“Nature’s Ozempic”: Miracle or Marketing Myth?

If you're on social media, you're likely familiar with the constant stream of ads for weight loss products and health supplements promising quick fixes. In this episode, I tackle a listener's concerns about plant-based peptides claiming to rival GLP-1 medications, breaking down how to tell the difference between legitimate, science-backed treatments and predatory scams targeting those struggling with obesity. Learn how to spot red flags, make informed choices, and build a health team that genuinely supports your goals.

Plus, with the holiday season in full swing, I'll share simple, effective strategies to break the stress cycle and find moments of calm amid the chaos. Tune in for expert tips on cutting through the noise, making empowered decisions, and enjoying a stress-free holiday season!


References


View all of Dr. Rentea’s podcast resources here: https://www.renteaclinic.com/blog

Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle - Unlocking Us with Brené Brown

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

Mini Course: The Top 5 Mistakes That People Make When Starting a GLP 1

7 ways to break the stress cycle:

1. Exercise
2. Deep breathing
3. Positive social interaction
4. Laughter
5. Affection
6. Crying
7. Creative expression

Audio Stamps

00:28 - With holiday stress in full swing, Dr. Rentea shares seven insights from Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski on how to complete the stress cycle and manage stress effectively.

08:20 - Dr. Rentea explains how her mini course, The Top 5 Mistakes People Make When Starting a GLP 1, can help at any stage of your health journey.

11:54 - Dr. Rentea dives into a listener question about the rise of weight-loss claims around supplements and "plant-based peptides" marketed to mimic GLP-1 medications.

18:30 - Choosing the right health program or support group is deeply personal, and it's essential to choose one that feels supportive, aligns with your needs, and involves collaborative guidance from trusted professionals.


