we've not spoken for 2 years but I have

to say you look remarkably different so

I lost three stone in a year and there's

secret to that statement Johan Hari the

bestselling author who's using his own

body to unearth the extraordinary

benefits and disturbing risks of the new

weight loss drugs OIC it is literally

the hottest drug in the country right

now I really worry about the risk of

these drugs you're nine times more

likely to get this particular condition

which is excruciatingly pain for and

these drugs are working very hard on key

parts of your brain in fact there are 12

significant risks and we'll get into

that but it seems extraordinary that we'

reached the point where we would inject

ourselves with a potentially risky drug

to stop us from eating and we've had 40

Years of relentlessly promoting diet and

exercise as the only solutions and only

10% of people really do lose huge

amounts of weight on diets and keep it

off but now we have the most effective

tool for self- starvation human beings

have ever come up with when I started

taking zpic I was literally 80% % less

hungry than I normally am these drugs

really do massively reduce or reverse

obesity and a few years from now we'll

have 50% of the population taking it the

new miracle drug now this is when I go

through the 12 big risks some of which

have not really been explained to the

public So within a year of stopping you

regain 70% of the weight you've lost

muscle mass loss is a real problem

there's concern that it may be causing

suicidal feelings and then there's one

of the really big risks and it's

absolutely Grim beyond belief and that

is

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[Music]

