00;00;01;14 - 00;00;06;08

Cary Hall

And now America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall.

00;00;06;10 - 00;00;26;19

Cary Hall

Hello, America. Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate. Show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. Here on the HIA Radio Network, you can find out more about us by going to the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com. Also our YouTube channel. Almost half a million views up there now. So we appreciate all of you out there who go up on YouTube and follow our show.

00;00;26;21 - 00;00;49;05

Cary Hall

And in addition to that, your your favorite podcast channel, whatever it might be. SoundCloud, Rumble, Spotify, we're on system. All the shows are up there as well. Also, if you are chronologically challenged or if you are looking for ACA, there's going to be major changes in this market this year on the ACA. In the Medicare plans, you need to talk to somebody.

00;00;49;05 - 00;01;11;13

Cary Hall

I'm going to suggest you call Carolee Steele that 877-385-2224. She's over at RPS Benefits by Design. She is a certified expert in Medicare and ACA, and she can help you anywhere in the country. There going to be some big increases, some plan changes. All the rest of it. If you need help, give her a call at 877-385-2224.

00;01;11;19 - 00;01;33;28

Cary Hall

And if you're an employer. We were just talking about this with Dave before we went on the air. And you're one of these small, employers under 50 lives, and you're getting hit with big premium increases, and there are going to be big premium increases this year. Maria Ahlers can help you see some of these alternative plans that are out there that can get these costs in line 877-385-2224.

00;01;34;00 - 00;01;59;11

Cary Hall

All right. This show. I've wanted to do this show for a long time. It's personal to me. This is on what I call the big four weight loss drugs. Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound and Mountjaro. Okay. And the reason I wanted to do this show was because I was struggling with some weight issues. And, went to a first of all, I would see my primary care doc, and she goes, well, let's just go ahead and give you Wegovy.

00;01;59;14 - 00;02;15;25

Cary Hall

Oh, okay. And then, of course, I went and found out that cost $1,100 a month. That kind of chilled me a little bit. And I thought, you know, I think I'm going to go find a weight loss clinic. I'm going to I'm going to go get into a program and see what I could do. And I did, and I think I've talked about this before.

00;02;15;25 - 00;02;38;07

Cary Hall

I went on metformin for about six months and changed my diet around, went from 250 to 235 and I'm holding about 235. I probably should get down another 10 pounds, but that's going to be the hardest one to do. I was very tempted, okay, to use one of these drugs because it's instantaneous. You start using it, you start shedding pounds.

00;02;38;10 - 00;03;03;17

Cary Hall

Well, I started doing a little research, started looking around, and I'm like, you know what? We don't know what. We don't know. And it gave me, some significant hesitation about doing this. So this show today is about that. It's about what do we know? What don't we know? What do we know that are side effects, potential problems down the road for other kinds of diseases, comorbidities.

00;03;03;17 - 00;03;22;15

Cary Hall

And I'm going to talk about that. Okay. What do we know in the short term are the issues that you're going to have to deal with if you take all of these drugs? Here's the other thing. I can't even count on two hands. The number of friends I have who are taking these medications. Look, I'm not saying that you shouldn't take them or they're bad for you.

00;03;22;16 - 00;03;44;02

Cary Hall

What I am saying is people need to understand what they're doing, and you're not necessarily. I didn't hear it from my primary care doc. She didn't say anything to me about possible issues going down the road. What could the comorbidities be? None of that. So I decided to do it. Do this show. And bring some of this to your attention.

00;03;44;04 - 00;04;10;06

Cary Hall

So these blockbuster weight loss drugs work by slowing stomach emptying. That's what they work. They they alter the gut hormone signaling. It's time to empty your stomach. Okay? That's what they do. So it's really as simple as that. They're slowing down the digestive process. They deliver large short-term weight loss. But the problem is the safety warnings and the knowledge gaps are significant.

