Latest news with #DavidKessler
Forbes
16-05-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Diet, Health, Weight Loss And GLP-1 Drugs: Q&A With David Kessler, MD
Dr. David Kessler was FDA Commissioner under both Bush and Clinton, Chief Science Officer of the ... More White House COVID-19 response team, dean of Yale Medical School and is the author of several bestselling health books. (Photo by Susan Walsh-Pool/Getty Images) Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David A. Kessler, MD has had the rare distinction of being a bipartisan head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. A lawyer and pediatrician, he is a graduate of Amherst College, University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, and has been the dean of the medical schools at both Yale University and the University of California, San Francisco. Most recently, he served as chief science officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team under President Joe Biden. He is the author of several books, including multiple New York Times Bestsellers: The End of Overeating, Capture, Hijacked, Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs and A Question of Intent. Dr. Kessler is an expert on dietary topics and public health, and just (May 13, 2025) released his newest book, Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight. The subject is both very timely and very important, so I pre-ordered it and immediately dove in. He agreed to answer some questions about currently red hot issues in America, diet, health, weight loss and GLP-1 drugs. According to the National Institutes of Health, about one in three Americans are overweight and two in five are obese. The NIH states that 'Overweight and obesity increase the risk for many health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, joint problems, liver disease, gallstones, some types of cancer, and sleep and breathing problems, among other conditions.' While the use of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro is still relatively new for weight loss, the most recent (May 2024) Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll showed that a stunning 12% of Americans had used these drugs, 16 million people, but the potential market is much larger and the numbers have almost certainly gone up substantially in the past year (Dr. Lipi Roy wrote about GLP-1 drugs and addiction here at Forbes recently). Dr. David Kessler's newest book was just released Yet despite the much talked about obesity epidemic that has now gone on for decades, very little has changed in the science of nutrition and diet until recently. New evidence suggests that the long believed in model may be badly broken, and that issues previously relegated to willpower may in fact be simple human evolution and biology. Recent research in this vein, such as that espoused by scientist Herman Pontzer in his 2022 book Burn: The Misunderstood Science of Metabolism, posits that almost all diets fail, and it is not so much what we eat in terms of carbs, fat and such that matters, but rather that modern highly-engineered processed or ultra-processed foods bypass the body's normally reliable self-regulatory system and fool our normal appetites and desire to be satiated. In a review of one of Dr. Kessler's earlier books, Hijacked, How Your Brain Is Fooled By Food, literary site Goodreads wrote 'until about 30 years ago, we did not have a weight problem in North America. In fact, throughout history, the human body weight stayed pretty much the same. People ate the amount of food they needed and no more. Then, in the 1980s, something changed. North Americans started gaining a lot of weight. What happened in such a short time to add so many millions of pounds to so many millions of people? Something had changed in North America, but it wasn't us. It was our food. These processed foods - loaded with sugar, fat, and salt - make it almost impossible for some people to stop eating.' Or, as Dr. himself Kessler put it in a recent opinion piece for the NY Times, 'For many of us, our biology makes the pull of these ultraformulated foods nearly impossible to resist. These foods typically are called ultraprocessed, but I refer to them as ultraformulated because they have been engineered to manipulate the brain's reward system. These foods have become the new cigarette and, similarly, have resulted in a health catastrophe.' I have written extensively about food, a healthier food supply, and buying and eating better quality food, and I devote a substantial amount of time to personal health, carefully monitoring my diet and exercise. But there is a lot of conflicting information right now on these topics, so I went to the expert with my questions about diet, health, weight loss and exercise. A: Traditionally, we have blamed the patient. The new anti-obesity drugs demonstrate that it is not a matter of willpower. It's our biology at work. There are addictive and hormonal circuits at work. It is difficult to escape the pull of food addiction and overcome our brain's built-in reward response to the ultraformulated foods that flood our food supply. A: The maladaptive shift in the brain that occurs because of addiction doesn't take place because the brain is not working properly, but