episode Yan we've not spoken for 2

years but I have to say you look

remarkably different there's a secret to

that Stephen really we can dig into yeah

what is the

secret so for me it started it's a kind

of weird story it started in the winter

of 2020 so it was that weird period when

kind of the world was opening up again

after the

pandemic and i' gained a lot of weight

in lockdown like loads of people

and because of that kind of weird moment

of reopening I went to a party for the

first time in like I don't know a year

and a half two years and it was a party

thrown by a kind of famous Hollywood

actor and on the way there I remember

thinking oh this is going to be kind of

funny because all these Hollywood people

are going to put on weight as well right

they're going to have gained weight what

are they going to look like so I

remember getting there looking around

and having this really weird feeling

because it's not just they hadn't gained

weight everyone was gaunt right like

everyone looked like their own Snapchat

filter like they had like higher

cheekbones they looked cleaner and

clearer and

sharper and I was kind of wandering

around feeling bit like oh [ __ ] and I

bumped into a friend of mine on the

dance floor and I said to her what it

looks like um looks like everyone really

did do Pates during

lockdown and she laughed and then she

looked at me and I S looked at her and

she said well you know it wasn't Pilates

right and I sort of looked at her

blankly and she pulled out her phone and

she showed she Googled an image and she

showed me an OIC pen and I didn't know

what it was and I said what are you

talking about and said it's a drug

everyone here is on this drug right not

just the Stars like their wives their

agents their agents kids everyone right

and I've been really thrown and then

over the next few days I I read a lot

about these these new weight loss drugs

and I've never I don't remember ever

coming across a topic where I felt so

deeply conflicted from the very

beginning and that conflict remained all

the way through right the subtitle to my

book is the extraordinary benefits and

disturbing risks of the new weight loss

drugs and that's even right from the

start I was I was aware that was that

was the the tension so the benefits are

kind of obvious right you know I'm older

than my grandfather ever got to be

because he died of a heart attack loads

of the men in my family get really fat

and die of heart attacks my uncle died

of a heart attack my dad had a lot of

heart problem problems um there's a lot

of evidence that obesity unfortunately

does cause a whole range of health

problems over 20000 diseases and

complications uh there's a lot of

evidence these drugs really do massively

reduce or reverse obesity the average

person who uses them as z p wovi loses

15% of their body weight in a year with

the new generation of the drugs the next

ones that are coming down the line the

average person loses 24% of their body

weight it's staggering it's just below

barrier atric surgery so I could see the

obvious health benefit and I could see

that the Alternatives that most of us

have been pursuing diets have not worked

well for most

people but at the same time I thought I

mean just I had so many doubts straight

away I thought well we've seen this

story before there have been lots of

miracle diet drugs that have been

announced they caus dramatic weight loss

at first and we always discover some

horrendous side effect that causes you

know cat Ric outcomes that mean the

whole thing has to be pulled I thought

that I

thought well we know what causes obesity

right the reason obesity is massively

increased is because of a complete

change in the food supply we eat

completely different food to what our

grandparents ate we need to deal with

that not kind of drug everyone I also

thought well what will happen to people

with eating disorders when they get a

hold of this what will this do to the

kind of positive changes that were

happening in accepting a kind of broader

range of Weights so I was

really deeply conflicted so to really

get to the bottom of this for my book

magic pill I I spent a year taking the

drugs and going on this big Journey all

over the world from rekovic in Iceland

to Minneapolis to Tokyo to interview the

leading experts in the world on these

drugs the biggest supporters the biggest

critics all sorts of uh kind of alleys

and avenues that follow from them and at

the end of it it's really weird I know

far more than I did before I know far

more about benefits and risks and far

more about what this is going to do to

the culture and it will be

massive but I'm still really

conflicted so if we if we start there

then you're at the party someone

mentions this zmek thing to you can have

you got the zmek um pen on you I have it

as a a prop you've got it here okay so

it's very simple um you it's just a

little pen it's like um an epip pen so

you take that you uh put on the little

lid I won't take it out because I need

this one later but the um although this

one's empty you put a little you twist a

little needle onto there and you inject

yourself with it and you inject yourself

once a week and it's really strange the

effect it has I remember the first day I

took the

injection couple of days later I

remember waking

up and I was lying in bed and I had this

weird feeling you know feeling when you

wake up and you're not quite with it and

you think what am I feeling and I was

struggling to articulate it and I I was

I thought I felt mly nauseous which

everyone gets when they start taking but

that wasn't the thing that was puzzling

me and then I

realized I'd woken up and I wasn't

hungry I don't remember that ever

happening to me before I mean don't mean

that as an exaggeration I I used to be

woken up every day like really hungry

often I would be woken up by hunger by

my stomach rumbling and I went on my

kind of typical routine for the day I

went to this Cafe just around the corner

from where I live and I ordered the same

thing I would always order which was a

kind of big kind of a Brown roll with

lots of chicken and mayo in it and I had

like three mouthfuls and I was full I

just didn't want to eat

anymore I remember leaving I remember

Tatiana the woman who works in the cafe

kind of shouting after me to see if I

was Ill or

something and then for lunch I went to

the same place I always go or went at

the time next to my office there's a

Turkish kind of restaurant I went there

I ordered a Mediterranean lamb again I

had like three or four mouthfuls I

wasn't hungry it was like the kind of

had come down on my appetite I was

literally 80% less hungry than I

normally am and it basically stayed that

way from then on it was a very uh

physically and psychologically strange

experience so on the on the on the pen

itself cuz I just want to make sure I

fully understand this is that that

little pen you have in your hand for

people that can't aren't watching on

video there's a it kind of looks like a

big sharpie yeah exactly and is that one

dose yeah there's load of doses in there

so you twist the base yeah and

um that each time you twist it it would

release with this pen 1 milligram okay

yeah and how many twists you get out of

one pen uh I think each one contains

four dozes yeah and how much does that

cost so it varies massively because as

you know I live half in the US half in

Britain a lot of the time um so in

Britain this cost you at the moment

about £250 a month in the US it's way

more like $800 a month so £250 a month

how many sort of doses do I get for that

£250 you that would cover your whole

month so each month you'd have to pay

£250 you get four doses in each one and

you said in the US it's way more way

more how much more so it's about $800

between 800 and 1,200 bearing in mind

there' have been lots of shortages which

I'm sure we'll talk about so the price

has kind of been a bit sensitive to how

much is actually available at any given

time okay interesting and are these

drugs

new relatively so I interviewed the

scientists who played the key role in

the breakthroughs that led to the

development of the drugs and then

scientists who worked on it at every

stage

so in one sense they're not that new

diabetics have been using them on

license now for 18 years so for obesity

they're relatively new for diabetes

they've been around for nearly 20 years

and it was fascinating talking to the

scientists involved because one of the

things that's really weird about this is

there's a huge debate about how they

even work so there's certain things that

we know for sure so if you now ate

something right you it don't matter what

it is after a while a hormone would

start to be produced it in your body

called

glp1 and that is one of many gut

hormones that would start to be created

and it's basically glp1 is a natural

signal saying Stephen you've had enough

stop eating right just stop now right

but gp1 natural glp1 only remains in

your system for a couple of minutes and

then it's washed away so if you sort of

push through it you can carry on eating

right most people do stop when they get

the signal um so what these drugs do is

they simulate glp1 they inject into you

an artificial copy of glp 1 but instead

of that glp1 remaining in your system

for a few minutes and then disappearing

it stays in your system for a whole week

so when I go to that cafe and I eat the

thing I'd normally eat my system is

filled with signals that say you're

already full Johan you don't need

anymore right so that was initially that

is definitely a key part of how it works

and it was initially thought that these

drugs worked on your gut right these gp1

is a hormone that's made in the gut um

it's thought that the effect was it

slows down your gut it slows down

gastric emptying that is definitely

happening but The Cutting Edge science

and the kind of leading neuroscientists

that I interviewed now believe actually

it primarily has an effect on your brain

it changes what you want and how you

want it which brings with it a huge

parallel set of both benefits and risks

