Dr. Rachel Bedard

And the sort of first one is semaglutide, which is Ozempic or Wegovy.

Then the second one that's already approved and been on the market for a couple of years is Zoloft.

Terzepatide, which is Zepbound or Moonjaro.

And then there's this one in the pipeline that I literally cannot pronounce, the one with the R. Redditrutide.

Redditrutide is like the worst possible name.

Like, I can't spell it.

I can't say it.

So semaglutide is this peptide that is a GLP-1 agonist.

And agonist means that it's a peptide that binds to the GLP-1 receptor in the body.

And GLP-1 in the body does a couple of different things.

It slows gastric emptying, so it makes your stomach stay full longer.

Exactly.

That does absolutely increase your fullness and gets you to fullness faster.

It also does increase your sense of fullness by working on, like, hormone receptors in the brain, and it decreases hunger and increases satiety.

And then it, and this is why it's really important and works in diabetes, it works on glucose balance.

And so it provokes the pancreas to release insulin in response to high glucose levels.

So it doesn't cause your pancreas to just like willy-nilly release insulin all the time, but it augments the insulin response to high glucose levels in your body.

So...

When you eat anything that has carbohydrates in it, it gets broken down to release glucose, which is like sugar, in your blood.

In response to glucose in the blood, the pancreas, which is like an organ in the back of your belly, releases insulin, which is a hormone.