because our brains are working too well by adapting to our environment. The human brain evolved to deal with scarcity, not abundance. For much of human history, there was no guarantee as to when our next meal would arrive, so our biological systems are designed to seek out the sweetest and most energy-dense foods. These systems are also designed to hold on to body fat for survival. Put simply, we are programmed to eat ultraformulated foods that are never scarce in our modem food environments. A: Our bodies have experienced an insidious decline in health over the past half century that has been caused by never-ending consumption of foods that can trigger the addictive circuits. These foods have delivered not satisfaction, but a body that is burdened by visceral fat, which is also referred to as toxic, abdominal, or central fat. This metabolically active fat accumulates around the waist, surrounding and invading the heart, liver, and pancreas. A: Anti-obesity drugs have changed the landscape of weight loss. Their development provides us with an opening to reverse the epidemic of chronic disease. But the new GLP-1 drugs are not the panacea. They work by causing us to eat less. In some cases, it is much less, which poses its own set of risks. The pharmaceutical companies have not leveled with the public that these drugs work in significant part by triggering gastrointestinal effects, keeping food in the stomach longer, generating feelings that border on nausea, and sometimes outright nausea, which in turn induce feelings of fullness and satiation. Those feelings counterbalance the rewarding and addictive properties of food. By countering the reward circuits, these drugs reduce the "food noise" that plays in the heads of many people who struggle with weight. People on these medications also condition themselves to eat less to avoid the ill effects of food staying in the stomach longer. A: Some physicians have publicly stated that diet and exercise alone are not enough to treat obesity and visceral adiposity, and that only medication and surgery are effective treatments. They are wrong. Diet and exercise are still the foundation of improved metabolic health. Medications are not the be-all and end-all solutions. They are tools that allow people to control appetite so that diet and lifestyle interventions can be effective.
RNZ News
15-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
How new weight loss drugs work
Dr. David A. Kessler is a former Commissioner of the American Food and Drug Administration. He's written extensively on the food industry's role in engineering addictive foods, which contributes to the obesity epidemic globally. Dr Kessler has also struggled with yo-yo'ing weight and his new book "Diet, Drugs And Dopamine" looks at the the new class of weight loss drugs. This class of drugs, called GLP-1 which increase feelings of satisfaction or fullness after eating, and help to quiet what he callls "food noise". Dr Kessler says the drugs represent a genuine breakthrough- but he says they also come with downsides, and no progress will be made until we understand the addictive nature of certain foods. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Ex-FDA chief reveals terrifying effects he suffered from Ozempic after shedding 60lbs: 'Made me ill'
Former FDA chief Dr David Kessler has revealed some of the terrifying side effects he suffered while on weight loss drugs, which saw him shed 60lbs. The 74-year-old, who served as an FDA commissioner from 1990 to 1997 and as a top Covid-19 science adviser to the Biden administration, turned to GLP-1 medications after battling his weight his 'entire life'. After taking the weight loss shot - he did not specify which drug he took - the 5ft 10in scientist saw his weight drop from just over 200lbs to 137lbs in six months. Meanwhile, he also managed to cut his body fat in half, from 30 percent to 15 percent. While he praises GLP-1 medications for their fat-busting possibilities, Dr Kessler warns that the downsides might be too much for some people to handle. It is estimated that roughly 15 million Americans have used GLP-1 drugs, with about 7.5 million currently on these medications. This number is set to skyrocket further, with President Trump recently vowing to lower the cost of weight loss drugs, in line with other countries. The average list price for a month's supply of GLP-1 medications ranges from $936 to $1,349 before insurance coverage, but Trump's plan is to slash these costs by up to 80 percent. Dr Kessler said he paid out of pocket for his monthly supply of GLP-1 medication. After starting the injections, he was blighted by some unpleasant symptoms, with one of the worst being 'intense chills'. He told The Washington Post that he got so cold, he had to wrap himself in an electric blanket. Experiencing coldness is a reported side effect of some GLP-1 medications, including Mounjaro and Ozempic. This is often attributed to reduced food intake and decreased thermogenesis (the body's ability to generate heat). On top of being cold, Dr Kessler revealed that he also felt generally unwell at times and hit by waves of fatigue. He explained: 'I felt sick. There was malaise and occasional sharp abdominal pains.' Lastly, in line with one of the most commonly reported side effects of weight loss medications, Dr Kessler said he completely lost his appetite and 'felt bloated'. This happens as the medications work by reducing appetite and slowing down food movement in the digestive tract, which can lead to individuals feeling full for longer. Further explaining this, Dr Kessler notes: 'The drugs work in significant part by triggering gastrointestinal effects, keeping food in the stomach longer and generating feelings that push us to the edge of nausea - and sometimes outright nausea. 