The Bitter Truth About Weight Loss: A Smarter Alternative to GLP-1 Drugs

Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 0:00

If we think about thousands and thousands of years ago, our ancestors hunting and gathering, if they were to consume a bitter plant, most of the time that was going to be either harmful or toxic to them. And so the GI tract specialized cells, we can get into the nitty gritties if we want, but specialized cells within GI tract called bitter receptors are always looking out for these intensely bitter compounds. And when they're seen, it triggers a massive increase in these satiety hormones, basically telling the body that, Hey, let's, let's hold on.

Let's stop for a second and make sure that what we're eating is not going to actually harm us long-term. And this is the mechanism behind how the bitter hops extract, this americate is able to affect such a massive change coordinating that gut brain access. So your brain actually triggers. I don't need anymore. I don't need to continue eating or Hey, I'm not craving something to begin with. Hi, and welcome to The Balancing Point. I'm Dr. John Needers, and I'm here to make traditional Chinese medicine, functional medicine, and integrative health simple, practical, and fun, so you can restore balance, boost vitality, and enjoy a healthier life every single day.

Hi there, this is Dr. John back with another episode of The Balancing Point. And today I'm pretty buzzed actually. I don't often do guests and I've never had a guest that was an account executive for a major supplement company. And I actually have never talked about a particular product. But I got to tell you, I'm really excited for today's show.

Origin of CaliCurb Clinical and Amerisate Research 1:35

You know, for those of us that practice functional medicine, we're really fortunate that there are a lot of many excellent supplement companies out there. And I buy from several dozen herb and supplement companies. But absolutely, my favorite products are from Orthomolecular Research. Amazing science department, tremendous efficacy of their products. My patients are always happy. And you know, I've been doing this for quite a while. I'm very familiar with supplements for decades, so I don't meet with many reps.

But the fellow that I'm going to introduce you to in a minute, Kyle Jerger. I would pay to meet with Kyle. Now I've said that to him a few times, but it's true. I learned something from him every single time. Now, Kyle comes by once in a while with a new product and only twice in all the years I've known him is he come in like a little kid, right? Just so excited about a product, just couldn't contain himself. And the second time was this past Friday. And he came in to introduce us to a product called, I'm not sure how to pronounce it.

I'm going to call it callocurb. But anyway, I'm very excited to introduce you to Kyle Jerger, the account executive with Ortho Molecular Research. Hi, good morning, Kyle. Good morning. How are you Dr. John? You know, I'm doing great. I'm just, like I said, I'm. I enjoy doing podcasts, but today I'm pretty buzzed because I just love what you told us last week. And so with the CaliCurb. and particularly the Cali-Curb clinical. This is a product that primarily for weight loss, I mean there are other things that does too, but what inspired the development of the Cali-Curb clinical?

I've heard it was born out of some serious clinical science. Can you walk us through the origin story? Absolutely, yeah. This has been something that has been in process for about 15 years. The Ministries of Health in New Zealand have poured over $30 million of research into finding a suitable alternative for what everyone is really excited about, the weight loss injections, the GLP-1s, the GIPs. And when this first started, they screened 900 different plant based extracts, looking for what will actually affect physiological change.

And that due diligence is massive, because it wasn't just a random selection of, hey, let's try this, hey, let's try this,

How Bitter Receptors Affect Hunger and Satiety 4:05

but really looking at, at everything under the sun. And ensuring that when they did find a raw ingredient, that's just the beginning of the story. And all of that research they poured in, they found a New Zealand grown, so it's actually from New Zealand itself, a bitter hops flower extract, which they call Amerisate. And the data on Amerisate, as you start diving into it, that's why I get really, really excited. Cool. So, you know, your biochemistry is well advanced over mine and certainly over the listeners, but can you kind of give us an idea of how CaliCurb actually works on a biological level?

And the big thing right now is a gut brain access. I get a new email or study every day. So can you kind of give us a hint about what's going on there? Yeah, I think the understanding of how peptides work in the body and how hunger is controlled is not quite really well understood by a lot of people. And so really a 30,000 foot view how this is working is when we eat food, our body because our stomach stretches, because we start digesting, starts to process different signals. And these signals, these peptides, signal from our gut to our brain saying, hey, we are full, we are eating, we don't need any more.

