Ozempic Risky? Try Touchpoints 180™ For Weight Loss w/o Cancer

If you’re struggling with weight gain that’s causing other health problems like Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression…maybe social anxiety… and every time you manage to lose weight, you just gain it back… let’s talk. You need an alternative to traditional weight loss diets, rather than weight loss medications, or fads. If you’ve talked to your doctor about medications that can help you lose weight and/or manage your diabetes symptoms, you may be struggling with the potential risks of these meds. The most prominent medicines that produce weight loss may also help with Type II diabetes. We’re talking about Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. Studies have shown people lose significant weight on these medications, when taken a year or more. But are they all they’re cracked up to be? What about the risk of thyroid cancer? Let’s take a closer look at weight loss w/o cancer.

Ozempic for Type II Diabetes

Ozempic is a medication FDA-approved for Type II diabetes. It also helps with weight loss, and some doctors may prescribe it off label for that. Because it’s been so widely marketed, it has come to be the general term for a weight loss medication used to treat diabetes. 

You might think of it similar to the way people say, “Coke” referring to any soft drink, or “Vaseline” referring to some type of lubricant.

So, Ozempic has become the general term for a class of injectable weight loss drugs used to treat diabetes. But, it’s not the only one, as we’ve mentioned, and they aren’t all the same. 

In the case of Ozempic, it was originally FDA approved for the treatment of Type II diabetes at small doses of 0.5mg and 1mg in 2017. Then, by 2022, it had been approved at 2mg doses.

It’s a glucagon-like peptide1 agonist, that works by imitating a hormone that’s produced naturally in your body. That hormone is called glucagon-like peptide 1. So Ozempic, and medications like it, are called GLP-1 agonists, or sometimes just GLP-1 drugs. As in, “I want my doctor to give me one of those GLP-1’s.”

It’s music to the ears of Big Pharma.

GLP-1 stimulates the secretion of insulin, suppresses a hormone called glucagon, and increases a satisfied, or “full” feeling by slowing the emptying of your stomach.

Since glucagon helps you to feel hungry, suppressing it tamps down your appetite. On top of that, by slowing your digestion, you feel full longer. 

Another thing this drug does is focus on some areas of the brain, like the hypothalamus, where you find your appetite control, as well as choices you make about eating. Sounds promising on the surface, doesn’t it? But there’s more to the story.

Wegovy for Weight Loss Specifically

A drug similar to Ozempic, but FDA-approved for weight loss specifically, is Wegovy. Each of these medicines is a brand name for the same medication, called semaglutide, but they’re offered in different dosing devices.

Ozempic comes in a multi-use injecting pen, and Wegovy — which dispenses at a higher dose — is offered in a single use, disposable pen. So even though they’re basically the same medicine, they’re not FDA-approved to treat the same condition, and as such, the pens dispense different dosages.

While those are just little details, there are lots of big potential problems with this medicine, whether it’s under the brand name of Ozempic, or Wegovy, or it’s a knock-off version, a non-FDA-approved compounded formulation of semaglutide. 

Moderate to severe gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, pancreatitis, gastroparesis (paralysis of the stomach), gallbladder disease, diabetic retinopathy, and allergic reactions. 

Loss of important lean muscle — almost as much, pound for pound, as the loss of fat (about 40% of the weight loss is muscle) — lean muscle that you may never be able to build back. A huge deal because muscle is very metabolically active and you need it to keep the weight off once you’ve lost it.

Because if you go off the drug, and you gain back the weight you lost, you’ll likely gain it all back as fat. (It doesn’t usually come back on as fat plus muscle.)

In addition, and even more alarming, is the risk for thyroid cancer. Studies conducted to identify the link between these semaglutide medicines, found a moderate risk of thyroid cancer, although they couldn’t identify whether the risk was specific for medullary or papillary thyroid cancer. 
Think about that for a minute.

Not a rare risk. Not a slight risk. A moderately increased risk of cancer.

When you consider the seriousness of this risk — actuallly all the risks — and all of the lawsuits that have already been filed against the companies, the doctors and the pop-up shops dispensing compounded versions of these — you should take a breath… and consider whether these semaglutide medicines are your only option. Surely there’s a path to weight loss w/o cancer.

And, well, there are two more we can discuss.

But, not sure they’re preferable alternatives. See what you think.

Mounjaro and Zepbound

Mounjaro is FDA-approved for Type II diabetes, and Zepbound is FDA-approved for weight loss. Sound familiar?

It should. This pair is two versions of the same medicine, like Ozempic and Wegovy are. It’s just a different medicine. Tirzepatide. 

Tirzepatide

This medicine, more familiar by the brand names Mounjaro and Zepbound, works by imitating two hormones, instead of the single one that Ozempic and Wegovy use.

These two hormone mimickers are glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor and the GLP-1 receptor agonist like Ozempic and Wegovy. Both of the hormones these two mimic are “satiety” hormones. Your body releases them in the intestines, so you know when you’ve had enough to eat. 