00;04;10;07 - 00;04;32;00

Cary Hall

So that's what we're going to talk about. So what happens when you take these drugs long term. Well here's part of the problem. The studies that have been done on Wegovy, which is about 3.3 years, they lack the decade long studies that we typically use when we're grading how a drug works. So we're talking about how does it affect the organs.

00;04;32;00 - 00;04;50;22

Cary Hall

What kind of cancers could it possibly cause? What are the neuropsychiatric side effects? Now that was something I never even thought of. Well guess what? There are some neuropsychiatric side effects from this medication. There can be for certain people, and these are outcomes in non-diabetic users. The New England Journal of Medicine is saying.

00;04;50;28 - 00;05;12;07

Cary Hall

We typically do this for ten years. Well, we've only had these for 2 or 3 years. So again, you know, the unknown risks. What are they. And then we how do we balance that with the need for this medication. You know, it's funny in this country, that I'm sure you all will understand this. We like instantaneous gratification.

00;05;12;09 - 00;05;34;10

Cary Hall

All these three, these four drugs, they will give you instantaneous gratification. The question becomes, now what does long term use look like? How effective are they in the long term. And then what are the side effects. What are the issues that you're going to deal with. So long term is, you know, randomized data for patients 1 to 2 years.

00;05;34;16 - 00;05;56;17

Cary Hall

The largest cardiovascular outcome trials with Wegovy, followed patients a medium of 3.3 years, far from the 10 to 20 years, on the horizon that people typically care about. So right there, they did a study 3.3 years. This was limited to how it was going to affect cardiovascular issues, but it only went for 3.3 years.

00;05;56;24 - 00;06;22;00

Cary Hall

Well, typical studies would come out for these things, are ten years, to give you a clear understanding of what the effects of that particular medication are going forward and how they're going to affect you. So what I'm showing here is we have a very short window of data to deal with. And that window of data doesn't tell us enough to know in some cases, what are the long term effects of these medications.

00;06;22;02 - 00;06;45;25

Cary Hall

The other problem is typically after you stop these drugs like, Wegovy, two thirds of the people that had weight loss gained it back. All right. So now we're into what I call the Yo-Yo effect. This is the problem that many, many of the weight loss programs, weight loss drugs. You know, before these drugs came out, there were a host of other programs.

00;06;46;02 - 00;07;03;23

Cary Hall

Weight Watchers, go down the list, and you have people go on these diets and they go on these programs, and they work. And then they yo yo back up. Well, the problem with this medication is right, that if you go off of it, two thirds of the people after they went off, it started gaining the weight back.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;27;13

Cary Hall

So what happens then with weight loss versus continued use? What happens if you continue to use this drug for not one year, but two years, three years, four years, five years? How long can you do this without incurring significant risk down the road? For some of the things we're going to talk about today. Damage to your organs? Cancer?

00;07;27;15 - 00;07;51;26

Cary Hall

These psychiatric issues. There are a host of things like this. Thyroid issues. We're going to talk about all that and try to get information out to you so that you understand. Once again, I'm not saying that these drugs aren't safe. The FDA has approved them. But I am saying that there's not enough information out there. And the reason I chose not to use the medication was just that.

00;07;51;29 - 00;07;56;19

Cary Hall

I didn't need to open up an opportunity for other long term problems for me.

00;07;56;19 - 00;08;14;16

Cary Hall

I'm already in the Agent Orange program. I've talked about this before. I certainly didn't want to do anything to compound that issue. So what we're trying to do today basically, is go through this and talk about how these medications affect people, what are the side effects, what do they do for people that have other comorbidity issues?

00;08;14;22 - 00;08;41;01

Cary Hall

When we come back from the break we’re going to talk about that. We'll talk about IBS, we'll talk about Crohn's and we'll talk about colitis. And do they impact those things? Remember you're dealing with your gut health here. When you take this medication. That has a lot to do with how you feel, how you function and your overall health. So when you start playing around with your gut health, by slowing down this digestive process, what happens and what are the side effects, what occurs after you do all that?

