Hype or Hope? Semaglutide Changes the Weight Game

A clinician, educator and researcher, Dr. Kushner has spent his decades-long career on adult weight management for adults. Board certified in both internal medicine and nutrition, he maintains a medical practice, teaches students and medical professionals, and presents around the world. He’s written more than 250 original articles, as well as reviews, books and medical book chapters.

He’s Medical Director of the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago; a professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and a professor of Medical Education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Kushner also founded of the American Board of Obesity Medicine (ABOM) that certifies physicians in the care of patients with obesity.

He’s seen a lot change over his time in this health arena. “What we’ve learned in the past 50 years or so is that obesity had always been thought of as just excess body fat and didn’t cause any problem,” Dr. Kushner says. “But if you got sick enough or you got overweight enough, you then developed diabetes. We now know for the past decades that obesity in itself as a disease.”

“What makes semaglutide and other drugs in this area that are emerging so different and new generational is that we now have a much better understanding of obesity,” he says.” The role of these gut hormones that come from the pancreas, from the intestine that help us in a more natural way, give us signals that we’re full, we’re less hungry, we’re more content between meals, we have less cravings, less thoughts of food. A lot of people think that’s all under your own consciousness, your own willpower, and it’s not, it’s actually biologically driven.”

This episode’s conversation includes the role of lifestyle in weight management. It’s shortsighted to view semaglutide as a wonder drug isolated from diet, exercise and even mental health. It’s all related. And new understanding of obesity as a disease and its biological drivers helps the search for lasting solutions, including training for healthcare professionals.

Listen on to find out more about semaglutide and six factors that might be causing your weight gain or making it difficult for you to lose weight.