By using this double hormone approach, Mounjaro seems to be more effective at controlling glucose levels. Plus, Mounjaro and Zepbound yield greater average weight loss than the GLP-1 medicines alone.

So, what’s not to love about tirzepatide? 

Well, it’s the side effects. Some say they aren’t as severe as those for the GLP-1, or semaglutide medicines. And by combining the two mechanisms of action, GIP and GLP-1, the side effects might be easier to tolerate. You might not get so nauseous. You might not throw up every day. Trouble is, it was only FDA approved in May 2022, so there’s lots to learn.

But those gastrointestinal symptoms are still side effects of tirzepatide —Mounjaro and Zepbound — and the moderately high risk of thyroid cancer when you use these medications is real.

So what do you do if you live with obesity and the diseases associated with it, like type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, PTSD…

You do need to lose weight, and you need to feel better. Is injectable medicine that’s rife with side effects and risks your only option? Is there any other option to achieve weight loss w/o cancer?

Yes!! There is Something Better!

There’s a special intervention that’s based on metabolic science. Metabolic psychiatry makes use of therapeutic nutritional ketosis to shift your body’s method of generating energy for your cells from glucose to ketones. By eating very low amounts of  carbohydrates, and high amounts of healthy fats, your body will transition its method of generating energy, and will continue to consume those fats you eat, as well as your body fat, to continue to fuel your cells.

Well-fueled cells are happy cells, and when they’re happy, your body functions so much better in so many ways.

Ketones are natural, and they’re made by your body, in your body, and we’re genetically wired to produce them… easily. We have been since the dawn of time. They are a much more efficient and beneficial fuel that help all your cells function better—especially cells in the brain and heart. Your brain cells will operate at their best, clearing out brain fog, depression, and anxiety.

Conditions like bipolar disorder, social anxiety, PTSD, and eating disorders can fade away. (We were the first to publish stunning results with this treatment approach in one of the deadliest psychiatric disorders, anorexia!) and we continue to break new ground with real-world scientific results from our practice showing how easy this can be, what it takes to adopt and maintain nutritional ketosis, and what it takes to make depression and anxiety go away. And all the while, if you’re overweight, your weight will likely steadily decrease.  And what’s more, it’s the healthiest, safest way to lose weight: it’s weight loss w/o risk of thyroid cancer!

We call it metabolic health. And metabolic health leads to mental health.

Touchpoints 180™ – Your Better Alternative to Health

The funny thing about Type II diabetes is that it disappears once you get metabolically healthy. You’ll see your A1C slowly decrease until it finally drops below 5.7, and your diabetes symptoms are gone. The numbers are living proof that your body is healing. HDL’s of 96. Triglycerides of 66. You become the living proof of glowing health.

Delicious Ketogenic Diet

Eating this ketogenic diet is like eating gourmet food every day. It’s just a matter of choosing all your favorites in the good fats category. Perfectly prepared North Atlantic wild caught salmon, with a cream based dill sauce, if you like. Lightly browned scallops in garlic butter. Sounds delectable, doesn’t it? Sautéed spinach, snow peas, sliced mushrooms, with sweet peppers and tomatoes in butter and olive oil with balsamic vinegar alongside a tender filet mignon. Caprese chicken with basil and mozzarella cheese. Grilled avocados with roast brisket, feta cheese, sour cream, and pesto.

And we’ve got ways to make a well-formulated ketogenic diet work for any budget. 

Mouth watering yet?

This isn’t deprivation, it’s not a fad diet, and it’s not the Wild West out there that you see on You Tube. A well-formulated, medically supervised ketogenic diet is a metabolic intervention to give your body the fuel it needs to restore itself. It uses food as medicine to help you get healthy and well. Mental health and freedom from symptoms that have lingered for years can finally be yours. Weight loss (where you lose body fat and not muscle) is the beautiful side effect of this intervention. 

Touchpoints 180™ is our special, customized program to help you achieve therapeutic nutritional ketosis, so you can get better.

It includes support from a remarkable registered dietitian/nutritionist, nature walks, phone calls, and lots of education. We even have a LowCarb Lifestyles Book Club every month for our patients. 

We’re so dedicated to education and empowerment that we’ve opened it to the public and offered it on MeetUp.com. (If you’d have told me 20 years ago, when I was at Hopkins, Harvard, and Yale, that I’d be doing nature walks and book clubs with my patients I’d have laughed—that just wasn’t what doctors did then. But it’s on the cutting edge of what doctors can do now).

We don’t just talk. We walk the walk, and we walk it with you.

Because we know how extraordinarily life-changing it is.

Why on earth risk thyroid cancer, serious gastric conditions, and the misery that goes with them… when you can have great food, improved energy, better cognition, and mental clarity — and watch your symptoms of diabetes, obesity, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, brain fog and even PCOS, melt away?

Enjoy a beautiful and delicious path to weight loss w/o cancer.

If you’d like guidance and support to improve your metabolic health and gain a healthy, bright outlook, call us.

We’re so excited about what global research in metabolic health is revealing for your improved overall health and wellbeing.

Join us and let’s work together for you to live your best life.

To the restoration of your best self,