00;08;41;01 - 00;09;00;28

Cary Hall

So, when we come back from the break. We'll get into some of that. We'll talk about very specific things, that these four medications can cause and do cause in people to use them. Stay tuned. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network. Coast to coast across the USA.

00;09;01;02 - 00;09;14;21

Cary Hall

We'll be back with more. Stay right there.

00;09;14;24 - 00;09;43;19

Cary Hall

Welcome back to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. Here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to the website America's Healthcare Advocate.com. All these shows are posted up on the YouTube, on the website, and all the podcast platforms. So maybe you're considering this. Somebody in your family is. You might want to have a list of this and kind of learn what the problems are, what the exposure is for taking these four medications.

00;09;43;21 - 00;10;06;05

Cary Hall

So let's keep going. Switching from Wegovy to a placebo. Weight gain versus continued loss if the treatment continued. This suggests many patients are going to need ongoing therapy to maintain the benefits. Meaning when they went to the placebo, they started gaining weight again. All right. So short term they work. Long term? We're going to talk about that.

00;10;06;05 - 00;10;11;24

Cary Hall

Can you keep taking these things forever. Do you have to stop, regroup or change meds.

00;10;11;24 - 00;10;33;14

Cary Hall

Suicidal thoughts. This is under review right now. There is no casual link to date. However, the FDA's 2024 review reports did not find evidence that the drugs cause suicidal thought. But the monitoring continues in a large 2025 study. They also found that no increased risk versus the medication.

00;10;33;14 - 00;10;53;19

Cary Hall

So right now the issues regarding your mental health, they're saying this is not having any long term effects. They haven't seen it. But remember what I said. They only got two years three years worth of data here to study. So they don't know. All right. They're monitoring. That's a good deal. Here's where I think it really gets to be significant:

00;10;53;22 - 00;10;56;16

Cary Hall

Gastrointestinal complications.

00;10;56;18 - 00;11;22;12

Cary Hall

So this is an issue. A study: “higher risks” of listen to this pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and gastroparesis. And what that is that's IBS. That's Crohn's and colitis. That's what that is. Okay. That's a large word for those three things. So you know if you've got Crohn's or you've got IBS. I have friends that have it. My wife has ongoing issues with it from time to time.

00;11;22;14 - 00;11;44;08

Cary Hall

What they're saying here is you've got a significant risk here. Higher risk that you're going to irritate that and make it worse. So that's one of the side effects. Here's another one. What they've noticed in thyroids with Wegovy and Zebound is that there's a warning with the medication that says they are producing thyroid C-cell tumors in rodents.

00;11;44;10 - 00;12;06;29

Cary Hall

Well, okay. It's in rodents, right. But typically, where do they test these kind of things? Well, they test them short-term, obviously in rats, in mice and all the rest of it. And what they're finding is that it's impacting in the thyroid. So now, you know, you add to the gastrointestinal this piece of the thyroid. And now we're talking about some significant risk.

00;12;06;29 - 00;12;27;20

Cary Hall

In my mind that would be a deterrent for me wanting to take these meds because that's a problem you don't need to have. So decade long safety data are lacking. And so the problem is weight often returns after you stop using it. That then becomes, you're going to have chronic use.

00;12;27;20 - 00;12;57;13

Cary Hall

Are you going to have to use it continually. And then where does that fall when we're talking about these other issues that could be a result of this medication long term. Once again the suicide issue has not been found to be significant. But they are observing signals, that caution. And they're advising doctors, specialists to be careful with these medications because they do cause issues for people that have, IBS, Crohn's, colitis, and they can affect it.

00;12;57;16 - 00;13;22;23

Cary Hall

Another issue, obviously, on this cancer thing. So the cancer warning, it reflects cancer. They're finding cancer in these animals when they give them these medications over a period of time. So what does that mean to you if your thyroid, you have cancer in your thyroid? I've had many people that were clients of mine over the years on the insurance side that had these issues.