And this is really where calicurb comes in, where this bitter hops extract is incredibly, incredibly bitter. And if we think about thousands and thousands of years ago, our ancestors hunting and gathering, if they were to consume a bitter plant, most of the time that was going to be either harmful or toxic to them. And so the GI tract specialized cells, we can get into the nitty gritties if we want, but specialized cells within GI tract called bitter receptors are always looking out for these intensely bitter compounds.

And when they're seen, it triggers a massive increase in these satiety hormones, basically telling the body that, Hey, let's, let's hold on. Let's stop for a second and make sure that what we're eating is not going to actually harm us long-term. And this is the mechanism behind how the bitter hops extract, this americate is able to affect such a massive change coordinating that gut brain access. So your brain actually triggers. I don't need anymore. I don't need to continue eating or Hey, I'm not craving something to begin with.

Wow, that's a great and simple explanation. Obviously, the biochemistry, you could talk for a week, but I think that gets the point across that these bitter receptors and, you know, for decades, I've been telling people to start their meals or pre meals with bitter, an arugula salad with some Swedish bitters or something. And now to have that available in a much stronger level, in a pill is pretty awesome. You know, I stopped doing weight loss programs many years ago because to be effective, well, there weren't any really superb supplements in my mind.

There were a couple of things that were slightly helpful, but mostly it required a ton of coaching. And so with these studies that you've been looking at, did participants need to change their diet and the exercise routine or did the results happen independent of that? This is what's really cool about these trials. A lot of supplements in the weight loss industry are focused on, hey, if you also eat less and you also exercise and you also are living healthy,

Clinical Trial Results and Comparison to GLP-1 Drugs 7:35

you will lose weight. This trial was looking at a very short, short window, looking at 24 hour water fast. And in this time, patients didn't do any type of lifestyle change. They did 24 hours of water fasting. And at two time points during this trial, they took a capsule of the 250 milligram of the Calicurb clinical. And this is what yielded these superb, superb outcomes. Wow. That's pretty awesome. And so how does actually Calicurb, I mean, this is the big question, right? $100 million question is, I mean, we know the GLP-1 drugs are big sellers.

We also know, I mean, I see clinically that there are some problems. You know, some people, they work wonderfully. Some people, they don't actually work. I say 10%, 15% of my patients. But then about another 10% have some really negative side effects, you know, vomiting, a couple of hospitalizations. Looking at the supplement, how does it actually stack up against, say, the GLP-1 drugs? Yep. So that's going to be a two-part question. And the research that was done into the Amerisate, the Calicurb clinical compound, answers both of these questions.

So just to take one step back, when somebody gets the ozempics of agovies or trisapatides, what they're getting is they're getting a GOP one or GIP agonist, you're essentially injecting yourself with thousand fold greater concentrations than we typically biologically produce. To put that into context, if we eat a full meal, our bodies on average get about 300% increase in GLP-1 production. And so this is why when we take these injections, we feel very full. And right when the injections happen, oftentimes some of these side effects can occur for some of these sensitive individuals.

Calicurb, on the other hand, is going to be about a 600% increase in our GLP-1 production. And so looking at that in correspondence with a full meal, If we eat a full meal alongside Calicurb, we're going to be twice as full as if we only had the meal to begin with. Now, even more important than that, because a thousand fold increase in GLP-1 with these injections versus 600% sounds in a different world. But what was nice about these clinical trials is during these 24 hour water fasts, where somebody was taking the Calicurb clinical.

They not only looked at how hungry people were, how much cravings they had, what type of thoughts of food were going through their minds, but at the end of that 24 hours, these participants were given an eat until full meal. So throughout those 24 hours, no food, just the calicurb and water. At the end of those 24 hours, people were given a meal and said, eat as much as you want. The results of that showed people on the calla curve versus the placebo ate about 18 to 20% less calories in that eat until full meal.

