Transcription
So, science is always discovering these really cool little things that we can do to naturally increase our GLP-1. And what I want you to take away from this episode today is that if you are on one of these medications, really look into your protein intake, lift weights, make sure you're not losing too much muscle mass. And then for everybody else, learn all of these hacks that are going to be helping us keep our satiety levels higher, so we can feel better, have fewer cravings.
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Hello angels, and welcome to the Glucose Goddess Show. I'm so happy that you're here. My name is Jesse Chespe; I'm a biochemist, and I'm obsessed with making science fun and easy to understand for all of us. So today we're going to talk about a very hot topic: GLP-1 drugs. You may have heard of them; they have become very popular. About one in every eight people in the US have tried one of these, from people with diabetes to celebrities. Originally, they were used as type two diabetes medications, and now they're used mostly as weight loss drugs, actually. So I wanted to talk about them because, actually, when I dove into the science, I found out some really fascinating things that these drugs have to teach us. And those fascinating things have to do with satiety: how eating in different ways can make us feel differently, how they're connected to glucose, and basically, we have a lot of cool stuff to learn from them. So I'm excited to deep dive into this topic today.
Think about the last time you had a really big meal, and then your Aunt Sophie says, "Hey Jesse, have another slice of pumpkin pie." And you're like, "No, Aunt Sophie, I literally cannot eat anything else anymore; I'm so full." You know the feeling? That is the feeling of satiety, and it's a really important feeling because it tells us that we've eaten enough. It's a very natural feeling. Now, these drugs, these GLP-1 drugs, they target specifically that feeling of satiety, and they increase it in our bodies. So let's deep dive scientifically into what's actually going on in your body to make you feel this feeling of satiety. Let me go over to my computer to show you guys something.
So we have these little cells in our body called L cells—the complicated name for them is enteroendocrine L cells. They're just lining your gut, your stomach, and your intestine, and they're just hanging out there, just kind of floating around; not much is happening. But they sense when you've eaten food. These cells in your digestive tract sense when food has come down from your mouth into your intestines and into your gut. And then what happens? Well, these little cells, in response to you eating food, they produce a molecule called GLP-1, which is what we're talking about today. And so whatever you eat—maybe some pasta, maybe a chicken salad, maybe I don't know, noodles, and maybe it's an applesauce—whatever you eat, these cells feel it; they feel the food, and they release this GLP-1. So we say GLP-1; the real fancy scientific name of this molecule is glucagon-like peptide one, but we just call it GLP-1 because who wants to say that? Okay. And here's the deal: GLP-1 is responsible for reducing your appetite. GLP-1 is going to tell different systems, different parts of your body, that you've eaten enough, that you don't need to eat another slice of pecan pie, or another big bowl of chocolate mousse, or another pot of chocolate ice cream. But I digress. Basically, GLP-1 is here to tell you that you can stop eating, and this is very important.
Of course, time for a quick break to tell you about the supplement I have developed: Anti-Spike Formula. Now listen, in my years of research, I've understood one key thing: keeping our glucose levels steady is the foundation of physical and mental health, no question. And if I could only take one supplement for the rest of my life to help me reduce my glucose spikes and keep my glucose levels steady, it would be Anti-Spike Formula. I created Anti-Spike with two really powerful natural plant molecules in it. The first one is mulberry leaf extract. And listen to this: in a review study of 12 randomized clinical trials on over 600 people, scientists found that mulberry leaf extract significantly reduces our glucose spikes after a meal by up to 40%. It also significantly reduces our insulin spike after a meal by up to 40%, and it reduces our fasting glucose levels by 8 milligrams per deciliter after just two months. So this molecule from mulberry leaf reduces the absorption of glucose in our bloodstream; it actually slows down how quickly starches turn to glucose in our bloodstream, therefore creating a massive reduction in the glucose spike of our meal. The second main molecule in Anti-Spike Formula is a molecule from lemon called diosmetin. It's the molecule that makes lemons yellow, but also has a really cool effect on our gut; it basically helps our guts produce more GLP-1. Clinical trials show us that GLP-1 production increases by 17% after just two months of taking it. More GLP-1 means healthier glucose levels. I take two capsules of Anti-Spike Formula every single day before the meal of my day highest in carbs and sugars. So go to antispike.com to see all the science behind these ingredients, to see testimonials from thousands of people who've tried it, and to order your own Anti-Spike Formula bottle and try it for yourself.
