How GLP-1 Drugs Can Help You Fight Obesity and Reclaim Your Health

You’re not thrilled with the extra weight you’re carrying and the effects that these excess pounds are having on your physical, mental, and emotional health. Like millions of others, you’ve embarked on different weight loss efforts, but you keep coming up short. 

Studies have shown that 80% of people who lose a good deal of weight gain much of it back over the following year or two. Even maintaining modest weight loss can prove tricky for many as fad diets focus on quick, but unsustainable, weight loss.

If you’re tired of going round and round with your weight, as well as the impact that it’s having on your health, there’s a new approach you should know about — GLP-1 agonist medications. 

As a specialist in endocrinology and obesity, Dr. Sean P. Nikravan offers comprehensive weight management services, and we’re pleased to include these game-changing drugs in our treatment arsenal. Here’s a look at how GLP-1 agonists can help fight obesity and improve your health.

A quick look at how GLP-1 agonist medications work

When we discuss GLP-1 agonists, we’re referring to medications that mimic a naturally occurring substance in your body — in this case, glucagon-like peptide-1. GLP-1 works in your body to:

• Encourage production of insulin (the hormone that regulates glucose)
• Slow digestion so you feel fuller for longer
• Block glucagon production to keep your blood sugar levels low
• Reduce the feelings of hunger

With GLP-1 agonist medications, we can amplify these actions in your body, — helping to regulate appetite and glucose metabolism — which means you can lose weight and keep it off.

Improving your health through GLP-1 agonist medications

The list of health complications that come with having obesity is a long one and contains some very serious issues. To give you an idea, here’s a sample of obesity-related health problems:

• Type 2 diabetes — 9 out of 10 patients are overweight or have obesity
• High blood pressure
• Dyslipidemia
• Heart disease
• Metabolic syndrome
• Fatty liver disease
• Sleep apnea
• Osteoarthritis

Because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, let’s explore how GLP-1 agonist medications make a difference in this arena. When you use GLP-1 medications, you lose weight, better regulate glucose, and improve metabolic health, all of which can reduce your risks for cardiovascular disease. 

To illustrate the positive effects this approach can have on your heart health, a recent study of the benefits of semaglutide (a GLP-1 agonist medication) reports that it can “reduce the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes who are at high cardiovascular risk.”

This is just one example of how losing unhealthy pounds through GLP-1 agonists can get you on a much better health track.

Keeping the weight off with GLP-1 medications

Another great benefit of GLP-1 medications is that they can help you maintain your weight loss. If you continue taking the medications and you introduce healthy eating and exercise habits, there’s no reason why you can’t maintain a healthier weight long into the future.

If you’d like to find out whether you’re a good candidate for GLP-1 drugs so you can reclaim your health, contact Sean P. Nikravan, MD, in Newport Beach, California, today to schedule a consultation.