interesting so it's once a week and you

basically feel Fuller for a whole week

from one injection yeah not everyone

gets to that state immediately some

people it takes longer some people the

side effects are just intolerable and

they can't take it at all or they can't

continue to take it and I interviewed

plenty of people who were in that

position but for most

people the best way I can describe it is

imagine you just had Christmas dinner

yeah and I came up to you so you're

completely bloated you're lying on the

sofa and I came up to you and said hey

Steven I got you a Big Mac here it is

and you be like I mean you could

physically force yourself to eat that

Big Mac you might throw up but you

probably could eat it but you just don't

want to you feel full so it creates a

very rapid sense of fullness in response

to far so I used to eat 3,200 calories a

day roughly I now eat about

1,800 there a huge drop and the benefits

are kind of obvious of that but there

are really big costs I discovered

there's in fact 12 really big risks and

there's all sorts of Cu at first when

you hear all this you're like well this

is just kaching win win right who

wouldn't want this but there's a lot of

risks and downsides as well so I want to

get on to all those risks and downsides

but one of the I think rebuttal that

some people would have when they hear

this um is kind of contrary to the

reaction I think you expect which is

Johan I really love eating food I really

really enjoy the process of eating food

aren't you losing happiness because food

gives a lot of people happiness in

various ways so aren't you a little bit

annoyed now that you've lost your desire

to have you know that role that you used

to have for breakfast in the morning

hasn't that taken something from you

this is a big drawback for lots of

people I think I'm quite unusual so I'll

explain how most people feel about this

then I'll explain how I feel about it um

you're absolutely right even yenil Holst

who was one of the scientists who

developed o zenic said look for most

people it's just a life without pleasure

in food is just unbearable and after a

couple of years they just give up

because they want to enjoy life right

and one of the key things that gives us

pleasure throughout the day is eating uh

and a lot of people feel that way if you

look at for example Jay Raina a

brilliant food critic here in Britain

you know he just described how he

started taking it he would go to the

best restaurants in Paris places he

loves and he

just couldn't get any pleasure out of it

so for him it was just awful it's a very

common complaint that it drains pleasure

from

food honestly I I had almost the

opposite experience but I want to stress

I do think I'm quite unusual so I

realized when I started taking these

drugs one of the fascinating things

about these drugs is they will bring to

the surface whatever psychological

issues you had with food right because

it so radically interrupts your eating

patterns um and that can be very

challenging for a lot of people I'm sure

we'll get into that but for me I

realized how much of my eating from when

I was very

young the pleasure I got from food was

not primarily from like tasting it and

savoring it the pleasure I got from food

was mostly from kind of a feeling of

stuffing myself so stuffing is like you

you do it at Christmas din we all do it

sometimes stuffing is when you sort of

eat deliberately beyond the point at

which you're full and you feel it as a

physical sensation you can feel it sort

of pushing up on your esophagus and out

on your stomach and I think from when I

was very young I grew up in a very

violent and crazy environment I think

one of the ways I learned to cope with

that there are many productive and

positive ways I learn to cope with that

but one of the kind of downsides is I

learned to really eat to soothe myself

and I would stuff and when I started

taking o zenic I actually couldn't eat

like that anymore you you can't stuff

yourself I would literally throw up if I

you know tried to stuff myself so

actually for me it massively slowed down

my eating and I actually enjoy food a

fair bit more now I don't want to

overstate it I'm not a foodie I'm never

going to be that person but like I

remember going for dinner with one of my

friends I know maybe three or four

months after I started taking it and I

saying to me you know it's always been a

bit stressful to eat with you because

you eat so quickly but you don't seem to

really enjoy it and now you do actually

look like you're enjoying your

food but I stress again I don't think

I'm typical in that respect there are

far more people like J Raina than there

are like me I really want to go

into why people you know people's

relationship with food more generally um

but I wanted to close off on that what

you were saying about a Zex impact on

the brain you talked about gp1 in the

gut and the you know the impact that

hasn't making you feel satiated but you

also alluded to there's now research

that suggests it's doing something to

the brain as well this is totally

fascinating it opens up a whole new set

of potential benefits for these drugs in

relation to add

and a whole set of potential risks for

these drugs in relation to depression so

I want to stress there is very big

scientific disagreement about what is

happening in the brain in relation to

these drugs and it's a bit like when you

interview people it's like it's like

looking at a picture that's just coming

into shape so a year from now we'll know

much more than we do now but what was

discovered this actually discovered in

the 90s um here in London at Hammer

Smith hospital was that in fact we don't

only have glp receptors in our guts we

have glp receptors in our brains in fact

glp one can be made in the brain right

which is fascinating it could also made

in your thyroid which is very

significant I'm sure we'll come back to

um so when you take these drugs um as

John Wilding one of the key figures in

the development of these drugs said to

me you can tag the drug which means that

you can sort of D it and you can give it

to animals and then cut open their

brains obviously you can't do that with

humans and when you do that when you

just give them the drug and you in their

brain afterwards what you find is this

drug goes everywhere in the brain it's

going all over the brain it is primarily

having a brain effect right and it

definitely also much more anecdotally

feels that way when you take it it feels

like you want different things right it

doesn't just feel like a physical

sensation of I'm full it feels I

remember taking my godsons to McDonald's

maybe a week after I started taking it

and I didn't want a McDonald's and then

one of my godsons saying to me who are

you and what have you done with Yan

right was so contrary to my preferences

and my fact um one of my low points in

life was Christmas Eve

2009 I went to my local branch of KFC

just around the corner from where we are

now cuz I used to live in here and I

said to the guy behind the counter my

standard order which is so gross I won't

repeat it and the guy behind the counter

said oh yoan I'm really glad you're here

wait a minute I was like all right and

he went off behind where they fry the

chicken and everything and he came back

with a massive Christmas card and

everyone was working that day and they'd

written to our best customer and they

all clapped me and one of the things

that was so terrible is I thought this

isn't even the Fried Chicken shop I come

to the most right how can this be

happening to me but so when you speak to

the The Cutting Edge neuroscientists and

I interviewed them in great depth

there's basically three theories about

what these drugs are doing to your brain

right very broadly I mean they this is a

quite crude way of putting it um so one

is you have in your brain something

called the reward system the reward

system is what motivates you to do

anything so you know you have sex you

eat you meet up with a friend your

reward centers hum right it's what makes

you feel good when you do something

pleasurable and one theory about these

drugs is they dampen your reward system

so the reason I don't want a Big Mac is

that a Big Mac is not as rewarding to me

as it would have been before I took

these drugs right that obviously brings

with it a set of risks because then you

go okay if it's dampening my reward

system for Big Mac is it dampening my

reward system for the things I love

writing reading there's a big debate

about this there's concern that in some

people it may be causing suicidal

feelings and in some people it may be

causing depression there is a warning on

the drug to that effect required by the

FDA the the fin drug agency in the

United States that's one concern but

there are other scientists who say that

we don't that that's not correct that um

that the suicide risk is not accurate

and that they don't work by dampening a

reward system some people like aelia G

who's at the University of um Alabama in

Birmingham said to me what he thinks

that it does is it resets your

preferences it's almost like taking your

phone back to the factory settings it

resets key elements of the kind of food

you want to a healthier level can I just

say on that sorry to interrupt but um I

was thinking constantly as you were

talking about your trip to McDonald's

and not wanting the McDonald's anymore I

I've come to see in my life that if I

have something unhealthy if I have sugar

or a cookie today I'm I feel like I'm

much more compelled to have another one

tomorrow I feel like I I I look back on

certain periods of my life where I

almost get into a bit of a sugar spiral

and it could be because of stress or

some other Factor but it made me think

that the sugar itself is somewhat

addicting so when you were talking I was

thinking is it is it not just a case

that you're consuming less sugar and you

know some of these addictive food

substances so you want it less the next

day if you know what I'm saying yeah

there's an experiment that proves you're

right but in a complicated way um can I

just finish off one thing about the