Now, if we compare this because wagovi the GLP-1 drug has a study looking at a very similar eat until full situation where patients on Wigovie versus patients without Wigovie were given an eat until full meal. Those patients had about a 24% reduction in calorie content. So not quite as powerful, but that's what you would expect from a plant-based support. Awesome. Now, the question that comes up in my mind is I have a lot of patients who may want to switch over from their GLP-1 drug to using Calicurb, and could they kind of phase it in?

Could they take them both at the same time? Definitely. They're going to be hitting on, on different aspects. And one thing I always hear when I'm in the field talking with physicians is the idea that somebody starts out low and slow.

Using CaliCurb Alongside Weight Loss Treatment 11:30

Their goal is to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds, whatever that looks like. And over one month, two months, three months, they get closer to their goal, but eventually they start to plateau. And this is going to be a big, big issue because the only option for physicians is always to increase the amount. that GLP drug and this is pricey right this is this is this is a good chunk of change but also the side effects that you're talking about worsen as that dose gets higher and higher and so this can be something that as an adjunct therapy if somebody is on a GLP one or a GIP medication can add this in with the goals of either reducing that GLP one drug or not always having to increase it Wow, that's fabulous.

What about people, you know, a lot of people have struggled with willpower, kind of yo-yo diets. You know, what do you see with this, the benefits of it? I mean, that's a personal question for me because in college, I was the one that bought the weight loss supplements off of the internet because I was trying to lose a pound or two quickly. And of course, didn't work. And this is something that maybe you lose a few pounds to initially, then you jump right back up because life gets in the way. What calic herb is doing what this, what this bitter extract is doing is it's ensuring that these thoughts of food, these cravings, this drive for hunger just simply is.

muted and silenced. I've been taking it now for about a week and I could tell honestly that when I eat a meal or when I drink water, you get that fullness in the upper part of your stomach. That's not saying I can't possibly eat another bite whatsoever, but it doesn't preclude you to want to always go after something else. So for people that are struggling bouncing back and forth, this is really a nice to support, to be able to utilize, to eliminate a lot of these negative thoughts, these thoughts of food that can interrupt your progress.

Yeah. And, you know, we have done with Acupuncture a lot of support for different cravings for drugs, for cigarettes, et cetera. And we find if we can get people down, that craving down, and I tell people, look, if you're not committed, it's not going to work, right? You've got to take the product, right? Or in our case, we do acupuncture. And I feel if we can reduce cravings 20, 25%, that's a huge difference. That's enough to take the edge off so that people can, you know, really get in and do the product.

So, you know, over the years, like you said, you've tried products, I've tried products, you know, I bounced around it because, you know, I try everything that comes in. But what would you have to say about people who've been kind of burned by supplements in the past?

Cravings, Patient Experience, and Closing Remarks 14:20

Yeah, that's a great question because everyone has their own personal story. And for those patients that are a little bit wary of saying, hey, this sounds too good to be true. This sounds almost like a cheat code. It's really basing off the success that these GLP-1 medications have. And since these clinical trials were done on hundreds of patients in a very similar spectrum to these GLP-1 drugs, basing those results and seeing those outcomes, That's really what I would, what I would encourage patients to look at more is try it for a month because within the first month, this is not something you need to be on for multiple months to see an effect.

This happens the first day that you take it. Once we start activating these bitter receptors, our body will be producing these higher levels of these satiety hormones and the effect will be noticed immediately. Well, that's, that's really exciting. I mean, and to me, of course, one of the things that's very exciting is it's an herbal product, right? And our bodies will recognize it. So this is really exciting. So Kyle, I want to thank you. It's been awesome having you on here. I have so many patients that are going to benefit from this, not just patients.

You know, when you were here the other day talking about this, a couple of my staff members were listening. They're starting right away. So, yeah. So we like to test things out. So anyway, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day and talking to everybody. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. All right. You take care. Thank you for joining me on The Balancing Point. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Feeling out of balance?

Most approaches just manage symptoms. Here we get to the root. So real healing, real clarity and balance can begin. Visit AlamedaAcupuncture.com. That's AlamedaAcupuncture.com to learn more, explore our supplements or book a call. We'd love to hear from you.