And then at the Scientific Advisory Board meeting, in my first month here, they read out all the clinical trials that were going on with these drugs. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Wegovy. We dug into it. We even caught up with Novo Nordisk, really trying to understand what’s going on. And I just thought, “We opened up this amazing thing. How do we embrace it? How do we take it and help our members?” the people “.
A friend said the other day, “Why would I use Weight Watchers if one day we all get shots that will curb our appetite?”
Perhaps it comes from someone who is privileged and understands healthy eating. For many people, they still need education. We are now able to treat the hungry gut through medication, but still the missing part is the hungry brain. It’s about understanding which foods have a higher nutrient density, and ways for me to make sure I’m protecting my lean muscle mass. These are all going to be important for medications that work well in the long term.
Can you explain the difference between a hungry gut and a hungry brain?
Behavior change addresses cognitive patterns – the hungry brain – but there’s only so much you can commit to with behavior modification if your biological factors are working against you – the hungry gut. Dual action support allows medication and behavioral interventions for the organs [with this chronic condition] To make behavioral changes easier as both brain and gut are provided with the necessary support.
You already see that, by the way. If you go to TikTok, you will find a lot of people on medication who are doing this along with Weight Watchers.
I often ask techies this: A lot of these innovations, exciting though they are, are based on the idea that most of them will be used for good. I also think about scenarios where a doctor refuses a patient because of potentially life-saving medication because they see on Weight Watchers, “Oh, but you’re not actually eating that healthy food.” I mean, that ruling is happening right now. They think they are lazy. That’s it.
There is a lot out there. One interesting part, about how we got into the pharmaceutical business, is that we’ve heard from people that they don’t want to go to their GP who’ve told them all their lives, “Just lose weight, just eat healthy.” Many of these people suffer from unrecognized chronic diseases. It wasn’t about their behaviour. So they are more likely to choose this kind of path – because of the shame they experienced in those offices.
The separate thing then, if you are on these medications, are you going to change your diet along with them? This one is cruel. If you have high blood pressure and you’re taking an ACE inhibitor but still eat steak and foods high in sodium, does that mean you shouldn’t take the medication? This seems like a wild judgment I wouldn’t make.
Back to the question I started with, which was like, “Did you feel like you were going to be left behind or what does this mean for your core program?” For me, it is very interesting that you are asking this question here. Because the difference is that we will never judge, say, a more traditional tech company for introducing new features, adopting AI, or trying to do the new thing.
Oh, we judge them a lot though.
I thought?
Well, it depends. But, yes.
But also, we all have this expectation and desire for those companies, the organization, if you will, to disrupt themselves and understand when they might have been wrong in the past or when they could have done better. And so the question is, “What can we do better?” I think here, this is an opportunity for us to say, “Oh my God, we haven’t learned about hungry guts for most of our existence. But science has evolved now, we know more, we’ve learned more, we’re going to do better for these organs.” That’s how I see it.
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