brain and then come back to that raised

a super important and and truthful point

the third theory about how it could be

working in the brain and this comes from

a scientist called Professor Paul Kenny

who actually did the experiment relates

to what you just said he argues that in

your brain you don't just have a reward

system you have something called the

satiety system and this is a crucial

concept for people who want to

understand these drugs and what's gone

wrong with our diets more generally to

understand satiety is just the feeling

of having had enough right we've all had

the feeling of being sated you're like

okay I'm done I don't want anymore we

get that with food sex all sorts of

things right you're just sated um he

argues that in your brain there there's

basically alongside the reward system

there's also a satiety system A system

that just says Stephen you've had enough

stop now and he argues that what these

drugs do is they dial up your satiety

system they don't dial down your reward

system right there's a huge and ongoing

debate about that what we do know is

they're having some really significant

effect on the brain and that has all

sorts of implications that we need to

think about when I was learning about

this

I remember

thinking this is a much more intimate

and risky transformation than when you

first hear oh I'm taking something that

affects my stomach right so there's a

lot there about the brain and

implications for addiction as well which

we can talk about but to come to the

thing you asked about which is so

important of all the things I learned

there was an experiment that kind of

freaked me out about this um because

obious I was trying to figure out well

how did we get to this point because at

first glance I can see how it seems

crazy in a way it did to me you know we

gained an enormous amount of weight in

the last 40 years I was born in 1979 the

year I was born 6% of British people

were obese it's now 26% right staggering

increase unprecedented in human history

and it seems extraordinary that we've

reached the point where we would inject

ourselves with a potentially risky drug

to stop us from eating it seems so

unnatural and so wrong and I was trying

well how did we get here right what

happened

which is why satiety is so important so

it's this experiment that I think helps

to understand that thing you were saying

about sugar it's done by this guy

Professor Paul Kenny who's the head of

neuroscience at Mount siai in New York

and a brilliant

neuroscientist so Paul grew up in Dublin

and he moved to the US when he was in

his 20s to do his PhD I think and he

moved to San Diego first and it quickly

clocked Americans do not eat like Irish

people right they eat much more sugar

much more fat they eat just much more

right and within being within like a

year of being there he'd gained I think

a stone and a half or something uh so he

gained I think it was 23 pound so it

gained a lot of weight and he started to

wonder sort of like the question you

were asking does this food when you

consume it change your brain in ways

that compel you to consume it more

what's going on so he designed an

experiment that sort of investigated

this uh which I've nicknamed cheesecake

park that's not its official name right

um you get a load of rats and you raise

them in a cage and they've just got the

kind of food that rats evolved to eat

over thousands of years it's pellets

based on their natural diet and if you

do that even though they've got far more

pellets than they could actually eat

they will eat enough to deal with their

hunger and then they just naturally stop

right so when they've got the kind of

food they evolve to have they never

become overweight or obese they just

stabilize their weight they've got a

kind of natural nutritional wisdom then

Professor Kenny introduced the American

diet to them

he fried up some bacon he bought some

Snickers bars and crucially he gives

them a load of cheesecake and they come

along and they nibble the cheesecake and

the other stuff and quite quickly they

just go wild for it they shun the food

they evolved to have and they just start

obsessively eating the cheesecake the

fried the fried bacon the Snickers bars

he described to me how they would like

he would put the cheesecake in and they

would just hurl themselves into the

cheesecake and then like eat their way

out and emerge like completely slicked

with the cheesecake so given this kind

of food all their nutritional wisdom

disappeared just went away and they

became obsessed with this new kind of

food um and as he put it to me within a

couple of days they were different

animals their all their health

indicators were worse they were

obsessively eating within a few weeks

they were their health was really bad

they became extremely obese and then he

varied the experiment even more in a way

it seemed to me as a former junk food

addict a little bit cruel he took all

the American diet away and they just

have the food they evolved to have the

food they used to eat right and he was

quite sure he knew what would happen

that they would eat a lot more of the

kind of natural food than they had

before and this would prove that junk

food expands your appetites that isn't

what happened what happened was much

worse they completely shunned the

natural food it was like they no longer

recognized it as food at all they just

refused to eat it they starved and it

was only when they were really starving

that they went back to eating the

natural food there's lots of human

examples of but there's something as

Professor Gerald M who's a nutritionist

at Harvard said to me there's something

about the food we're eating which I

think you're getting out in that

question which is undermining our

ability to know when to stop which is

how we got to the point where we so many

people 47% of Americans want to take a

drug that will make them stop I was

reading about this um thing you call the

Cheesecake Park in your book in Chapter

2 and the other sort of Step he took the

experiment to was the whole idea of

electrocuting the animals when they ate

certain foods and you say in the book

that he then um would electrocute the

animals while shining a yellow light in

their eyes so that they would eventually

become scared of this yellow light and

in the case of um the natural food when

he Shone the yellow light in their eyes

they would run away but even if you

Shone the yellow light in their eyes

while they were eating the junk food

they would stay and continue to eat the

cheesecake which kind of the conclusion

in Chapter 2 of your book as I've

written it here is and the thing this

came from the researcher if you're

exposed um to this food for a while Paul

concluded the desire for it is so great

that you will ignore all sorts of

negative consequences to eat it as we

know as I know in my own life right my

KFC Obsession had obvious negative

consequences in my life and the reason

this is so important in relation to

these drugs so for a long time I was

looking at two things right I was

looking at why did we so many of us gain

so much weight so rapidly obesity has

trebled globally in my lifetime right

completely unprecedented human history

why did that happen

and how do these drugs work and at first

I thought they were like parallel lines

right but actually I realized they were

like kind of braided plats the answer is

completely densely interconnected what

we know is the kind of food we eat

profoundly undermines our sense of

satiety it completely disrupts just like

it did with the rats it we don't get

that signal you're full you've had

enough stop from the kind of food we're

eating and what these drugs do is they

res restore a sense of satiety Carell

Laro another one of the key scientists

who develop these drugs said to me what

these what these drugs give you is

satiety hormones they give you back a

sense of being full and in a way at

first I thought well that makes the

whole thing seem crazy right because

there's a guy called Michael low

brilliant Professor um at Drexel

University in Philly he said to me look

you got to understand these drugs are an

artificial solution to an artificial

problem we've artificially created this

problem through a catastrophic food

system that is screwing bring us up from

childhood and then Along come these

drugs as the artificial solution to that

and the first thing you think is right

we' got to deal with the fear system

right and that is absolutely true and

correct and I remember going to one of

my closest friends um I call her Judy in

the book it's not a real name who you

know she'd had cancer seven years before

so I've been with her all through that

kind of really grueling process and it

was an absolute nightmare she's a single

mom and you can imagine how how Grim

that was um and I said to her I feel

like a complete fraud taking these drugs

right I'm always talking about how we

need to deal with the causes of social

problems I can see very clearly the

cause of this problem and this is just

sort of dealing with the symptom and she

said to me look

Johan you can stop taking this drug

that's fine do it if you want to but

when I had cancer we know there is

something in the environment that is

triggering breast cancer in women right

one in seven women in now get breast

cancer that didn't happen in the past

it's not happening in Japan where it's

only one in 38 women something is really

wrong in Britain and the US in the way

we're living that is triggering breast

cancer right but she said to me you

didn't say to me when I got breast

cancer well [ __ ] me all this

environmental problem has caused this

breast cancer and now you want to inject

yourself with another poison

chemotherapy in order to deal with it no

you said okay we've got an environmental

problem obviously that environmental

problem needs to be dealt with but

you've got to stay alive or you you

can't deal with it right the analogy she

gave me that really helped me was she

said if your house is on fire right you

could say well look we need to build

houses that aren't made of flammable