Quotes

“You need to turn to

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Anyone else feeling this time of year, like the busyness is through the roof. So if you're listening to this at the time when this podcast is airing, it's December. And I always tell myself this time of year, I'm just going to relax and I'm going to do less. And somehow everything always gets cranked up tenfold. So I think part of that is that Sometimes the end of the month, I know I definitely take some time off around the holidays and so work kind of gets compressed a little bit more and then you might be traveling for to see family and friends and just a lot gets put during this time of year. So I'm going to just give you a quick break. minute reminder here to just remember to still drink your water, to still do the things that help support you, whether it's take a walk, take a walk or do your deep breathing or whatever it is. And I want to point you to a resource that I think is absolutely invaluable with this. I don't think we've talked much about it on this podcast, but there was a book that was written, this was years ago at this point, I mean, long time. And this book is called Burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, and it's written by the Nagoski sisters. And now, I'm not saying that you have to go out and read this book. We're going to link to all of this in the show notes as we always do. If you ever have questions where that is, it's rentia clinic. org. R E N T E A clinic. com. And if you click under, if you click on podcast, when you go there, you'll see that each episode, we have the episode where you can click to listen either on our website, or you can click to whatever podcast player you like. And then we also have written descriptions. My copywriter, Rebecca, if you're, I bet she's listening to this right now. She is so amazing at linking all of this and bringing it all together and really putting it in a way that, that is so incredible to use as a resource. So. We will link the book there, but the thing that I think is more valuable is they were interviewed by Brene Brown. This was years ago. That interview is gold because they really talk about all of this and they break it down. This is one hour of your life that you're going to be so happy you listened to it. And I will put in our show notes the link to that episode. And also I took notes on that episode and there were seven things that they talked about doing to complete the stress cycle. I will list all of those. You can take a screenshot of it. You can copy and paste it from the website. I find this to be super helpful. I share it so often with patients. So this is my gift to you this holiday season, one of them, that if you want to listen to this episode, invaluable. And look if you can do some of these this holiday season, because we get really excited. We're doing all the things. And what ends up happening? We get sick because we're stressed out. We're not completing the stress cycle. We get burned out with time in our careers and life in general. And so this is really something that I was just thinking this holiday time. Gosh, how can I make sure that I stay present a little bit? Do this, do that. So these seven things to break the stress cycle. They're very, very important. practical. I'm going to blast through these real quick, but again, it's going to be on our website. It's in the show notes, rentierclinic. com forward slash podcast. Again, you click on the podcast link when you go on our site. So number one, they talk about exercise, things like dance, even tensing up your muscles and relaxing real quick. Any movement counts. Number two, they talk about breathing, really deep breathing. It really down regulates your nervous system. Number three, they talk about positive social interaction because we're really inclined to connect with people around us. So might be coworkers, might be family or friends picking up the phone, talking to a loved one, connecting. It can look so different in different capacities. I know I will tell you about with positive social interaction, the 30 30 program that I have, Completely fills me up with positive social interaction. We meet on those calls. We, it's very deep shares. What people are sharing, what they're going through, what they're trying, what they're overcoming. That is a lot of really good positive social interaction. So I can't wait for January for that night. I think every time I think about completing a stress cycle, I think I'm so blessed that I get to Run those groups and be part of it because I'm benefiting as much as everyone else in the group. So that's actually positive social interaction when you're in a group and people get you and you feel understood. Really, really helps us to feel safe and complete that stress cycle. Okay, number four, what they talk about is laughter. And they're talking about really good like deep belly laughter that really takes over your body. But I'm always reminded When I was in medical school, there was a comedian that I really liked, and I kind of, this was before, I mean, social media was a thing, but it wasn't as big. YouTube was a thing, and so I saved these clips, and there was one of them with, how when you, when you really have a big cry coming on, and you feel like the weight of the world is on your back, and it's like, knock, knock, knock, and suddenly, Anything can make you cry and then your whole body takes over. And anyway, I'm butchering it. Maybe I'll see if I can find that clip, but I remember it helped me laugh. And anything I was going through in school, I could come to that video. I was breaking the stress cycle. Okay. Number five on here is affection. They're talking about, for example, like. A 20 second hug with a loved one, how you can really relax with that. So affection can look different in different ways, right? Whether it's a kid, maybe, an animal that we really love again, affection on that list. Number six, crying. I talk about this all the time. Actually, this is a lot of things are coming up for me today when I'm talking. So I've had several meet and greets for the clinic today. I'm going to be honest, pretty much 100 percent of who does a meet and greet with me cries. Not everybody, but majority of people. And the reason being what we're talking about, it's incredibly vulnerable. When you are talking about having struggled for 30 years, just pretty much everybody cries on those. They say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. Cause it's within the first minute or two because I say, Hey, you know, can you tell me what's going on for you? Why did you decide to talk to me today? I just want to know a little bit. And. It's incredibly therapeutic. And what if I tell you that you crying, it lets out a lot of stress hormones. It's actually