00;13;22;23 - 00;13;42;16

Cary Hall

And it can be very difficult. There’s surgeries involved. There's radiation, there's chemo, there's all these things that, literally change how someone lives because your thyroid has been significantly damaged. So, you know, again, what I find interesting about this, I love my doctor, my primary care doc. She's amazing. Okay. But we didn't talk about any of this. Not okay.

00;13;42;20 - 00;14;04;14

Cary Hall

There was no mention of it. It was like, okay, here you know, you want to try this medication? It'll certainly help you lose the weight. So you know that's the issue now. All right. What we don't again, as I’ve been saying earlier, we don’t know what we don't know, and the FDA doesn't know, all right?

00;14;04;14 - 00;14;24;10

Cary Hall

And doctors are not necessarily putting an emphasis on this. But if you're the person that goes in and you get the med. And you've got IBS or you've got Crohn's, you got ulcerative colitis and you start taking this and all of a sudden you start getting very, very sick. That means that this medication is what's causing that issue.

00;14;24;16 - 00;14;44;01

Cary Hall

Again, you know, you go in and you get your thyroid checked. When you get a physical, they check your thyroid. Well, all of a sudden your thyroid is out of whack. And they want to put you on a medication for thyroid. Is somebody going to make a link between, oh, I'm taking Wegovy or I'm taking Zepbound or, you know, whatever it is.

00;14;44;04 - 00;15;05;21

Cary Hall

And, and perhaps that's causing this problem. So that's where you kind of have to be your own advocate, which is what I kind of did whenever I was looking at doing this. I didn't want to take these meds until I knew what I was getting into. And this is what I discovered after I did the research and looked around and all of these sources.

00;15;05;21 - 00;15;31;14

Cary Hall

By the way, when we post these podcasts, we put all the sources where we're getting this stuff from. So whether it's New England Journal, medicine or the FDA or US Food and Drug Administration, we put all that information up there. So what I'm giving you here is actual data and information, from these the government, entities that are tracking this and entities like the New England Journal of Medicine, etc., etc., who've actually looked into this.

00;15;31;14 - 00;15;47;11

Cary Hall

And so we're kind of like what I said. We don't know. We don't know. We know that there are issues surrounding this. We know what some of those issues are. When I come back from the break now we're going to talk about so where do we go from here? What does this mean. All right. Can you should you keep doing this.

00;15;47;13 - 00;16;07;10

Cary Hall

Or maybe you need to start looking at is this a smart way to move? I mean, you look at Oprah Winfrey. She swears by this now. She's finally lost weight. She's able to keep it off. She's not doing it on Weight Watchers. You know what is? That's great. But what's she gonna look like in five years? Six years, seven years, eight years, nine years, ten years?

00;16;07;16 - 00;16;24;09

Cary Hall

And is she going to get sick long term from using these medications? Is she going to have a thyroid cancer issue? You know, is she going to have another gastrointestinal issue? They haven't said anything about cancer links to this as far as gastrointestinal. That's going to be another question down the road. It has to be. All right.

00;16;24;13 - 00;16;51;15

Cary Hall

So when we come back from the break. We'll talk about where do we go from here, and what's safe and what's not safe to do. Stay tuned. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate, broadcasting on the HIA Radio Network. Coast to coast across the USA. We'll be right back with more.

00;16;51;17 - 00;17;14;15

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show, broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. Here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to our website. AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com. A little shout out to our affiliate in Topeka, Kansas, KMAJ 1440 The Big Talker. We are on Saturday mornings at 10:30am.

00;17;14;15 - 00;17;35;00

Cary Hall

Very happy to be on in Topeka, Kansas, the capital of the state of Kansas. All right, so let's continue talking. So, here we see that stopping these drugs often time leads to weight regain. So with Wegovy, two thirds of the weight that was lost was regained after they stopped using Wegovy. For one year.