materials and we should make it the law

that you've got to have Sprinklers and

of course I agree but the first thing

you got to do is put out the fire in

your house right and I after that

conversation it was just after it I I

met a guy called Jeff Parker he's in San

Francisco he's a 66 year old lighting

designer who was about 16 Stone when I

when when he first started taking weight

loss drugs and he was in real trouble

heart problems liver problems kidney

problems it was very painful for him to

walk and he got mjo which is the next

Generation up of these weight loss drugs

and he lost loads of weight and all his

health problems reversed and now he

walks his dog over the Golden Gate

Bridge every day and is really happy and

said look I feel like now I'm going to

enjoy my retirement and I said to him

but Jeff I'm don't you feel like we

should be dealing with the environment

mental causes and he said absolutely I

totally agree with you you start that

campaign sign me up but I've got to tell

you by the time we achieve that I'm

going to be dead right we're not going

to get there in the next few years and I

want to live and I found

that I found it hard to

dispute what what if people say well you

know you could um you could just not

choose the role at the coffee shop in

the morning you could have just gone for

I don't know a salad or something yeah

it's a choice you're making Johan

make better choices so this was

completely the voice in my head I

remember another one of my friends when

I was at dinner and I was doing this I

was talking through everything I've been

learning and I was talking about you

know the r What You Got Away here I

thought was the risks of obesity which

are really disturbing when you learn

about them I was actually surprised we

all know obesity is not good for your

health but I was actually stunned when

you look at the evidence about how bad

obesity is view in relation to not just

diabetes but cancer dementia across the

board we can come back to that so I was

like well you got to weigh these risks

of obesity against the risks of these

drugs and I learned that there are 12

significant risks associated with these

drugs and he said what are you talking

about you haven't got to weigh those

risks at all there's a third option go

on a diet exercise right and he said

I've seen you do it you've done it

plenty of times right do that and of

course I had this voice in my head I

thought I was cheating um and I thought

well why don't I do why why am I not

doing that right um and I really began

to get an insight into this when I I

went to interview an amazing person

called Professor Tracy man who's in

Minneapolis where I met her um who's

done some of the most important research

on diet ever I remember actually I met

her I interviewed her in a place called

is bun which is um cinnamon bun shop

famous cinon bun shop in Minneapolis

when I arrived the guy on the door said

have you ever been here before and I

said no and he said I will give you a

free cinnamon bun then they gave me this

like 2,000 calorie massive cinnamon bun

that sat there the whole time we were

talking about diets and Professor man

she began to research this in the year

2000 and she wanted to figure out how

much do diets work right are they

effective and at that time the science

was very clear diets are really

effective if you go on a diet you will

lose weight right but she looking she's

looking at all these studies almost

24,000 studies and she noticed as part

of this big it's called a

metaanalysis and she discovered

something a bit weird which is most of

these studies the overwhelming majority

would follow people who were on a diet

for 3 months so you you exercise your

willpower you go on a diet for three

months you lose a load of weight and

then they just stopped and the

implication was you stay at that lower

rate forever she' be like I know quite a

lot of people who are not in that

position that doesn't happen to them so

she looked in more detail and discovered

there were 24 studies that had followed

diers not just over this short period

but for two years and in a handful of

cases five years and when you look at

the longer picture the picture is really

different after 2 years

the average person on a diet has lost 2

pounds in weight right so it's not

nothing but it's pretty close to nothing

right it's it's extraordinarily low so

what we know from the research on

dieting is there's a very small number

of people around 10% of people who

really do lose huge amounts of weight on

diets and keep it off we all know people

like that I've got someone in my family

like that right but for the vast

majority of people it doesn't work and I

remember saying to Professor man and

loads of other scientists who looked at

this well how can that be because we

know you only have to know the laws of

physics to know if you consume fewer

calories than you burn obviously you

will lose weight to dispute that you

have to dispute the laws of physics

right so how can it be that these people

are dieting but they're not losing

weight and BR man and other people

explained to me um something that's sort

of missing in this picture that I think

really helps us to understand it and is

actually important for understanding

these drugs I think so a lot of the

scientists explained that there are

biolog iCal changes that happen as you

gain weight which make it harder for you

to find your way back in a in a way that

you can sustain so in the 60s and 70s

there was this theory about weight that

was almost universally accepted it's

called set point Theory it sounds a bit

complex but it's pretty simple if you

think about your temperature your body

temperature right your body wants you to

be at the temperature you and me are at

right now right and if our temperature

goes higher than that if we get a fever

or if we go to the Sahara Desert our

body will work really hard involuntarily

to bring us down it'll make us sweat it

will make us really uncomfortable and

again if you're and also if your

temperature goes below the temperature

we're currently at your body will start

to shiver again it will make you really

crave heat right so your body has a set

level at which it keeps your temperature

and it works extremely hard to keep you

in that zone for your whole life and it

was thought for a long time that your

weight was a bit like that that when

you're born or possibly even in the womb

you have a biological set point for your

weight that That Remains the Same

throughout your life and you can go a

bit higher or a bit lower but basically

you're fixed there but then the Obesity

crisis happened starting in the late 70s

early 80s there's a huge weight rise in

such a large part of the population and

it looked like oh set point theory is

just wrong right that can't be correct

because if it was true then you couldn't

possibly have this but then Professor

low at Drexel and other places and other

people um discovered what what is really

happening in my view I think they

produced very compelling evidence for

this as you gain weight your body's set

point Rises right so let's say my body

wanted me to be 18% body fat as I get to

30% body fat my body will then fight

very hard to keep me at that higher

level right which seems really weird at

first why would that be so if you if you

let's say you gained three stone right

and then you tried to lose weight we

have think of a hypothetical Robert

dairo for the movie Raging Bull gained

you know three or four stone right and

then tried to cut back but what you'd

find was your metabolism would massively

slow down so it would you'd have to burn

far more to get the same number of

calories as you do now uh you would

crave far more sweet and salty foods you

would have lower energy so you would

find it harder to exercise so your set

point has risen and it's trying to keep

you there and I remember saying to loads

of scientists well that just seems

bizarre why would Evolution endow us

with that that's such a maladaptation

right why would why would um

why would it be and they explained to me

well you have to think about the

circumstances where we evolved in the

circumstances where humans evolved in

fact every human circumstance pretty

much until like 100 years ago there was

never a situation where you would have

completely abundant calories in fact

hyper abundant calories for your whole

life you'd have far more calories around

you than you could ever possibly eat

that never happened so your body didn't

Evolution didn't prepare us with good

instincts for that what you did have

what was a big risk was famine

right there was a big risk that at some

point in your life food would run out

and you would be in real trouble and in

a famine the fattest person at the start

is going to be the last man standing

right Timothy shalomay will die in week

one of a famine and you know John Candy

will still be alive at the end of it Al

not a great example because John Candy

has died but you get the point right um

so actually that's why our Evolution

prepared us that oh if you gain weight

fight to hold it cuz sooner or later

you're going to have to lose it in a

famine anyway so evolve with this

Instinct that when we gain weight we

experience these biological changes that

make it harder to go back it's not

impossible willpower is a real thing

some people can do it but when you try

you are fighting against your own

biology you're also fighting against

your psychology and your environment for

different reasons we can explore so it's

not that dieting doesn't work but we've

got to be honest at any given time 177%

of people are on a diet we've really

tried that route right we've had you

know 40 Years of relentless ly promoting

dieting as the o or diet and exercise as

the only solutions and we've gotten

fatter and fatter and fatter so there's

something missing in that picture I

think it's partly set point Theory it's

also important for the drugs because

some people argue like the guy I

mentioned before in relation to the

brain Professor orelio G some of them

argue that what the drug may be doing is