so therapeutic. So crying is on that list. So if this holiday season, a moment happens where you cry, know that you are. Completing the stress cycle. Okay, the last one on here is creative expression. And they talk about this quote of take your broken heart and make it into art. But I like to think about it's interesting creative expression. For some of you, you love to be cooking and baking. Others, it might be you like to make an arrangement on the table for the holidays. For me, creative expression is actually making this podcast. In fact, I was talking to a friend here recently, there's another podcast that I love that A few months ago, the, the content creator stopped making it and, you know, it's interesting. There's like this grieving that occurs in me when something that I love listening to stops being created. And I have always thought to myself, I will not, I don't know that I'll ever stop making podcasts because I love it. I love connecting with you. I love sharing. I love the journey that we go on, right? I've always shared that I've loved podcasts ever since I was in grade school. It was not, this was not a cool thing. No one was listening to podcasts. So that creative expression, is there a way this holiday season that, what does that mean for you? Creative expression could be, you put together the playlist that gets played when you're together with your friends. It has so many different meanings. For me, I always used to say, oh I can't do art. I went to this school that was incredibly artistic and, For me, drawing, painting, calligraphy, all of it, it cannot come out of my hands. But I can think of different things and think of talks and presentations and things like that. So my creativity is different. So this cycle, this breaking the stress cycle, What can you do this holiday season? Can you just right now take a few deep breaths? Is there a little bit of exercise that we can access? Is there some laughter? What can we do to help you out a little bit this holiday season? Okay, that was a little bit longer than I expected, but I think that that is going to be a big game changer. So we will make sure again, check out. Our, the links in our podcast so that you can listen to that episode with Brene Brown. Really great stuff. You're gonna learn a lot there. Alright, today I'm going to answer a fan mail question, so let me go ahead and pull this up. Now I wanna say something real quick. Some of you are writing me, I love getting the fan mail questions from you, but you write me things that are very technically complex and it just doesn't lend well to a good podcast episode and. The reason I bring this up, I will write you if you provide me an email. If you don't give us an email, we can't write back to you, it's anonymous basically when it comes in. If you give me an email, what I'm able to do is write you back and say, Hey, listen, I'm not going to be able to answer this on the podcast, but here's maybe the podcast episode that I think is a good resource or give you a thought or two or, or tell you, Hey, I think my mini course is actually better suited for this. And let me explain why. In the mini course that I have now, I don't want the title to mislead you. The title is the top five mistakes that people make when starting a GLP 1. You do not need to be on a weight loss medication. You could just be working on your health in general, making sure that you are eating enough protein for keeping your muscle or you want to gain muscle. You want to learn how to read, interpret in bodies. You are already on your journey and you're like, Ooh, let me make sure I'm covering my bases. You might actually already be at maintenance. So someone wrote me the other day. They said, Hey, I'm actually, I'm actually going to be at maintenance. Is this for me? And I said, yeah, because you actually want to learn. What are the other health goals that you can set? How can you monitor things over time? And by the way, come back to reality moment here. Check back in if you've lost me here and you're drifting off. Remember, leg one of the journey is fat loss phase. Leg two is maintenance. So, actually, 99 percent of the work, I know you don't want to hear this, because losing is so hard, but the real work is actually in the maintenance phase. So, yes, that applies. Now, the reason I tell you when you write me fan mail, when it's too hard, why do I pop you sometimes over and say, hey, actually, the best resource is to purchase this mini course. The reason being, yes, the videos and all that stuff's amazing, but we do in there, when you join, you have six months access, where once a month I do a live Q& A call. In those question and answer calls, I will take questions like that and answer it really in depth. And so you can give me all the information. I can break it down. I can say, Hey, here's my mind, how my mind thinks. I think about this. I think about that, right? We really break it down in those calls. We send you a week before an email and it says, Hey, do you have a question? Put it here so that I can answer it. Also, you can ask the stuff live. You can just put it in the Q and a, or the chat on the zoom webinar. But if you can't come to it, right, that's fine. You just ask the question beforehand. If I need more clarifiers from you, I have an email address to contact you because part of that form is you put your email, you put your question. So sometimes I'll reach out to people and say, Hey, I want to answer this. This is a great question, but I need to know X, Y, Z. And so some of you, if you give me your email and that situation applies, like it's not easily, you know, If you're interested in that, again, we will make sure to link to that mini course again. Don't be confused by the title. You don't need to be day one. In fact, someone just made the nicest comment ever that, that just entered the course. And they said, you know, I've actually been on meds for nine months, but I'm so glad I found this. And they're, they're, they're so incredibly grateful. And they said, I wish I had found this in the beginning. So again, you can be at many different areas and partly what I really want to tell you is there is no all or nothing in health. So please don't think, well, from the beginning I have to have gotten it perfect or I can't do it. That, no, that's not how this works. You really, you find the right things at the right time. We're always all evolving and changing and maybe that community is really helpful for you. Okay, all right, so I'm going to read the question that I got here and I have so many thoughts on this, but I'm just going to give you a few and we'll go from there. So, This question is this. Hi Dr. Rentea, I have a question that might be, you might be able to address on a future podcast episode. I keep seeing companies and social