Metabolism & Weight Controlled In The Gut - Better Than Drugs

[Curt]

Unlocking Your Body’s Natural Weight Loss System That Works Like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro

By CHRISTOPHER DAMMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FEBRUARY 21, 2024
https://scitechdaily.com/unlocking-your-bodys-natural-weight-loss-system-that-works-like-wegovy-ozempic-and-mounjaro/

Incretin hormones, produced in our gut, play a pivotal role in managing metabolism and weight, akin to the function of drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro. This natural weight loss system, activated by our dietary choices and the health of our gut microbiome, offers a built-in method for obesity and diabetes control. By focusing on nurturing our gut health through proper nutrition, we can unlock this natural mechanism, offering a sustainable approach to weight management that parallels the benefits of these modern medications.
egovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro are weight loss and diabetes drugs that have made quite a splash in health news. They target regulatory pathways involved in both obesity and diabetes and are widely considered breakthroughs for weight loss and blood sugar control.

But do these drugs point toward a root cause of metabolic disease? What inspired their development in the first place?

It turns out your body produces natural versions of these drugs – also known as incretin hormones – in your gut. It may not be surprising that nutrients in food help regulate these hormones. But it may intrigue you to know that the trillions of microbes in your gut are key for orchestrating this process.

I am a gastroenterologist at the University of Washington who studies how food and your gut microbiome affect health and disease. Here’s an inside-out perspective on the role natural gut hormones and healthy food play in metabolism and weight loss.

A Broken Gut
Specialized bacteria in your lower gut take the components of food you can’t digest like fiber and polyphenols – the elements of plants that are removed in many processed foods – and transforms them into molecules that stimulate hormones to control your appetite and metabolism. These include GLP-1, a natural version of Wegovy and Ozempic.

GLP-1 and other hormones like PYY help regulate blood sugar through the pancreas. They also tell your brain that you’ve had enough to eat and your stomach and intestines to slow the movement of food along the digestive tract to allow for digestion. This system even has a name: the colonic brake.

GLP-1 Body Functions
GLP-1 serves many functions in the body. Credit: Lthoms11/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Prior to modern processed foods, metabolic regulatory pathways were under the direction of a diverse healthy gut microbiome that used these hormones to naturally regulate your metabolism and appetite. However, food processing, aimed at improving shelf stability and enhancing taste, removes the bioactive molecules like fiber and polyphenols that help regulate this system.

Removal of these key food components and the resulting decrease in gut microbiome diversity may be an important factor contributing to the rise in obesity and diabetes.

All Roads Lead to Lifestyle
Despite our greatest aspirations for quick fixes, it’s very possible that a healthy lifestyle remains the most important way to manage metabolic disease and overall health. This includes regular exercise, stress management, sleep, getting outdoors, and a balanced diet.

For the majority of the population who don’t yet have obesity or diabetes, restarting the gut’s built-in appetite and metabolism control by reintroducing whole foods and awaking the gut microbiome may be the best approach to promote healthy metabolism.

Adding minimally processed foods back to your diet, and specifically, those replete in fiber and polyphenols like flavonoids and carotenoids, can play an important and complementary role in helping address the epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease at one of its deepest roots.