actually resetting your biological set

point lowering the kind of temperature

at which your body tries to keep your

weight it's bringing your set point down

so that you don't get those effects like

the metabolism slowing and all the other

things that kick in when you try to lose

weight I think on average and this might

not be accurate but I think on average

we live more stressful lives than we

once did as well and I wonder the

relationship that are more stressful

more frantic more busy notification

filled social media driven screen time

lives are having on our relationship

with food and if there's a relationship

there at all you know more more kids

have ADHD now than ever you know

cortisol level seems to be skyrocketing

and it seems there's a relationship

between stress and appetite which is as

a gravitational force against our

willpower no you're totally right and

this is when I go through the 12 risks

of the the drugs in the book this is one

that I really worried about one that

played out for me so I noticed I had

this weird thing about six months since

taking the drug I had this realization

so I was losing a lot of weight right I

lost a huge amount of weight I lost

three stone three stone in what period

of time from from now to when I started

so just over a year and how quick how

quick was that weight loss just out of

Interest before we move on PR pretty

straight linear line downwards from from

the start but I had this strange

sensation I had a a my friend Danielle

was pregnant at the time I kept bumping

into her and it was like we we were on

opposite trajectories like she was

swelling and I was shrinking um I

remember walking away from her once and

thinking this is really weird I'm

getting what I want why don't I feel

better about this right I I didn't

actually feel that much better for quite

a long time for about six months

thinking why is that so what you mean by

better I felt quite m

in my emotions I

felt I felt I wouldn't say I definitely

wasn't

depressed but I felt a little bit dulled

I thought this is strange I thought

maybe it's just other things going on in

my life you never know when it's just an

individual but lots of people are

reporting this most people are very

happy when they take drugs but there's a

significant minority and so I started

looking at exactly this question the

psychology of eating and it turns out

there's kind of five the scientific

evidence for five reasons why we eat

um and obviously the first and most

important one is sustenance right I

would have thought if you'd asked me a

year ago why do you eat I would said

well the main reason is to sustain my

body but here I am eating so much less

than my body is sustained so all those

other calories I was consuming were

doing something else right and one of

the things one of the reasons we eat and

another one is pleasure which we've

talked about but another reason why

people eat is Comfort right people get a

tremendous amount of comfort out of food

particularly overeating can be very

comforting we know this partly because

whenever there's a stressful event uh

junk food orders massively go up after

911 there was a huge increase in

ordering people ordering pizzas and

fried chicken the night Trump won the

election in blue States on Uber Eats and

the other kind of delivery apps there

was a massive increase in people

ordering tacos you know um shitty food

right um if you if you're you're a man

and you lose your job your chances of

gaining weight massively increase partly

because it's so upsetting and you eat to

comfort yourself um and one of the

things that happens when you take these

drugs

is your ability to comfort eat is taken

away from you you can't Comfort eat and

we've got a good analogy I think a good

precedent for helping us think about how

that affects you so the best comparison

for these drugs if we're trying to

figure out their effects I think is

bariatric surgery right so up to now it

was very hard to sustainably lose like

more than 20% of your body weight the

only way it was possible to do it very

quickly was bariatric surgery I think we

have to look at the outcomes that's

stomach stapling there's four different

kinds of it but it's basically what we

think of a stomach stapling stomach

operation exactly that's one form of it

right and so I think you have to look at

the evidence from gastric surgery and in

some ways it's very encouraging so we

know that gastric band surgery and other

forms of gastric surgery massively boost

your health if you have one of these

operations over the next seven years you

are 56% less likely to die of a heart

attack 60% less likely to die of cancer

and 92% % less likely to die of diabetes

related causes in fact it's so good for

your health that of you are 40% less

likely to die of any cause over the next

seven years right so we know reversing

obesity massively boosts physical health

in most cases right sometimes very

dramatically but we also know from

bariatric surgery there's plenty of

downsides to bariatric surgery it's a

horrendous operation and one in a

thousand people die during the operation

it's Grim but we also know where I think

it's really important to the thing

you're asking about is that it has an

effect on your psychology so a lot of

people are much happier most people who

have that surgery are glad but 177% of

people who have that surgery have to

have impatient psychiatric treatment

afterwards because they're so depressed

or distressed your chances of committing

suicide almost quadruple after you've

had bariatric surgery and I think

there's lots of reasons why some of it

must be the grimness of the operation in

the aftermath but I think a lot of it is

you know you take away Comfort eating

from people right if you go through life

especially people who had gastric band

surgery or the other surgeries you know

those are people who were very severely

obese so they would have had this effect

very powerfully in their lives most of

them if you take away something that is

a key way of soothing

people when that goes well you can

rebuild your life you can find other

ways to get that soothing and that's

really valuable and important but a lot

of people just experience it as

profoundly painful and distressing and I

inter a lot of people like that when

people have those surgeries I read in

your book in chapter eight that one in

10 people then pick up a different type

of addiction to alcohol or gambling or

shopping or drugs or something else so

that's pretty clear evidence that

there's the psychological soothing is

just moving somewhere else it's

fascinating and and and distressing and

OB I spoke to people who'd been through

those what called an addiction transfer

um I spoke to this amazing woman called

Robin Moore who uh had been

303 she'd had um bariatric surgery

because just nothing else had worked and

she felt she was really a slave to that

was how she put it and it had this

incredible effect she she knew why she

had gained her gained weight so much in

her case it was she when she was a child

she had been sexually abused she'd been

raped and she'd never told anyone and

she quite deliberately gained weight in

order to keep men away from her she

thought well if I'm if I'm really fat

I'm less likely to be

attacked um which is surprisingly common

and she lost all this weight and she

felt great she felt physically much

better people were treating her much

better but she had this shift where she

she'd never been much of a drinker she

had a periods when she was at College

where she drank a fair bit but you know

she'd never been a heavy drinker and she

just quite rapidly became a very

full-blown alcoholic she used to work

out by the airport in Toronto and she

would you know drink on the way there

drink on the way back and she got fired

because she was drunk at work

eventually and um for her she she kind

of realized you know and I think it's

interesting ways to think about this in

relation to these

drugs I want to stress this is not going

to be everyone I don't think there's

even going to be a majority of people by

any

means

but when you take these

drugs the underlying psychological

reasons that drove your eating are

profoundly disrupted and in many cases

come to the surface and for me that was

help painful at first but helpful I

remember having a day in Vegas as you

know SP lot of time in Vegas cuz writing

a book about a series of crimes that

have been happening there I had dayse

investigating something really grim and

I I felt really bad and it was relating

to someone it's a long story but

something terrible and I went to the KFC

on West Sahara it's the grimmest KFC in

the whole world I have a secret love for

it and I on kind of

autopilot I ordered what I would always

have ordered you know like a load of

fried

chicken and I sat there and I thinking

oh [ __ ] I can't eat this I remember

Colonel Sanders was on the wall looking

down and was like he was going to be

what happened to my best customer right

so being deprived of comfort eating is

is quite apart from the being deprived

of pleasure which I think is sort of

related but a bit different is is is

very difficult and again my friend who

I'd spoken to had cancer went to her and

said this is really hard right and she

said look it's not that the drug is

causing this problem the drug is making

this problem visible to you and now you

can deal with that in other ways right

and that's I've been trying to do and

write about how in the book but yeah so

one of the things that fascinated me

about all the research for for my book

magic pill

was how incredibly complex this is every

time you look at one effect it seems to

have another effect this is a really

complicated difficult topic and anyone

who's coming in telling you either rah

rah these drugs are great and they're

going to save us all or these drugs are

devils it's terrible um I don't think

it's leveling with people I think it's

complicated I think there's risks every

turn and I think we need to think

through the complexity together in a way

that's honest and and and honors the

