if the volume of food is decreased? And in addition to that, not eating the right food and you have a digestion and absorption issue and you already have nutrient deficiencies, you already have a cellular problem because you need those nutrients for healthy cells. When cells die, you die when cells that you die.

01:48:53:21 – 01:49:38:02
Lori
So at no time is it appropriate to utilize those things without having those things looked at regularly, regularly.

01:49:38:04 – 01:49:58:06
Kelly
Absolutely. And add to it. Where are people buying them from and getting them from? Because sourcing any product is also very important to look at. You know, there are unfortunately right now because of access to them, there are many that are buying them online. And, you know, many companies unfortunately are not doing potency studies and they are not looking at the cleanliness of products.

01:50:12:22 – 01:50:46:18
Kelly
And I’m going to say, you know, if that is where a person is getting them from online and you have not done a significant amount of due diligence, I would urge you to stop, talk to a provider of care and talk through, you know, getting them in a cleaner way. So I think, you know, to your point there are many things that’s such a broad question.

01:50:46:18 – 01:50:51:08
Lori
And that’s why I both, you know, as you brought it up, my eyes got really big. Right. Because we could ask that question all the time. Yeah.

01:52:01:21 – 01:52:25:15
Lori
It’s about to evolve really quick because you know, there’s more you know chatter government wise too. So you know, hang on. Stay in the conversation very much. Be an educated consumer. You know you guys are the CEO of your health. And at the end of the day, back to what Kelly just said is ultimately you control everything that goes in.

01:52:25:15 – 01:52:40:01
Kelly
So if you’re injecting or you’re taking something by mouth or you’re applying something to the skin, know where it’s coming from and work with a qualified practitioner who in addition to that, you know, is integrity.

01:52:40:01 – 01:52:58:17
Lori
I think that one of the things you mentioned earlier that I feel like is really important to go back to is that this is part of the conversation. We’ve been having this conversation for a long time, and I really want to urge people to go back to specific podcasts. And either maybe we could put those in the show notes, or maybe you could go through a couple of them.

01:52:58:17 – 01:53:46:21
Lori
I remember a couple of them off the top of my head. I know that Jim Lovell was on here a couple times really talking about GLP ones, but specifically just blood sugar and insulin connection and its relationship to disease and inflammation and inflammation aging.

01:54:30:11 – 01:54:52:21
Kelly
Yeah for sure for sure. Yeah. A couple of things. Just, you know, leaving everybody with you know, the goal isn’t simply living longer. It’s living longer with vitality, with energy, with resilience, that ability to bounce back, having the energy to do the things that you love to do and being able to get up every day and be able to do those things.

01:54:52:21 – 01:55:18:15
Kelly
And it’s not to be smaller versions of yourself, right? It’s to be healthier versions of yourself. And there is a big difference. You know, unfortunately, you know, many of you that do ask us questions are very sad when you see friends who, who, who have actually been on GLP ones and you there are visual noticeable changes.

01:55:18:17 – 01:55:42:17
Kelly
And they aren’t just that they’ve lost weight, that they look unhealthy and you are genuinely concerned. And that’s what you’re bringing to us too, you know? So those are things that I you know, I just want to make sure that our listeners hear that loud and clear that, you know, that it doesn’t have to be that way.

01:55:42:19 – 01:56:05:16
Lori
It doesn’t. You know, there are there’s clinical utility to some of these products that are on the market, but it’s for the right person. Again, I know we’ve said it a lot, but it needs to be said, the right person at the right time, in the right amount for the length of time that it’s right for a person, and just staying grounded with understanding your body and what your body needs, and doing the testing and looking at metrics and doing body compositions on a regular basis to ensure that what you are offloading is body fat and that you’re maintaining muscle or gaining muscle.

01:56:23:01 – 01:56:58:03
Kelly
And it is possible. Don’t let them tell you it’s not. We see it every week.

01:57:12:15 – 01:57:38:18
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