media influencers market and create weight loss advertisements, support groups and weight loss content, et cetera, to push supplements and quote unquote, plant based peptides with claims that they can do what current GLP 1 medications can specifically with I would love to hear someone in the health slash science field explain and clarify what is real and what is most likely a scam product. Additionally, it seems like there are a lot of companies and influencers preying on people with obesity who are desperate to lose weight and it's quite sad and frustrating to see. So I kid you not, I have tried about 20 times to answer this message because there's just so much that I wanted to say here. So I want to start out. These are not all my thoughts on it. These are just a few. So first of all, it's an incredibly vulnerable population when there's either overweight or obesity, because a lot of the time there's so many layers here to what's going on. So there's the layer of, you know, Perhaps there's fatigue involved, pain involved, metabolic health dysfunction, blood sugars up, cholesterol up, blood pressure, all this kind of stuff. And then on top of that, a lot of people physically want to feel better. So maybe to be able to get around easier, maybe less shortness of breath. Then you throw in there that. We've all been socialized for so many decades here that thin equals better and equals healthy even though we have no knowledge of that being true for everyone. And then you throw on top of that all the fat phobia, the bias, the stigma that you'll encounter in life, how you will make less at your job. I mean, we just go on and on. There's the patriarchy, all of this together. No wonder. There's a group here that's incredibly vulnerable and so I think the first thing that needs to happen is just realize that this is a group that's vulnerable whenever a vulnerability exists, what occurs increased scams, grifters, people trying to do a cash grab and so it's really sad. So knowing this. What I would say is you've got to get your medical team involved and get their opinion on this stuff. So every single week in the clinic, I have someone send me a link and they'll say, Hey, what do you think about this supplement? They'll have found something random. on different places. Okay. They'll say, what do you think of this? And so I'll be able to look at the ingredient list, give them my thoughts. So you need to turn to people that you trust that are helping you with your medical care and get their thoughts. Back in the day when I was in primary care, same thing happened. Someone would say, look, I got advertised this to help with memory care. Do you think it can help? And I would look through it. Maybe I would even ask my neurology colleague, right? And And I would see, number one, is there anything in there that's going to harm them? So for example, if you have high blood pressure, some supplements might have an ingredient in it that raises your blood pressure. So this is something to keep in mind. They might have an ingredient that makes your blood, it makes it more thin than normal. And so this might cause you problems, especially if you're already on a blood thinner, have things occurring. So check in with them. They also are going to be able to tell you when things are just absolutely ludicrous. So I'll give you an example. Recently, a few weeks or weeks or months ago, I forget how long ago, someone sent me, there was a video that was going viral and this clinic was advertising Retta Trutide. At this moment of recording this podcast, Retta Trutide is not on the market. It is in, it is in trials. It's coming down the market in the future. It is not available today. So. What? From where? What, what, what, what were they doing? So that was really scary. Then another person sends me, clinics advertising oral terzepatide. So terzepatide is subcutaneous right now, so name brand would be Menjaro or ZepBound. It's a subcutaneous injection, meaning underneath the skin, there's a, there's a fat layer. That's where you're injecting it into. And there's not an oral equivalent right now. And so when people are saying that, it's like, it doesn't exist, it hasn't been studied. I don't know if you're doing an oral equivalent of that. Is it going to have the same breakdown in the body and do the same things that the subcutaneous version that's studied is? I don't know. So could it be okay? Who knows? But definitely, I can't stand behind it. So Now, again, semaglutide is different. Semaglutide, there's injection Wachovia or Ozempic, or, again, sub Q, or the oral version is, is oral ribelsis. Okay? So, again, you, you might not be as familiar with, okay, what's oral, what's not, what's this, what's not. Talk to your doctor. That's the reason we exist. It's to help you navigate this stuff. It's, it's always funny, too, when people think, well, I have fully researched this, and I talk to them, and I'm like, This is, this is a chat GPT answer, but that's not medically accurate. So again, I would, I would check in with the person that you're working with and we can really help guide you. Does this make sense or not? A lot of these random peptides that are being sold again, there's no evidence to me behind a lot of the claims that are being made. I can't say that it won't help you, but I don't personally know. where some of the evidence is coming from. So again, I'm not here to bash all compounding or all natural things. In fact, many of my patients I use a lot of different supplements in different capacities for different things such as like blood sugar, insulin resistance, there's a lot of different things that we'll use it for, but when you have these random social media influencers that have no medical background, that they're just getting paid by a random company, they might themselves have never even put it in their body. Right. And you really need to know, and we will talk more about this on the podcast. Cause I have been asked by a lot of people to talk more about this. I actually really believe in supplements, but the company. that you buy from, they need to be batch testing. They need to, what's actually in there. Are they getting ingredients from reputable sources? What are they doing? You need to actually know this about the company and it's scary. Otherwise, if you're putting that stuff in your body. So again, it's not to say that there are not some good things out there. The question is wading through it. And I think that this is really challenging. And so I hope that you have someone in your, in your life that hopefully it's a, someone medical that can help guide you on this. Oftentimes, if you are really wanting to go down the supplement route, oftentimes a functional medicine doctor has a lot of expertise in this. And so, you know, talk to your primary care