And so it does this in a few ways. GLP-1 slows down how quickly food is moving from your stomach into your intestine, and it also distends your stomach—means it increases your stomach size—and this makes you feel full. Another thing that GLP-1 does is it signals to your hypothalamus—it's a little gland just above the roof of your mouth, and it's connected to your brain. GLP-1 tells your hypothalamus that you've eaten enough, and boom, your brain is now getting the message that there's a bunch of food down there and that it doesn't need to tell you to eat anymore.
Now, what's really interesting and got me really fired up about this science is that it's not just about how much you eat; it's not just about eating more and one increases more; the way that you eat is going to produce more or less GLP-1. More on that later; I'll get to those hacks. If you can't wait and you want to download the hacks right now, they're in the description of this video: hacks to increase GLP-1 naturally. So normally at rest, you always have a little bit of GLP-1 circulating in your body, and after you eat, this amount of GLP-1 doubles or triples. And scientists have done a lot of research to try to see how quickly after a meal does the peak of your GLP-1 happen, and they say it's about 45 minutes to 60 minutes after eating that the amount of GLP-1 in your body is going to have increased, and then it's going to come back down, and at that point you may start to feel a bit hungrier again. So it's a cycle; it's really just a curve: you eat, GLP-1 increases, and then over time it comes back down. This is normal; this is a natural part of our human biology. These new drugs didn't invent GLP-1; GLP-1 has always been around and has always been part of a well-functioning body and brain.
So another important thing that GLP-1 does is it helps your body deal with carbs. And as you know, maybe you've seen it from my other videos, carbs are things like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, or anything sweet, from a banana to a cake. So GLP-1 also tells your body, "Hey body, there's carbs in here; we need to manage them." And in order to manage those carbs, GLP-1 helps your body secrete insulin—very important hormone that takes all of the excess carbs that you've just eaten and puts them away into different storage units in your body—again, part of a normal functioning metabolism; good stuff, we love it.
So this is where it gets really interesting. Scientists at pharma companies were like, "Hey, GLP-1 is a very interesting molecule that does some very interesting stuff. What would happen if we gave somebody a huge amount of GLP-1 artificially, either through an injection or through a pill that you take? What would happen?" They thought, and so they tested this. And the first impact they saw is that these medications actually helped people with type two diabetes reduce their glucose levels because, as I just explained, GLP-1 helps your body put away a bunch of extra glucose that you have floating around. And that was the primary use, but a sort of side effect that scientists discovered about these medications is the complete and utter obliteration of hunger. So essentially, when you give your body artificially a very high dose of GLP-1, you're simply not hungry anymore because GLP-1 cuts appetite completely. So you're constantly in a state of your body thinking that you just had a massive meal, and so you're not hungry. And this is what has made these drugs really popular recently is that people are turning for them as a way to suppress completely their hunger.
Now, there's a question that I haven't been able to answer in my research. I was wondering, okay, by how much exactly do these drugs increase GLP-1, and specifically how much more do they activate the GLP-1 receptors? Basically, the drugs have a few different ways of working; some are GLP-1 agonists, some are GLP-1 analogues, but I really couldn't find uh the answer online and in studies. So if anybody knows by how much precisely these drugs increase the GLP-1-like activity in the body, I'd be super interested. For example, in humans, our fasting normal concentration of total GLP-1 is typically in the range of 5 to 10 picomole per liter and can increase up to 40 picomole per liter in response to a meal. So with these drugs, those numbers are much, much higher, but again, haven't been able to find the exact number. So if anybody knows, please comment because I actually really want to know. It's weird that I couldn't find it.
Anyway, so we're in a situation where these drugs are quite necessary in a way because of the toxic food landscape that we live in. People are now taking drugs to completely zap their appetite so that they don't get tempted to eat the food around them because that food is making them sick. I just find this to be quite a crazy situation that we've ended up in. Imagine if the water in our taps was so toxic that pharma companies had to create a drug to make us not thirsty so that we wouldn't drink the toxic water. That's kind of what's happening with these medications: the food is making us sick, is giving us type two diabetes, so people are taking these drugs to just not eat that toxic food. But I think we sort of lose sight a little bit of how we got here in the first place, which is the food that we eat today is not healthy food. Most of us are consuming ultra-processed foods with so many refined carbohydrates and sugars, and those are making us sick. So there is an appeal of these drugs for people with type two diabetes in particular because there's this sort of belief that type two diabetes is a condition that cannot be reversed, that you need medication to help you. That's not true. If you're able and if you have the capacity and the budget to be able to change what you're eating, you can reverse type two diabetes with food, and that's what my hacks teach—link in the description of this episode if you want those hacks that can help you put your type two diabetes into remission with simple food changes.
