32: GLP-1 Medications: Navigating Weight Loss, Metabolic Health, and Beyond
9 May 2025 · 7 min
Dr. Aaron Hartman explains how GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy work beyond weight loss, including cardiovascular and kidney benefits. He warns against dosing too fast to avoid muscle loss, describes side effects like nausea and anxiety, and compares them to bariatric surgery.
Chapters
If you lose the weight too quickly, you can actually use muscle mass. And that's one of the things that happens with GLP1s as well is people will lose muscle mass. And so you need to combat that with head training, some kind of muscle training, muscle mass building. GLP1s are all the rage. Ozempic, Wengobi, Vieta, Victoza, whatever the thing you're taking for weight loss, these are all the craze, they're miraculous for weight loss, miraculous for a whole bunch of things. Or they can kill you, but can give you intestinal obstruction or parathyroid. So what is the skinny? What's the real truth about GLP1 S? Ozempic, WeGovy by these medications and why does that important to you? So first question you might ask is like where am I coming from with this? I'm a medical doctor. I first started using Viator was actually the first GLP on the market. I remember using it was twice a week back in 2006, 2007. I've been using these medications ever since then. My clinical research company, VA Research center also did clinical research with these for weight loss as well as for cardiopath or risk reduction. And just this past month in the medical letter they came out, I'm now FDA approved to use GLP1s to actually help patients with kidney issues. So pharmacologically the GLP1s are used for preventing heart disease, treating diabetes, weight loss and now kidney renal protection. But what's kind of also interesting is I'm a bunch of different groups. I see a lot of patients with mast cell activation syndrome, pots, dysautonomia, a lot of things. And what's happened is we're realizing that these GLP1s are also anti inflammatories. In the MCAS world, we're actually using microdosing to actually help treat some patients with MCAS or mast cell activation syndrome, which might explain why some people get these medications and like there's aches and pains, other things go away because they're actually treating dysfunctional mat cells. I've also had some interesting effects within some of my middle aged women who've actually had gone through menopause actually helping regulate hormones because of the impact on their metabolism of GLP1s as well as the impact on hormone sensitivity. So these, these medications have a lot of interesting uses. So, so what are, what is a glucon, like peptide? It's actually something your body actually naturally makes, butyrate, which is a short chain fatty acid Main your GI tract, it's made in fermented dairy, is nature's butyrate. There is some stuff out there talking about berberine as a nature's recipe, quote unquote. It's more of a berberine actually acts more like metformin as far as its effect on insulin sensitivity. There are some probiotics out there, Pendulum has a group of them that actually have certain strains of bacteria that actually will create GLP1 in your GI tract. But the gist is that your bispurs to naturally make these to help regulate your metabolism so much your body naturally makes. So what's, what's, what's the skinny? Well, the problem is, is that if you use this too fast, too quick, too strong, you can have people lose weight really fast. Your healthy weight loss is one or two pounds a week, four to eight pounds a month. If you lose 20 pounds in a month, you're gonna lose muscle mass. And now people are talking about ozipic face. But you may have seen people whose like faces kind of howl out. They use. They, they, they actually lose, lose fat. Not simple fat. They'll lose fat in their cheeks. And, and what happens is you look hollowed out, you lose muscle and fat as well. And you lose muscle in the face as well. And so if you lose the weight too quickly, you can actually use muscle mass. And that's one of the things that happens with GLP1s as well is people will lose muscle mass. And so you need to combat that with head training, some kind of muscle training, muscle mass building, as well as using. There is a peptide called BPC157 that can help prevent the side effect of muscle mass loss with your GLP1s. But where people get into problems with the GLP1s is they, they start it too quick, too fast, they don't realize having side effects. The biggest side effects that I personally have seen have been nausea, reflux, constipation. I've seen some anxiety. I had one individual develop horrible panic attacks. I have not seen the parathyroid cancer in my career. I've been using this drug again since about 2006, 2007, had thousands of patients use it. So I got pretty experienced with it. I've not seen that. It's actually a pretty safe medication if you use it in the right situation. What's also really interesting to me is because