complexity you talk there about the

impact that early childhood trauma has

on our relationship with food and eating

um I remember reading a little bit about

that in your previous book lost

connections as well but what is what

what is the sort of data in the stats

that that prove that trauma can cause us

to have this kind of excessive comt

seeking relationship with food is there

any particular studies that stand out

for you oh yeah I mean a guy that I got

to know quite well when I worked on Lost

connections and I thought about this

Research In a Different Light when I

worked on this book there's a guy called

doctor Vincent felitti and in the early

1980s he was a doctor in San Diego and

he was contacted by kaisa Permanente who

were a big not for-profit MediCal

provider in the

state and they said to him look we got a

problem we don't know what to

do obesity was massively Rising actually

it was very low by our standards but it

was hugely rising and they were trying

giving people diet plans and exercise

plans and nothing was working and they

said we don't know what to do can we

give you a load of money to just do blue

skies research go away figure out what

we can do and he said okay so he took a

load of money and then he's like what

can I do and he started working with 200

very very obese people people who were

severely obese who had tried all sorts

of ways to cut back and it hadn't worked

and he's sitting there working with them

and he's thinking what can I do and he

had an idea that sounds and actually is

quite stupid he said well what would

happen if really obese people literally

stopped eating and we medically

supervised it and we gave them vitamin

shots so they didn't get like scurvy or

whatever would they would they burn

through the fat stores in their body and

get back to a healthy weight so with a

shitload of medical supervision they did

it and Incredibly at first it worked

there was a woman who I'll call Susan

that's not her real name who went from

being more than 400 to 138 it was

incredible right and you know her family

are ringing the doctor and saying you

saved Susan's life she's really thrilled

and then one day something happened that

no one

expected she cracked she went to KFC or

wherever it was she starts obsessively

eating and after a while she's back

where she was not exactly where she'd

been but

similar and Dr feli called her in he

said

Susan what happened she looked down she

was obviously really ashamed she I don't

know I don't know he said well tell me

about that day right the day you cracked

did anything happened that day that

didn't happen any other day it turns out

something happened that day that had

never happened to season before um she

was in a bar and a man hit on her not in

a nasty way in quite a nice way but she

just felt completely freaked out and she

went and started eating and that's when

Dr feli said to her well Susan when did

you start gaining weight in her case I

think it was when she was 10 he said

well did anything happen when you were

10 that didn't happened when you were 9

or 11 or anything happened that year she

looked down and said well that's that's

when my grandfather started raping

me Dr Fel interviewed everyone in the

program he discovered that 60% of them

had made their extreme weight gain in

the aftermath of being sexually abused

or assaulted which is a staggering

figure right 60% of the women um and it

was like well how could this be he was

really puzzled and Susan explained it to

him really well she said overweight is

overlooked and that's what I need to be

right if you're severely overweight

you're much less likely to to be

sexually attacked right it's obviously

can happen but it's it's rarer um and

when you understand that you begin to

see again in relation to these drugs

um why some people get really freaked

out when they take these drugs because

some of them experience it as suddenly

oh my God I'm really vulnerable to this

traumatic event being reenacted again

and again now that's one example there's

lots of if we go down the the list of

reasons why people eat like I do in the

book there's lots of other ones that get

triggered and activated as and disrupted

as well you talk in the book about this

this word I've never really come across

before which is um it's a phrase I guess

you say the environment is

oogenic I I've only ever heard of that

term cogenic carcinogenic carcinogenic

yeah which basically means something can

give you cancer but you're saying that

the environment we live in is I mean the

way that I read it was like that that

it's almost contagious like it's going

to give me obesity just by being alive

in the modern world um one of the stats

that really stood out to me when you're

talking about processed food is that on

average when we eat processed food we we

end up eating 500 more calories every

single day and um that again is

startling you know I've had a few guests

on this podcast that I've talked about

processed food and the rise of it and I

do Wonder to myself if there's ever

going to be a change in society if we if

there's any indication that at some

point I don't know government will step

in and ban it or tax it more or

something will happen what's your what's

your view on if we talk about the

optimism of the penic environment

changing do you think it can change do

you think it will so crucially I went to

a country that had completely

transformed its diet and as a result has

very low obesity Japan we can talk about

that and I went to loads of countries

that are making the changes you're

talking about so prompt me to come back

to that but I would start by saying well

a you're totally right we live in an

obesogenic environment an obesogenic

environment is an environment that

primes you to be obese and where it's

hard to be a healthy weight right it's

hard to get healthy food healthy food is

expensive and rare whereas shitty food

that makes you obese is cheap abundant

and constantly promoted to you right so

that's an obesogenic environment and

there's loads of evidence that well as

Professor Michael L put it to me we live

in as obesogenic an environment as human

beings could possibly design right um

and there's seven ways in which

processed food undermines your ability

to stop eating that I go through in the

book so if you're feeling pessimistic

and I'm

clearly you're right to feel pessimistic

someone is charismatic and bril as

Michelle Obama could not even get us to

join a campaign to physically move so I

get it there's big obstacles here but

when you feel pessimistic about it the

first thing I would say is think about

smoking right my mother smokes 70

cigarettes a day there's a photograph of

me and her where I'm

um she's breastfeeding me I'm about six

months old she's smoking and resting the

ashtray on my stomach and when I showed

her this photo I thought she'd feel

guilty she said you were a [ __ ]

difficult baby I needed that cigarette

um but you think about that that was

normal right when I mean in Scotland

that was normal when I was a kid right

um so you think about smoking when I was

seven years old um more than half of the

population of Britain smoked right and

people smoked everywhere people smoked

on the tube people smoked on planes

people smoked on game shows the doctor

would smoke while he was examining you

I'm not joking I remember that happening

right so if I could take you back to the

Britain of 1987 and you could walk

around you would just you would feel

sick because the smell of smoke was

everywhere right and there were just

ashtrays everywhere funny enough I was

with my mother when it was the

anniversary of there was a terrible

catastrophic fire at King's cross

station here in London in 1987 I think

and I was with my mother when it was the

anniversary a few years ago and uh it

was a terrible disaster there was a fire

someone had put out a cigarette near an

escalator and it killed more than 50

people it was awful uh and my mother

said oh that was the worst day of my

life and I said oh were you there did

you know someone who died she said no

that's the day they banned smoking on

the

tube anyway the so if I could take you

back and I said to you right how many

years we are on from that now um only

12% of British people will be will smoke

it will be falling and the British

government will be about to

progressively ban smoking you won't be

allowed to smoke indoors anywhere except

your own home the rates will have tanked

young people will there'll be almost no

cigarette smoking among young people and

they're going to progressively ban it by

age that would have seemed ludicrous

right you would have said well tobacco

industry is one of the most powerful

Industries in the whole world uh you've

got a very motivated half the population

are addicted it's never going to happen

these things can change that's a huge

Public Health uh transformation in a

very short period of time these things

can change and I've seen how it can

change with food so that we're not in

this situation where we have to choose

as we are at the moment between for many

of us not all between the risk of

obesity and the 12 big risks associated

with these drugs what are they waiting

for because the government knows this

the government knows that processed

foods and you know the sugar quantities

that the average person's eating is bad

so they could presumably get something

done this year so but they won't there's

a brilliant writer called Rebecca solnet

who says politicians are weather veins

and it's our job to be the weather if

you're a politician you're constantly

making a calculation right if I do this

thing how much praise will I get and how

much [ __ ] will I get for it right and

you know some of them are good people

many of them are good people but you're

constantly making that calculation in a

democracy and right now if you do the

right thing on food and there are loads

of things we do I saw in Japan we can go

down the list of all the things we need

to do um that could transform Health

particularly for our children you'd get

some praise but you get a lot of [ __ ]