Okay, so let's discuss the side effects of these medications. Are there side effects? Yes, and I want to make sure that people know about this main one, which is really key. So people are taking these drugs now for weight loss; okay, they don't have diabetes; they just want to lose weight. The thing is, these medications don't just make you lose fat; they cut your hunger, okay, and you lose tissue from everywhere in your body, not just fat mass, but also importantly muscle mass. And by the way, this will happen with any diet that you're on if you drastically reduce how much you're eating, but it's important to understand that you're not just losing fat, okay? The studies say that up to 30% of the weight lost actually comes from your muscle. And you might feel like, "Oh, well, I don't care." Well, you should care because once you stop taking these medications, if you gain the weight back, which is happening in a lot of cases—in most cases, actually—what does it say here in the study? It says one year after withdrawal of one of these drugs, participants regained two-thirds of their prior weight loss, and this is one of from one of the manufacturers of these medications. So people, on average, regain 2/3 of the weight that they've lost, but—and here's the key—the weight that you gain back is pure fat. So you might end up in a situation where you've lost a lot of weight, you've lost fat and muscle, and then you just regain fat. So you end up in a situation where you just lost a bunch of muscle, and now you have all this fat mass, which is not very healthy. We need muscle for longevity; we need muscle to stay healthy, to help our metabolism, to ward off diseases. Having muscle mass is really, really, really important. So that's something you absolutely have to know about these medications. So if you, or if someone you know, is on one of these drugs, it's super key to maintain your muscle mass as you're on them. Okay? So lift weights—yes, females also, we should all lift weights—lift weights three times a week, heavy weights, and most importantly, eat enough protein. We are all completely under-protein'd; we need to be eating about one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. That is a lot more protein than you think. Basically, if you're 150 pounds, you should be eating 150 grams of protein a day, and one egg is not even eight grams of protein. So you need to be eating the equivalent of like 20 eggs a day, okay, just to be able to maintain your muscle mass and build some. If you want more info on protein, in the description of this episode, I have a really handy PDF you can download to measure, calculate how much protein you should be having every single day, and then a little handy table of different common foods and how much protein they have in them. So I highly, highly recommend, whether or not you're on one of these medications, by the way, to look at this because it's so, so key to feel amazing and age in good health.
You guys know I've been doing my glucose hacks religiously; they are the foundation of my dietary habits, but adding the molecules in Anti-Spike has really allowed me to get to the next level in a few areas: one, bloating—I didn't even know that I would get bloated without Anti-Spike; I'm like, "Oh, I used to get bloated; I feel so much better now." Two, energy levels—super consistent, eagle energy all day. And three, cravings for sugar—I love sugar; I want to eat chocolate all the time—and Anti-Spike has given me a feeling of having a total superpower when it comes to my sugar cravings; I don't feel controlled by them anymore at all. It's truly amazing, and I know that these natural molecules are going to help my long-term fasting glucose and fasting insulin levels, which is so key to physical and mental health and to healthy aging. So go to antispike.com to see all the science behind these ingredients, to see testimonials from thousands of people who've tried it, and to order your own Anti-Spike Formula bottle and try it for yourself.
