anyone else has uh set to an optogenarian's tweeting and texting them they'll know this is not a non-familiar combination of words it's okay no punctuation but you see the two thoughts colliding it's

fine she's absolutely thriving

so she's like OMG I went on instagram to see the photo to be posted of the beautiful flowers I received my birthday below them was a photo my friend Melissa McCarthy who I sang with on my on-core album she looked fantastic I just wanted to pay her a compliment I forgot the world is reading so there'd

been a lot of people having seen her original post saying hold on babes don't go about writing underneath someone's profile whoever it is did you take a sempik that's a no-no and then she had to issue this kind of

semipology yes and then

a couple of things I like about just this entry into the world of a sempik it's first it's Barbara Streisand putting the Streisand effect to work and that is an unintended consequence and it attempts to hide removal sensor information where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information so I feel like the apology just made it even bigger so with the increased celebrity use of the drug it can be known as semi-glutide generically or as would gov as well and people like Oprah and Elon Musk have used it so it does seem as though a sempik use could start to seem normal and that feels quite concerning why

does it feel concerning Zitandra go?

basically I don't think I'm alone in being concerned like there's been a huge increase in the number of people getting a sempik or one of the generic equivalents prescribed to them in the US between 2019 and 2023 there's been an increase of 932 percent in semi-glutide medications it's actually been banned as a treatment for obesity in the UK due to the high demand for the drug causing global shortage exactly but that's

about high demand it's not about any particular risk factors associated with it so what's the concern I mean a lot of people that are taking it including people like Elon Musk and Oprah are basically saying this is a miracle drug I've dropped five dress sizes I feel great what's the problem

yeah so semi-glutide is this weekly injection that helps a lower blood sugar by helping the pancreas make more insulin if you do not have diabetes it was you know meant for diabetes patients then it can lead to nausea fatigue indigestion constipation diarrhea vomiting and increased burping so it's quite antisocial I'd say there's side effects and actually there have been reported cases of much more serious side effects which are really worrying so pancreatitis and you're much more likely to get that if you don't have diabetes but you do take the drug I'm development of thyroid cancer and suicidal ideation or behavior so these are the really terrifying side effects which are much less common

but they have been reported yes and Harriet Johan Hari has just written a book about this hasn't he which I don't know if you saw was serialised in the Times I read a couple of weeks ago I think reaction don't

even get me started okay don't even get me started on the fact that he has told the this story in so many different ways with so many different inconsistencies and so much factual inaccuracy and so much problematic stuff I do not think that that would be the book to read if you wanted an accurate representation of the world of what we're talking about okay

well I won't get you started then but my question was one of the things that he highlighted in the excerpt I read which was very compelling and readable despite your concerns was that for him because he's been taking his epic for a couple years now what he felt was that although he was losing weight it wasn't treating the underlying reason that he ate in the first place which was psychological and that actually that you know whatever the medical concerns are like the ones that the sachandra care outlined that's the more generic thing fat people often seek refuge in comfort food because they need comforting from something and getting thinner doesn't resolve the thing they're trying to seek comfort from no absolutely I definitely think it's worth saying that these these weight loss drugs they don't treat the genetic

or socioeconomic or poverty factors that can drive obesity but what they do treat is obesity which is in itself a very very dangerous medical condition and I think about a billion people in the world and now obese since projected to go up to one in four it's a medical condition that is a huge burden on the world so no obviously losing weight could not treat the reasons why you might have gained weight in the first place but what it can treat is all the medical conditions associated with being so overweight so I think that also I want to put on record that Johan Hari is a plagiarist so I also just want to say that but he I think he is unintentionally perhaps put his finger on a very interesting thing which is the kind of a seismic effect of these drugs across all industries I mean I think that's what makes this an interesting story is it really highlights just how ubiquitous weight loss drugs have become that they've affected like the fashion industry celebrity health there's many scientific experiments going on with these drugs at the moment they're finding that they're doing other amazing and dangerous things the economics of Denmark have totally changed because Novo Nordisk the pharmaceutical company that makes a zempic and now makes well Govey which has the same semi-glutite compounds just two different brand names it's basically bigger than the entire Danish economy it's market worth now so there's Denmark's economy and there's this one pharmaceutical company but I also think that the reaction to Barbara Streisand comment is interesting because it says a lot about the shame that is associated with these kinds of treatments which I think is fascinating I would would people's reaction would it have been so similar if she'd asked are you on statin though are you are you taking are you having green juice or there's so much shame that even though as we said all these celebrities including very famously over here Stephen Fry and Robbie Williams too they're all saying boy George very famously said well isn't everyone on it and it's true that the Oscars this year became known as the zempic Oscars because you can see all these suddenly super skinny celebrities all the rich celebrities are on it but I think that that to just look at it through that lens would do a disservice to the possible like the potential to change this massive global health epidemic well that's

