Do you know a single woman that have never tried to lose weight? I don`t. The weight loss industry is a $90 Billion industry, and diets have a 95% long-term failure rate, and women fund almost all of it. This whole topic makes me think, why is weight loss and GLP-1s such HUGE industries when bodies naturally are made to keep us at a healthy weight?

Because the weight loss industry is not a wellness industry, but a retention business. Beauty standards don't come from health science, but they track wealth cycles. And they have always been about social class. In the 1800s, fatness signalled wealth, while thinness meant poverty, now it`s the opposite, and every generation since, the wellness industry has repackaged the same insecurity with an increasingly better aesthetic.

Hot topic and hot company: GLP-1s and Novo Nordisk.

As a proud scandi, and a novo investor, I have to talk about them when the topic is GLP-1s, which has been the hottest topic in pharma for a while now, for good reason. GLP1s is a turning point for the public health story, obesity is one of the most widespread and underestimated diseases in the world, and for the first time, there's something that actually works. The obesity epidemic puts companies like Novo somewhere between pharma and consumer.

Novo Nordisk is the company that made weight loss drugs in pill form, and they've been around for over 100 years. They built their entire foundation in diabetes medicine, giving them quite some synergies as the overlap with obesity is massive.

Right now, investors are obsessed with one number: % of weight lost. That's how GLP-1 companies are being priced. Their share price has been taking a hit., as they are not currently winning that race. Novo's CEO, Maziar said in an interview with the Journal; investors are missing the bigger picture. The real differentiation isn't going to be about who shrinks you the most in the shortest time, but it's going to be about what happens after. Heart disease, kidney function, metabolic health, the downstream conditions that come with obesity. (So they are in another race completely.)

I believe this will help Novo will win in this space over the next 5 years, largely because they are taking a more holistic health perspective on health and weight loss drugs, and consumers will (hopefully) tend to prefer that.

The post GLP-1 economy

The GLP1 market is currently worth $53 billion and JP Morgan projected it to hit $190billion by 2035. For context, that's larger than the entire weight loss industry they're in the process of destroying.

What can happen to economies at scale when a large % of population start consuming a lot less? The ripple is sizeable, households with a GLP-1 user cut grocery spend by 5.3%-8% within six months, depending on income. People who stayed on the drugs kept spending less, and the food industry noticed. They're reformulating products to fit the user group, like smaller portion sizes, or supplements targeted at the group. Retail, travel, hospitality, are all watching the same shift, when people eat and drink less, that money moves toward experiences.

The drug might kille the drive-though, a Bloomberg Intelligence survey of GLP-1 users found that 54% said they dined out "significantly less" since starting the medication. J.P. Morgan projects a $30–55 billion loss hit to food and beverage by 2034, a structural shift that the food industry is picking up on, Chipotle launched a High Protein Menu and cited GLP-1s as the reason, and many other are doing similar moves.

But even though the drug actually works, it's still a luxury. By 2030, an estimated 30 million Americans will be on treatment. Patent expiries in China, India, and Brazil could eventually bring generics, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Manufacturing is expensive and the companies profiting right now have no incentive to rush.

What is GLP-1s?

GLP1, glucagon-like peptide-1, is a hormone your gut already produces naturally every time you eat. Its job is essentially to be the adult in the room, it tells your pancreas to release insulin, slows down how quickly your stomach empties, and signals your brain that you're full. The drugs don't introduce anything foreign, the drug just tells your body continuously, that it's already eaten.

Natural GLP-1s

Your body produces GLP-1 naturally every time you eat the right things in the right order. (If you like this stuff, you really should read the Glucose Revolution). The list below is the ways to tap into your natural GLP-1s.

Protein. It increases GLP-1 secretion, delays stomach emptying, and keeps you full longer. Animal or plant, doesn't matter. A high-protein breakfast personally changes how I relate to food for the entire rest of the day.

Eat in the right order. Vegetables → protein → carbs. It sounds too simple to work, but the research is consistent and the results aren't subtle.

Slow down. The fullness signal takes 20 minutes to reach your brain. Eating slowly, smaller bites, more chewing, it all meaningfully increases GLP-1 response.

Fiber and healthy fats. Oats, chia, lentils, avocado, olive oil, fatty fish, these all stimulate GLP-1 production and slow glucose absorption.

What kills it? or flip the question, if GLP-1s (that we naturally produce after every meal) are so effective at treating obesity, why are so many people obese in the first place? Processed food, sugar, gut dysbiosis, blue light, chronic stress, and bad sleep. Modern life is essentially a GLP-1 suppressing environment.

The sad part is that the drug, (and big pharma) works so well because the system around it's broken.

What happens when a healthy person takes GLP1s?

Women naturally fluctuate in weight, and our bodies are under constant scrutiny, so weight loss is such a huge topic of conversation in health. One thing that have struck me with GLP-1 conversation is, what happens if the healthy girls, that just want to lose a couple of kgs goes on GLP-1s? And I think it's a topic worth covering carefully.

This topic genuinely irritates me, because I think we deserve better information than we're getting. So instead of just saying don't do it!!, here's a short actual breakdown.

GLP-1s were built for a different body than yours, approved for BMIs over 30, or 27+ with a metabolic condition. If you're a healthy woman wanting to drop a few kilos, you're not the target patient, you're just borrowing the risk profile (and the risks are real).

Muscle first, fat second. Over 72 weeks on GLP-1s, roughly 25% of total weight lost is lean mass, not fat. A quarter of everything you lose is muscle, which is what keeps your metabolism running, your body strong, and your weight stable long-term, and women seem to lose more of it than men on these drugs. So the scale goes down, but so does everything you actually wanted to keep.

After 52 weeks on semaglutide, hip bone density drops by 2.6% and the lower spine by 2.1%,. Think of bone density as your skeleton's pension account, you build it in your 20s and 30s, and you spend it later. This drug quietly drains it, and when you get older is when you`ll pay the real price of it.