'They counterbalance the rewarding and addictive properties of food and reduce the food "noise," or incessant wanting, that plays in our heads.' Dr Kessler says he has used weight loss drugs 'in cycles'. He would use them for around seven months before taking a break and restarting them again and he is currently in a period where he is off them. Despite the side effects, the scientist is a big proponent of GLP-1 medications for weight loss and he discusses the pros and cons further in his new book Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight Hardcover. He says the biggest way they have helped him, is by altering his eating patterns and many users report the same benefit. After stopping the medications, some patients say the drugs helped to reduce their food cravings in the long-term, altered their food preferences, and changed their grocery shopping habits. Dr Kessler even started eating vegetables for the first time in his life, meanwhile his cravings for fatty, salty and sweet foods 'disappeared'. He says, commenting on the way his tastes have changed: 'I have conditioned myself to eat less. 'When I was on these drugs, ultra-formulated foods made me feel ill. These are foods that are formulated to trigger the reward system and are the perfect trifecta of fat, sugar and salt. Also, I no longer want to eat large portions. 'You have to relearn how to eat, and that's what these drugs help you do.' Looking ahead, when quizzed if he will do another cycle of the GLP-1 drugs in the future, Dr Kessler concludes: 'We need more data on the safety and efficacy of intermittent use. The FDA should require drug companies to provide it.
CBS News
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Weight loss drugs have "no end game" amid lack of data on long-term use, former FDA commissioner warns
Weight loss drugs have transformed how Americans lose weight, including former commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. David Kessler. But, Kessler warns there are unknowns about long-term use of the drugs and how to get people off them. "There is no end game," he said on "CBS Mornings Plus" Tuesday. "FDA allowed these medicines out without a long-term strategy." Kessler faced unexpected weight gain while serving in his role co-leading Operation Warp Speed, the coronavirus vaccination program at the height of the pandemic, which had him working extensive hours a day at his computer. "I turned around and found that I was 40, 50 pounds heavier," he said. He started losing weight "the traditional way with diet," but admitted it was slow. "I actually ended up having a kidney stone, ended up in an endocrinologist office, and he said, 'Do you want to try the new GLP-1 drugs?'" he recounted. Kessler, who was studying them at the time, agreed to try them himself. "It's a real journey," he said. "You can reclaim your health, but there are no such things as miracle pills." Kessler explores the weigh loss drug craze in his new book, "Diet, Drugs and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight." The drugs have provided an opportunity to "transform our health," Kessler said, explaining that belly fat has a causal effect on health issues like cardiac disease and kidney disease. But, it's just one tool in a larger journey, he said. GLP-1 drugs condition your brain to want less food. "They take you to the edge of nausea. Food just stays in your stomach longer ... and when food stays in your stomach longer, you're not going to want to put more food in your stomach," Kessler said. If you stop taking the drugs, however, "that's going to fade," and you'll likely gain back the lost weight, he said. "The premise of the drug companies, you can imagine what they want — they want you to be on this for life," Kessler said. Currently, there isn't data on how to get off the drugs safely or how to go back on safely. "FDA's going to have to require that data," Kessler said. "We're just running a national experiment because we don't have the data." Some other tools needed for long-term weight loss are learning to eat better and physical activity. Kessler said the most important thing is being under good care. "You have to have a doc, you have to have a nutritionist, a dietitian," he said. "Not everyone ... can afford that. That really concerns me."
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Why Donald Trump's medical records say more than he realizes
Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, talks with Rachel Maddow about how Donald Trump's medical evaluation forms show Trump to be the beneficiary of a drug regimen made possible through the American medical system and its associated scientific research, which are now suffering debilitating cuts at Trump's hand.