00;17;35;07 - 00;17;56;23

Cary Hall

All right. So with Zepbound, they gained substantial weight. In fact, they gained more than they had lost when they stopped using it. So this is to the what I call the Yo-Yo effect. Short term? Yes. Long term. How do you treat that? Then it becomes a chronic issue, meaning you're going to repeat using that over and over again.

00;17;56;27 - 00;18;18;05

Cary Hall

Look, if you're morbidly obese and you've got all these other comorbidity issues, you're a type one diabetic, you're a type two diabetic, and you've got heart issues. You've got joint issues because you're carrying all this extra weight around. This is a great short term solution. The question is then where do you go from there.

00;18;18;08 - 00;18;39;10

Cary Hall

It seems to me that if you're going to do this, what you need to do is you go on the med and then you get into a program somewhere like, you know, the old, weight loss programs that are out there. You go to a client that specializes in this stuff, and then how, how do I start changing my habits so that taking this made a difference and now I can maintain it?

00;18;39;13 - 00;19;05;14

Cary Hall

That seems to me to be the logical approach. But again, if you're somebody that's morbidly obese and you're suffering with co-morbidity issues, with heart attack, heart, high blood pressure, cholesterol, you've got joint problems. Knee replacements, hip replacements, all of that. Yes, you definitely will find benefit in this. And does that offset the risk? More than likely for someone in that situation it does.

00;19;05;15 - 00;19;24;14

Cary Hall

If you're taking this to lose 10 pounds or 15 pounds, that's vanity. I mean that's really what it amounts to. All right. That can be done through diet and exercise. But for people that seriously need this medication. It certainly does make a difference in their lives. It could certainly help. But, let's keep going.

00;19;24;17 - 00;19;51;29

Cary Hall

So one of the other things they found out is a delay in gastric emptying now causes issues with pulmonary aspiration. So they don't basically want you having surgery where you're going to go under a general anesthetic if you haven't stopped taking this for at least 24 hours and gone on a liquid diet. So there's another issue. And that's really kind of funny, because, Laurie just had a procedure here not very long ago, and now she's thin and she's tall.

00;19;52;05 - 00;20;22;00

Cary Hall

But nobody asked about whether you had when the anesthesiologist came in. I just remember this. Nobody asked if you were taking these meds. Which could cause, an aspiration risk, while you were under the general anesthetic. So I thought that was kind of interesting. The GI events. So once again, they're talking about obstruction, gastroparesis, which is Crohn's, you know, IBS, ulcerative colitis, that that comes from the Journal of American Medicine.

00;20;22;02 - 00;20;46;16

Cary Hall

And they are they say they are debating this issue, but it's definitely out there. They're definitely saying that it's there. It's one of those things that has to be evaluated. The warning again, you know, on the C-cell for the thyroid that is actually in the material you get when you take the medication. So there is a warning, on the issue of taking the medication and the risk it does to your thyroid.

00;20;46;16 - 00;20;49;20

Cary Hall

On the gallbladder disease and pancreatitis.

00;20;49;22 - 00;21;05;27

Cary Hall

That's also now an actual warning that comes with the medication. So while they're debating it, they're making you aware that there's definitely an issue there. And it's something that you need to think about and something you need to look into if you're going to take these medications.

00;21;05;27 - 00;21;10;17

Cary Hall

So here's some other issues that and this surprised me because I didn't know it.

00;21;10;18 - 00;21;30;12

Cary Hall

There's a green list of sources that these medications can come from. There's a couple here that I don't have a problem with Belgium and Canada, but they're also China and India on here. And I will tell you this straight up, if I were going to take one of these medications, I would make damn sure it wasn't coming from China or India.

00;21;30;14 - 00;21;49;05

Cary Hall

All right. You know, we know for a fact that the Chinese cut corners. They play games. They don't do things the way they're supposed to do them. There's no way on God's green earth that I know I'm going to hear it. Well, we get a lot of the generic medications from China. I know we do. Okay. And it's a deep concern.

