Recently, Ezra Klein of the New York Times interviewed Healthcare journalist and author Julia Belluz about the most current information we have for GLP-1 type drugs, other peptides, and general public health policies.
This chat is one entry point into the coming “Peptides for Everything Healthcare” world which may dramatically advance what our medications can do… as GLP-1s have already shown.
Here’s a shocking number: One out of eight American adults is taking a GLP-1, like Ozempic or Zepbound, according to a KFF poll. GLP-1s are the biggest pharmaceutical story since antidepressants.
But there’s still so much we don’t know. “We’re only at the beginning of what’s been called this Ozempic era,” the journalist Julia Belluz told me. “I think we’re really just at the beginning of discovering the benefits and the harms of these drugs.”
These discoveries begin in the research but are also expanding into how we think about our punishing beauty standards and the blurry lines between illness and wellness. Belluz is a contributing Opinion writer and the -author, with Kevin Hall, of “Food Intelligence.” She’s one of the best health and science reporters I know and has been reporting on GLP-1s for years.
In this conversation, Belluz takes me through what we know — and don’t know — about GLP-1s, their unexpected uses, how they are clashing with a culture obsessed with thinness and looksmaxxing, and whether everyone should be on them.
Here’s the:
3) GPT analysis of this seemingly very useful set of ideas.