doctor, your endocrinologist, your obesity medicine doctor. Talk to someone and just get a gut check from them on what's going on. Talk to them. Does it make sense? Talk in a visit. What do you think about X, Y, Z? What's their answer? It's going to be obvious to you if they have absolutely no knowledge in this area, okay, maybe we don't take it as seriously, but they might say something that makes you think, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that, right? I didn't know that that was a reality. So kind of coming back to here, when people are advertising these different weight loss things and support groups and this and that, what I will say is this, I do find a lot of groups to be very helpful. When you have a chronic medical condition, it's very socially isolating. You feel very alone. It can lead to a lot of shame and depression. And oftentimes, being in a group can be very helpful. So, this has been really helpful. Next week we're be the next week of the next week of the next week of the next week of the week of the A lot of them are amazing. A lot of them are really great. They're really helping their clients. And then some of them somehow have taken the stance that all GLP 1s are bad and it's all muscle that you lose. Says who, when, where? The studies show that it's not all muscle that's lost. Like 99 percent of my patients are not losing significant muscle. So I'm sitting there and we're, we're using body composition testing. So it's it's challenging. It's like, are you working with someone that is on your team that is willing to be wrong, willing to work with your doctor? I have several patients that work very religiously with a trainer. And it is an amazing relationship. I really feel like it's a, it's, it's an amazing dynamic where we can all work together. That's really the dream, to be honest, when we can all work together. But when you have someone that they want to believe, I don't, I don't want to always bring up Jillian Michaels, but it's the prime example. They always want to believe that my answer is the only answer. How could that be true? There have to be blind spots for all of us, right? Even with me, I'll say, Hey, this is my limitation. Here's my understanding. Here's where it's coming from. These are my thoughts. Ultimately at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want to do, right? I mean, it's my medical license, whether I, Prescribe a prescription medication or not to you, but there are plenty of people doing plenty of things all the time. But I really want you to have that perspective with things so I would work with your medical team I know i've said this like 10 times, but I would see what their thoughts are. I would be very cautious of random links of influencers Random programs where it just, it doesn't pass the gut check. Oh, the other thing is this, cause I've run programs for a long time. I one time had someone joined my program and they said, within the first few days and hear this is triggering to me, you know, whatever else they were saying. And I said, absolutely no problem. You know, here's your refund. And the reality is, I have always felt that my programs are the most inclusive that we really try to be anti diet culture, that That what we do makes logical sense. And here's the evidence and let's do baby steps. And I try to be super soft and gentle with everything. Cause I really believe that's the approach to sustainability. I believe that's the evidence base behind it. What works, but guess what? There are going to be people where even that approach is too much for them. And so realize. You have to find the community and the spaces that resonate with you where you don't feel taken advantage of, where you feel like this is what I need at the moment. The most powerful comment that someone said to me at the end of this past 30 30 round, they said, is it okay if I register again for January? Which, of course, I love that I'm about continuing community. But she said to me, I feel like you are the person that I need more of right now this season in life. And that was so powerful to me because She felt that this space with me, with the people there, this was right for her at this moment in life. And I want you to, to find that because it's gonna be different for everyone. You know, believe it or not, some people actually really love Weight Watchers. They love the groups. They love the counting the points. That feels right to them. Some people in my world want different stuff. A lot of people will love these Peloton groups. I'm not here to decide what's good or bad for you. It needs to not feel triggering. Needs to feel like this is the next thing that's actually meant for me at this moment. You can pivot and change your mind at any point, by the way, but I really think that sometimes seeking the guidance of someone that knows the area a little bit more, hopefully the doctor in your life has some understanding of this stuff. If not, you can seek that person out. But the point is, sometimes we are aware of something that You just asking us that, you said, Oh, I didn't even realize that. This was a very long answer. I just want you to be aware. I think outlandish claims when it's nature's ozempic, it's a no. It's absolutely a no, and, and just run it by someone that's doing this and, and get their thoughts on it. I will say that we talk about a lot of these kinds of things in the mini course that I have. The five mistakes that people make when starting a GLP one, again, and I talk about this often, but. A lot of the time people will say what do you think about this or that and I'll be honest in there. Someone just asked about something with elderberry. It's like elderberry extract. I need to look back. But there's, if I don't know something I'll say hey I'm going to go look that up and next month I'm going to come back and we'll talk about it, right? So a lot of the time I have an answer but every so often someone brings something up where obviously I can't know everything, right? But the thing I really want to say is we talk about a lot of these kind of things in there so people will bring up different scenarios of, what percentage of muscle loss or this or that and. That's a safe space, too, if you feel so inclined that that might be helpful for you. So, anyway, I want to just throw it out there. I understand if you're leery with what people are all promoting all the time because it is a quagmire. And it's not to say that these things aren't great and don't help people. But, finding the right thing can be so hard. So I'm going to go ahead and stop here. I hope that this episode was helpful for you today. I really want to encourage you, if you have not left a review for our podcast, please do that. It really helps to get the word out and we will talk soon. Take care, everybody.