00;21;49;05 - 00;22;09;21

Cary Hall

I don't know why. I know that there's a move now in the Trump administration to get away from that. But it's been like that for years. And it's definitely a problem. But I certainly would be concerned about taking any one of these four medications if they came from China. You know, they're also talking about compound pharmacies here.

00;22;09;23 - 00;22;33;20

Cary Hall

And what kind of an issue that presents, because we have these pharmacies out there, they put different medications together and put together compound pharmaceutical products. Well, these are unapproved versions of any of these medications. So they're saying basically, you don't go to a compound pharmacy and get a mix of a, Wegovy and a Mounjaro or a Wegovy and some other medication.

00;22;33;22 - 00;22;58;10

Cary Hall

That's 100% wrong. And they are not approved, and they're telling you to stick to only approved products. So I know there are a lot of people out there like these compound pharmacies. A lot of women use them for issues around, menopause and other kinds of issues that they help with, and that's great. But in this case, the FDA is saying absolutely do not use these medications in a compounded format.

00;22;58;12 - 00;23;18;16

Cary Hall

And they said stick only to the approved models. That's the way they're supposed to work. So here's, so what do these do when it comes to weight loss. So mostly they cause fat to disappear. But here's another piece. And you need to understand this, especially if you don't exercise and you're not getting enough protein.

00;23;18;18 - 00;23;44;03

Cary Hall

They also delete lean mass. What does that mean. That means muscle mass. All right. So in addition to getting rid of the fat, long term functional outcomes and bone effects need more data. This is what we don't know. All right. Need more data. So there's an issue. All right. So it shows the majority of the loss is fat loss.

00;23;44;05 - 00;24;05;20

Cary Hall

But once again now they're talking about bone effects. So let's say you have osteoporosis and you're going to take this medication. Hopefully your doctor is going to say, well, hang on a minute, I need to make you aware that if you've got osteoporosis and you take this, you're going to further damage your bone health. Possibility.

00;24;05;20 - 00;24;27;29

Cary Hall

Or long term functional outcomes. In other words losing muscle mass. If you're taking these meds, you're on a diet. I remember when I went into this weight loss program, getting enough protein was a really big deal. Every day. It was get off of the carbs, you know? And the other things you don't need to be doing, sugar all the rest of it.

00;24;28;05 - 00;24;48;10

Cary Hall

But the key was to getting enough protein, making sure you're getting x number of grams of protein. I think it's like 90 a day. I can't remember specifically. But the idea is that you have to have enough protein. In order to, your body mass, especially your muscle mass, to be able to continue like it's supposed to.

00;24;48;12 - 00;25;08;02

Cary Hall

So they're telling you right here, the FDA is telling you there's a trade off. This is the verbiage from the FDA. There's a trade off. It's mostly fat. But you're also going to have muscle loss and you're going to have mass loss. And then this side effect on issues with regard to bone.

00;25;08;04 - 00;25;29;14

Cary Hall

So if you have osteoporosis this is definitely something you need to look into and ask questions about before you go on this medication. Again understand why I'm doing this. This is like a rage in this country right now. You know, they're dropping the prices down. I've seen a couple of them now they're coming for 120, $90 a month, etc..

00;25;29;18 - 00;25;47;05

Cary Hall

So that you can buy the medications, but do understand that there is a risk involved. And I'm going to repeat what I said. If you're somebody that's morbidly obese, I would tell you to do this in a New York minute, at least get the weight off and then see if you can get into a program where you can keep it off.

00;25;47;05 - 00;26;06;19

Cary Hall

But what I'm saying, basically, is this. If you use this, it's not a long term solution. It's not. You're going to have to make some lifestyle adjustments once you get rid of the weight in order to keep the weight off. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting on the HIA Radio Network.

00;26;06;25 - 00;26;26;14

Cary Hall

Coast to coast, across the USA. When I come back from the break, we'll talk about the green list. That's the list of foreign manufacturers that the FDA says you can rely on. And we'll talk about some of the other issues in terms of how these medications are being used, who's manufacturing them, and what do they mean to you when you go out and start using them.