maybe the reluctance for celebrities themselves Arin is to be influencers on this because they know that if they come out and say thank you for saying I look fabulous and yes the answer is I've been taking a zempic that will have an impact on other people who will go and try and get a prescription for themselves a possibly depriving people with diabetes who might need it and b possibly bring you about these side effects that we've talked about they don't want to be responsible for that it's right isn't it that they feel some responsibility

there I think so and I think that there's a third thing that is being speculated upon both in the original crime of Streisand and then her apology which is what's being called this spiral back into skinny culture and I think the minute celebrities start talking honestly and openly about whether they're taking these weight loss drugs or not then it feeds into this trend that was identified by the New York Post when I don't know if you remember but Kim Kardashian wore that Marilyn Monroe dress the original Marilyn Monroe dress and she revealed that she had lost 16 pounds really really rapidly to squeeze into it at the Met Gala last year and the New York Post published this headline by by booty Heron Sheik is back and you know it kind of like coincided with this interest in all of these stars who are taking a zempic like Adele Rebel Wilson, Mindy Carling, Elon Musk etc and I think there are growing concerns that the more you highlight the idea that celebrities are working towards an inverted commas ideal body type then the more people in the real world who maybe don't fit that body type get concerned about what they need to do to try and conform to what society regards as the one type of beauty and I think that that is the the other concern and that's the thing that Barbara Streisand didn't understand when she was like oh sorry I meant to say that you looked fabulous but that reinforces that idea that people people aren't saying you know you said the wrong thing by exposing the fact that she takes a zempic they were saying you're reinforcing this negative idea of there being a perfect body image yeah

I mean it's a tricky one isn't it's a Chandra crime overweight and I look at celebrities like the ones you've just mentioned and there was a time where I thought well that's quite empowering that here's this person who seems to be very happy and proud of their body image and yet they are clearly overweight but then that in itself you know we're talking about the dangerous signal that you're sending out by saying I need to lose weight but there's possibly a dangerous signal that you're sending out and saying it's okay to be this fat when we know that it causes premature death I think there's a thing with celebrity that

has me something unattainable about them about the image of them and so like 10 15 years ago celebrities would not let on about the nutritionist they have and the personal trainers like you'd never got a really true response what you got was pictures of skinny celebrities eating a burger which they're never gonna finish but saying like oh and you know I love a burger and the interview always commenting particularly on female celebrities like she's life and skinny and gorgeous and we sat down and she had like three burgers and so there's always been this kind of disconnect between the imagery see and which becomes the ideal and then how celebrities say they live and it just feels the zem pick situation that to be real about it also feels like it would break that kind of glass wall between us and celebrities and let us in on this thing that's working for them but it also does seem to me to play around with the hormones and enzymes in your body is a scary thing to do I don't think I said what food noise was but food noise is about always thinking about food and where you know what your next meal is going to be where you're gonna have it good food versus bad food how many calories have gone in and how many have left maybe that day and it's so interesting to me that zem pick stops those thoughts it just goes to show like how powerful these hormones are how powerful this drug is the moment you come off it the thoughts come back you start to feel hungry again and you just go back to kind of square one and surely it's better to change your lifestyle and get support in changing your lifestyle so

it scares me as n-pic it scares me it's becoming normalized and from that point of view just leading the celebrities out of it for a moment Harriet this controversy of the idea you know this this contentiousness around the idea of saying to your mate basically you know or be it on social media are you on a zem pick is that what you're doing is it right that that's a controversial thing to say or will it become normalized would you pause before asking one of your friends if they were taking it god I mean I'm British so I would never say

anything like this but I'm not I'm not saying that that means that it's wrong I do think though that saying surely we should just change our lifestyle I think that's a completely inadequate thing to say considering that we've got one billion people in the world for all sorts of reasons and that crosses all sorts of national and cultural and socioeconomic background device one billion people struggling with obesity in the world it's not reasonable to blame people and to tell them just change your lifestyle like it is a medical condition like any other and if there are weight loss drugs or weight or medical drugs that are available to treat a medical condition then you know there shouldn't be any shame around people using that what I think the problem is though is that it's kind of this two-tiered system at the moment I mean I did a little bit of research on the UK side of how easily I could get a weight loss drug like this in the UK and wigovie was it was approved for use of the UK last year and NHS started prescribing it in September but only for specific things so only for people above a BMI of 35 and struggling with health health issues related to weight so it's worth saying that the NHS will prescribe it if and where it's appropriate and needed in the UK but it took me about five minutes to find an online pharmacy a private online pharmacy that would sell it to me for an extortionate price so what that is is creating a situation where there's potentially life-saving treatment for a medical condition that affects one in eight one in seven people in the world if it's only going to be available to rich celebrities or people with the wealth to access it from a private doctor even if they don't necessarily need it

that