of its impact on metabolism, there's interesting research showing it as a neuroprotective and there's some interesting research looking at it for prevention of Alzheimer's as well as Parkinson's progression. So this class of medications with a lot of really great potential use in the right hands dosing is tricky. There are some now some oral by mouth versions of climactizable tazepatide. Then redumb my mouth. I've not had as much clinical experience with those and know if they're as effective as the injectables just from call probably just it's cheaper to do the injections versus the pills but they are helpful medication. Berberine is it, it's more applicable with metformin which interesting thing with metformin which actually comes from French Lilac. It is a diabetes medication which actually is an anti aging drug that actually helps with senescent cells and it actually changes your gut microbiome. It actually increases the counts of Akkermansum mucinophylla which actually certain probiotics do that as well which affect GLP1. So as well as interactions we see that's really interesting and we're learning basically if we can change the gut bacteria and use these medications or herbs the right way, we can actually improve your metabolism. So if that information's helpful about GLP1s again where you get stuck, where you get tricked into is when you, we have issues where you use them too. You go up too fast, too quick, you lose too much weight. If you have side effects like nausea, energy, upset, reflex, you don't pay attention, you advance the dose. That's where people get into trouble. But using the right hands, scope for hand, people have used this a lot. They're actually a pretty safe medication. Of course I always recommend to talk with your personal healthcare provider first but they can be pretty impactful. I've had a couple of patients come to me actually for consults for doing gastric bypass surgery. And they had to come see me, meet with me once, once a month for three months before they insurance would pay for it. And a few of them I actually was able to get on a GLP1 medication and the data is really interesting. You can lose almost as much weight on GLP1 as you can with a gastric sleeve procedure which is a type of bypass procedure. So they can be very profound for weight loss. It's just not too quick, not too fast. And because of their mast cell effects, if you have inflammation, there's, there's five kinds, it tells the patient there's five kinds of obesity. There's caloric which is inverses out. You just need too much. There's inflammation, there's metabolic which is like metabolic syndrome kind of stuff. Lose your microbiome. There's toxins, which a lot of people don't realize, these things called obesogens, which are chemicals that make you obese. There's phthalates, benzenes, a lot of things. And then there's a neurologic component which is your nervous system is like a talk like a trauma response. If your nervous system is wound up in synthetic overdrive, you can't really feel like you're safe till your virus kicking out from the rest of that Jeff and lose weight. The interesting thing is that the GLP1s address three or four of these, so actually it's like an easy blind way to hit a lot of different types of causes for obesity. So hopefully this information was helpful. If so, I'll share your comments below. Like share, subscribe and if you have a topic you'd like us to talk about later, you can drop it below and we'll talk to you soon.
If you've lost trust in your body or in the system that was supposed to heal you, don't give up. Dr. Aaron Hartman's book Uncurable will help you rediscover what's truly possible. Visit UncurableBook.com to get your copy and start your healing journey today.
More from Aaron


Medical Gaslighting Doesn’t Stop in the Exam Room: How to Trust Yourself and Build the Right Care Team with Dr. Efrat LaMandre | E186


POTS and Dysautonomia: Could Nervous System Dysregulation Be Why You’re Still Sick? | E185


Best of: How Adopting a Child with Special Needs Led to a Medical Revolution | E184


Hypermobility and Fascia: Could Your Connective Tissue Be Why You’re Still Stuck? | E183


Best of: The Classroom Is Failing Our Kids – The Surprising Truth About Neurodivergent Learning with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge | E182


Mast Cell Activation Syndrome: The Hidden Trigger Behind Food Reactions, Fatigue & Chronic Symptoms | E181


Best of: Are EMFs Making You Sick? – Environmental Sensitivities Explained with Dr. Neil Nathan


Could Lyme Disease Be Why You’re Still Sick? Symptoms, Testing, and What May Be Overlooked | E179


Why Your Child Is Dysregulated: Nervous System Regulation, Screen Time, and the CALMS Protocol with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge | E178


Mold Exposure May Be Why You’re Still Sick: The Hidden Connection to CIRS and Chronic Inflammation


Best of: CIRS and the Bio Toxin Pathway: A Deep Dive into Detoxification and Healing with Dr. Jenski