00;26;26;19 - 00;26;43;12

Cary Hall

Stay right there. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate, broadcasting on the HD radio network. Coast to coast across the USA. We'll be right back with more.

00;26;43;14 - 00;27;02;28

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show, broadcasting coast to coast across USA here on the HIA Radio Network. All these shows posted on the podcast platforms and YouTube. If you want to go up and tell somebody about and have them listen to it. This is one I’m probaly going get a lot of listeners. There are a lot of people interested in these medications.

00;27;03;01 - 00;27;24;09

Cary Hall

So let's talk about some of the other issues that are out there. So there is a retinopathy issue here with regard to your your vision and your eye health. So basically what they're saying is that if you have any of these issues with regard to your vision and your vision health, this can exacerbate that problem.

00;27;24;10 - 00;27;45;29

Cary Hall

These medications can. So that's another one that we that we haven't talked about. The green list from the FDA does include Belgium and Canada. I told you China and India on here. But here's what’s interesting. In a compliance snapshot they reviewed 48 overseas manufacturing facilities. This is what I find interesting. This is totally the opposite of what they just said in the other in the other piece.

00;27;46;01 - 00;28;08;18

Cary Hall

21 of those facilities of the 48 were in noncompliance. So what were they doing? What were they adding? Were the adding baby powder to the medication? I don't know. I mean, we know some of the things that go on in China, right? You know, you tell me I don't know. Well, but this is funny because they're saying that Belgium, Canada, China and India are Green listed.

00;28;08;18 - 00;28;29;22

Cary Hall

And then they're saying when they checked 48 of these overseas facilities, 21% of them were non-compliant. Let me make a, take a guess here of the 21 that were in noncompliance. 20 of them were in India and China. There might have been one in Canada or Belgium that didn't comply. But I'd be willing to bet that the majority of those were in either one of those places.

00;28;29;23 - 00;28;45;05

Cary Hall

Once again, I'm going to say what I said earlier. If it's coming from China or India, I'm probably not going to be taking it. All right. I mean, that's definitely as far as I'm concerned. That's an issue. Those people do not. Especially the Chinese, do not have our best interests at heart.

00;28;45;07 - 00;29;02;11

Cary Hall

If they did, they wouldn't be shipping millions, millions of pounds of fentanyl materials over here for the cartels to make drugs to run into this country for methamphetamine and fentanyl. So you're never going to convince me that the Chinese have anything good in terms of their intentions towards this country?

00;29;02;18 - 00;29;13;01

Cary Hall

Let's keep going. Birth control and pregnancy. All right. If this is really an issue, it is unapproved for folks that, women that are pregnant.

00;29;13;01 - 00;29;37;21

Cary Hall

And there is an issue with if you're on birth control, you're taking these medications that it affects the birth control medications. So meaning that they may not work. All right. So once again you know you're a young woman and you've got weight issues. And you you know, want to make yourself more attractive. You take these meds but you're also on a birth control, medication.

00;29;37;22 - 00;30;10;06

Cary Hall

You need to really check and see if this makes sense. All right. And can you take this medication and not have issues? That's from the FDA. I'm going to go back to this issue with eye health. Diabetic retinopathy complications. So again these meds are typically they were originally designed for diabetics. And if you're on an ACA plan-Obamacare plan, or they've just been approved for part D Medicare, you can get these medications if you're diabetic.

00;30;10;08 - 00;30;21;03

Cary Hall

Now they're saying that this is the New England Journal of Medicine saying this can very serious this can cause very serious problems with vision. So here's another side effect you need to be aware of.

00;30;21;10 - 00;30;39;09

Cary Hall

Pregnancy and fertility. Once again, if you're taking this medication when you’re pregnant, you're going to have issues with it and an oral contraceptive effect of this can be reduced. This is part of the study from the FDA. You're taking those birth control pills, which means you can get pregnant while you're taking it.