Okay, okay. So we talked about the medications, but I said at the beginning that one of the reasons I was so interested in this topic is because natural ways to increase our GLP-1 are actually super interesting. Like, who doesn't want to naturally feel fuller for longer? Who doesn't want to naturally have healthier glucose levels? And that is what we're going to get into right now. The first thing to do if you want to naturally increase your GLP-1 is to eat your food in the right order. So this is a key hack that I've shared to manage your glucose levels, um, and it turns out the scientific studies show us it also helps your body increase GLP-1 production by up to 38%. You can increase GLP-1 that is produced by your little L cells by up to 38% simply by eating your food in the right order. So let me explain exactly what's going on with this hack. So in your stomach, if during a meal you eat your food in the wrong order—meaning you eat all of your carbs first, so that's your bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugars—well, then all of the glucose molecules in those carbs are going to arrive into your bloodstream very, very quickly, causing a big glucose spike and also a smaller release of GLP-1. Now, if you eat your food in the right order, which is veggies first—very key—then proteins and fats—when it's easy, by the way; you don't have to freak out about this—and then last during the meal your carbs, so your starches like your pasta, your rice, and then your sugars, the glucose molecules in those carbs are going to arrive into your bloodstream much more slowly because they're being slowed down by the other foods that are already there, and also by eating your fiber first and your protein next, you're also going to increase the GLP-1 production by your little L cells by up to 38%. So it's really cool to me to see that a hack that I've been using for so many years to help balance our glucose levels also keeps us feeling full by this GLP-1 process that we now understand. So as you can see on this graph from one of the studies, the scientists have measured the amount of GLP-1 in a person's body whether they're eating their carbs first, which is the bottom line, or whether they're eating their carbs last, but overall, same exact amount of carbs, same volume, same meal, same food, same ingredients; the only thing that changes is the order in which the person is eating. And as you can see, when a person eats their carbs first, the amount of GLP-1 is smaller, and when a person eats their carbs last, the amount of GLP-1 is higher. So this is just another public service announcement that eating your food in the right order, when it's easy, is a really helpful way to not only manage your glucose levels but also reduce your feeling of constant hunger. And now we understand that also because of having more GLP-1 by eating your food in the right order, well, this GLP-1 is also going to help your body put away those excess glucose molecules more quickly into storage units, therefore reducing the glucose spikes. So it's just like a very happy family, very happy situation. So when you can, when it's easy, and again, don't stress out about this; I just think this is one of the main problems I see with this hack is that people think they should be, you know, separating out their sandwich and having the salad first and the sandwich and then the carbs last. When it's easy, eat your food in the right order, but if you're having a mixed dish, don't even worry about it. And another thing you can do when this hack feels complicated is simply keep the principle in mind of having veggies first. So add a little plate of veggies to the beginning of your meal—super easy—and then eat whatever you're going to eat.
Okay. Another hack: chewing. Who knew? Yes. So when you chew your food instead of drinking your food or instead of just swallowing it whole when you're super hungry, if you spend some time chewing your food, you're going to be releasing more GLP-1. So that's a good one. So chew your food, kids; chew your foods. Okay. Now, in the supplement world, is there any cool supplements that we can take to increase our GLP-1 naturally? The best thing to take is actually this really special, weird molecule that comes from lemons. Who knew? Lemons. So lemons, as you all know, are yellow, duh. And what gives lemons—what gives lemons—what gives lemons that's a weird sentence—what gives lemons their yellow color is this tiny little molecule called diosmetin. And this is actually a really powerful antioxidant, which it turns out, if you give your body enough of it, will increase the amount of naturally produced GLP-1 by your little cells by up to 17% after three months. So I take this every single day; the best, highest quality of it is in my Anti-Spike supplements. So click the link in the description if you want to add this really special lemon molecule.
So another hack has to do with what exactly we eat. And for a long time, scientists believed that if we ate carbs that would increase our GLP-1 levels the most, but now it turns out science is kind of—the jury is still out; we don't really know. What we do know is if you add protein to a meal that is mixed—so you know, if it has like fats and carbs and fibers—if you add protein to that meal, it is going to be increasing your GLP-1 production. And specifically, there's a specific amino acid in some sources of protein that actually seems to increase GLP-1 the most, and this is based on a study done in rats. So the amino acid is phenylalanine, and top foods that contain this: beef, chicken breast, pork chops, tofu, tuna, pinto beans, milk, squash, and pumpkin seeds, pasta, and sweet potatoes.
And finally, the final hack I wanted to share with you today is there is this drink, um, that is very common in South America called Yerba Mate, from Argentina. It's this high-caffeine drink made with fermented tea leaves; this increases your GLP-1 as well. So science is always discovering these really cool little things that we can do to naturally increase our GLP-1. And what I want you to take away from this episode today is that if you are on one of these medications, really look into your protein intake, lift weights, make sure you're not losing too much muscle mass. And then for everybody else, learn all of these hacks that are going to be helping us keep our satiety levels higher, so we can feel better, have fewer cravings. So have a look at the description of this episode for a PDF with all of these natural hacks to increase your GLP-1 levels. And I've learned so much about this cool little molecule, and I hope uh that you feel like you know a bit more about it too today. Thank you so much; I will see you next time. See you in the next episode.
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