right you get a lot of [ __ ] for it and

for many years of my life I would have

been one of the people who gave them

that [ __ ] right so I I understand it

we have to change that calculation by

helping people understand and make

better choices in ways that I saw happen

so I can explain how they did it if you

want please Japan is really important I

think for thinking about how we get out

of this trap because at the moment um

the way it's often presented is look

we're just screwed right there's just

this huge obese population that's the

product of being rich if you're a rich

country you've got lots of calories

around you inevitably we're going to

have loads of obesity and inevitably

we're just going to need to give loads

and loads of people these drugs forever

and you know a few years from now as

many people predicted to me we'll have

40% 50% of the population taking these

weight loss drugs right and what Japan

showed us is we don't have to choose

that fate right so if you look at Japan

Japan is the only country that got rich

without getting fat 4.5% of Japanese

people are obese compared to 26% in

Britain and

42.5% in United States and it's actually

42% 42% 4.5% are obese 70% are obese are

overweight right Jesus the norm is to be

obese or overweight right whereas in

Japan it's completely the opposite it's

kind of weird that when we picture Japan

we often picture sumo wrestlers it's a

bit like expecting the average American

to look like a bald eagle or something

right seers are completely atypical and

I learned a huge amount about what's

happening there so the first thing you

think when you hear that is it must just

be genetic right theyve just they've won

the genetic Lottery that must be what's

going on on but we know that's not true

because in the late 19th century loads

of Japanese people went to live in

Hawaii where I just was um and there's

now this settled Japanese population in

Hawaii who've been there for four or

five generations and they're almost as

fat as other Hawaiians right so they're

five times fatter than they're five

times more likely to be obese than

Japanese people in Japan so actually

when the environment changes Japanese

people become obese like everyone else

so there's something else going on so I

wanted to understand how did Japan do it

and one of the really interesting things

is it was very consciously done there's

a guy called Professor Barack kushna

who's a professor of East Asian history

in um in Cambridge University who's

talked about how actually if you go back

to the 1920s Japanese people had one of

the worst diets in the world they only

ate protein once a week they almost

never ate fish right they only ate fish

once a week they had a terrible diet and

the Japanese government at the time

wanted a healthy population so they

could form armies that would go and

invade the rest of Asia

so they deliberately transformed the

food culture in Japan very consciously

so I want to see how do they do that now

right what's going on so I went to a

school called COI school um which takes

kids from 5 to 18 and it was totally

fascinating so when I arrived there I

went with my

translator uh the first you arrive and

all the kids walk to school on their own

from the age of five all Japanese

children just leave the house and walk

to school on their own so they get a lot

of exercise in the morning and they walk

home on their own as well and we were

greeted at the entrance by a woman

called harumi tati who's the

nutritionist at the school by law every

Japanese school has to employ a

professional nutritionist it's a

difficult qualification to get it's

three years of study on top of learning

to be a teacher and your job is to

design and oversee the creation of the

food in the school all processed food is

banned no one is allowed to have Pro

there's no processed food in any

Japanese schools ever every meal has to

be prepared from scratch at the start of

the day um and no one is allowed to

bring it a pack lunch so every kid has

to eat the food that's prepared in the

school uh her job is also to use those

meals to educate the children about how

to eat healthily so they teach them all

sorts of key principles one of them is

in Japan this is a very deep cultural

norm you should only eat until you're

80% full so it it takes a while for your

body to realize you're full so if you

get the signal that you're full while

you're still eating they're like you've

eaten too much right so you should eat

until you're 80% full and then stop

um there's all sorts of norms that are

very different to ours so if you look at

a typical Japanese meal it will have

five portions significantly more than

USS but they're pretty small right so

you might have some fish some Mis miso

soup a whole range of things um and you

which is important for your gut health

because there's a bigger variety of

ingredients which makes your gut much

healthier but also you eat it

differently if you gave us you know a

meal with three bits generally you'd eat

all of one then all of another then all

of another you'd have all the lasagna

then you have the carrots or whatever in

Japan that's regarded as like a crazy

way to eat you have a mouthful of the

Miso soup then you have a mouth full of

the white fish then you have a mouth

full of the sashimi and you you have it

slows your eating

down massively if you eat that way um

they're also taught I remember her

standing there so the the meals in all

the schools are designed to be

nutritionally balanced through these

five components and so she stands in

front of the class and teaches the kid

kids you know okay this is a red rope

this represents calcium what does

calcium do kids it makes your bone

stronger like yes that's this on your

plate this represents carbohydrates what

do they do they give you energy and the

kids yell out so then and then she ties

the rope together she goes you see now

it's all tied together now it's a

balanced meal so they use this healthy

food to educate the children about how

to eat healthily it's a very um

beautifully designed system and it was

fascinating looking at them I mean got

tast stepen it was really weird this is

a school of a thousand children I walked

through that school all day there was

not one fat child it it it was it's odd

like it's jarring when you go right that

they have you know they have

extraordinarily low childhood

obesity and I remember with these kids I

was asking them their favorite foods the

first kid I asked said my favorite food

is broccoli it's like all right the

second kid said my favorite food is

seaweed and the third one's like I like

white rice and I said to CH my

translator are these kids trolling me

right like what their favorite foods are

broccoli and like white rice and she

just looked kind of puzzled and every

Japanese person I asked

said but we teach our children to like

healthy food don't your children like

healthy food and I was so taken about by

these kids I I brought up on my phone

some pictures of like typical British

school dinners and showed it to them and

they literally reacted like I had shown

them an Isis beheading video they like

screamed they were like

what is this and one said did you eat

this every day I was like yes they're

saying where's the salad I said there is

no salad they're just completely baffled

so they partly start with

this very strong culture creating a very

deliberate culture of how to eat

differently that begins at a very very

young age there are some other steps

that are a bit more dodgy that we can

come to I'm sure but that that was the

kind of um first um that was the first

pillar of it that I saw and then over

here we're in we're in this sort of

craze of injecting ourselves with this

thing called a zek can I see the pen

actually I've never actually seen one

before I won't open it or anything sure

course I W contaminate it Z I've just

been so intrigued to see what these

things are

like once

weekly Nova nordis Nova Nordisk now the

most valuable company in the whole of

Europe what what are they give me some

context on Nova Nordisk they're a Danish

pharmaceutical company so there's two

companies that are kind of pushing the

main drugs in this pushing sounds too

there you know what I mean so Novo

Nordisk who a Danish company the entire

Danish economy has had a massive growth

because of the popularity of these drugs

since they came out they've become the

most valuable company in Europe um the

market for these drugs is predicted to

be $200 billion do by the end of this

decade and the other one is Eli

Lily and if I how do I get this do I

have to go to a doctor and get a

prescription or can I just go buy this

on online or something so this is part

of the problem and this leads to one of

the really big risks associated with the

drugs which is eating disorders I am

really really worried about this so

there are lots of young girls in

particular some boys but it's mostly

girls who want to starve themselves

right we know that it hugely Rose during

the pandemic and this is the most

effective tool for self- starvation

human beings have ever come up with so I

interviewed a lot of Eating Disorders

experts who are terrified about what's

coming down the line and the truth is it

is very easy to get hold of it I went

you know you could go online now you

clearly do not meet the criteria for

getting these drugs right you've got to

have a BMI of higher than 27 which is a

BMI that comes from fat Mass not muscle

mass so you would not meet the criteria

at all if you went online you could go

and see a doctor on Zoom lie about your

BMI and you would get it in the mail two

days later right um they're meant to

check your BMI but on Zoom that's very

hard to do if in the unlikely event you

were turned down by a doctor on Zoom you

can just order effectively counterfeit

ones online very very easily so I'm EXT

extremely wide I think we're going to

have a there are many downsides to these

drugs possibly the worst from my point

of view one of the two or three worst is

you're going to have a huge wave of

young women who get hold of these drugs

and and do a lot of harm to themselves

now that is something we can immediately

do to massively limit that harm uh lots

of the Eating Disorders experts I

interviewed like Dr Kimberly Dennis

who's one of the leading experts in the

US said to me these drugs should only be

given by prescription if you go to a

physical doctor and the doctor you

physically go to to get them needs to be

trained in detecting eating disorders

and referring people for help with

eating disorders if that's what they

think they've got so these were

initially created for people that had

diabetes they have a dual effect so glp1

the hormone gp1 and this kind of replica

of it uh stimulates the creation of

insulin which is obviously what

diabetics are lacking either type one or

type two diab ICS so it was the whole

thing was discovered by accident I

interviewed the guy who discovered it a

guy called Daniel draer amazing man so

they discovered he was just looking at

um so your whole body is made out of

cells right and in the 70s it was

discovered there were new ways of

looking inside cells that human beings

had never had before so by the 80s 1984

was when he made a breakthrough they

were just going through different cells

in the human body trying to figure out

what they do and they got to the

glucagon Gene which exists inside your

your pancreas and they were trying to

figure out the glucon gene is a long

chain and at the end of it is gp1 and

they were trying to figure out well can