00;30;39;11 - 00;30;55;01

Cary Hall

Drug interactions. Delayed gastro emptying. We've talked about that. And the absorption of other medications. So now you're taking this is not unusual for people that are overweight. And I take blood pressure and cholesterol meds.

00;30;55;07 - 00;31;17;13

Cary Hall

You're taking blood pressure and cholesterol. And what we're hearing here is that this impacts the absorption rate of those meds. Well, how about those daily vitamins you're taking and those supplements you're taking to try to keep yourself healthy? Is it going to impact those as well? So somehow this impacts your absorption rate of these medications. All right.

00;31;17;19 - 00;31;41;19

Cary Hall

So you know to recap some of this pregnancy and birth control issues. Definitely an issue here in terms. And you should not take this while you're pregnant. Lean mass loss does happen. All right. It's mostly body fat. But there are going to be lean mass losses. The co-morbidities with gastrointestinal issues. Anytime you start playing with gut health you've got a significant issue there okay.

00;31;41;24 - 00;32;04;12

Cary Hall

And if you've got Crohn's, if you've got IBS, if you’ve got any of these other issues, you're probably going to exacerbate it. The FDA is cracking down on ingredient imports. They are concerned about this because of physical contamination. They've detained shipments on this. Again, I'm going to go back to this. Get something that's made in this country or made in Canada.

00;32;04;26 - 00;32;23;13

Cary Hall

Or made in Belgium. They're certainly available. I know a lot of people are using methods to import this stuff. If you're going to import it, bring it out of Canada, New Zealand, Australia. I did a broadcast on this years ago. It's important to understand those formularies in those countries are identical to the formulary in this country.

00;32;23;17 - 00;32;47;13

Cary Hall

The only difference is the government regulates the price of the medication. So as an example, if you want to take Wegovy, and through, let's say one of them a plan like GigCare which is our product for 1099 folks out of Detego. We can bring that... It's $1,100 a month to buy it. If you don't have, if you're not a diabetic and you're not getting it for medical use, right?

00;32;47;20 - 00;33;13;04

Cary Hall

We can bring it in from Canada for $88. Okay. Yeah. Now, if you can get it from China for $40, I'm going to suggest you probably not do that right. That's probably not going to be a good idea. But you can bring it in from Canada for $88. So if you do want to take this and you make a decision to do it, and you, you're using one of these methodologies where you can call up, get your prescription and you hear me advertised on the radio and you can get your prescriptions.

00;33;13;04 - 00;33;35;10

Cary Hall

You can turn around, and have it shipped into you, make sure you're getting it from someplace like Canada, New Zealand or Australia. And they've said Belgium as well. Okay. Not from China. All right. All right. Thank you all for listening today. The whole purpose of this show, once again, was to educate and inform that there is, an enormous popularity of these medications out there.

00;33;35;13 - 00;33;56;16

Cary Hall

They certainly have a place. They certainly help people that are morbidly obese, people that are significantly overweight, that have other comorbidity issues. You know, if you've got, a heart attack, stroke, those kinds of issues from weight, weight issues, this is a way to overcome that. And it's a way to lose the weight. The question is, what do you do long term?

00;33;56;16 - 00;34;17;21

Cary Hall

What I'm suggesting is if you take these meds for a year and you get yourself on track where you want to be, you need to go into a program where you can keep the weight off and that doesn't mean... you can’t keep taking this stuff forever. That's part of the problem with it. Okay. Because it increases the opportunities for other comorbidities to take place.

00;34;17;24 - 00;34;34;14

Cary Hall

Thank you for listening today. And now I leave you with this thought from Albert Einstein, the one who follows the crowd. You usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one's ever been. Remember, friends, is the funny thing about life. You refused to accept anything but the very best.

00;34;34;14 - 00;34;45;28

Cary Hall

You most often get it. Thank you for listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show. Broadcasting coast to coast across the USA here on the HIA Radio Network. Goodbye, America.