Diet, Drugs and Dopamine

There’s much talk at the moment about diet drugs, something dealt with in a new book by David Kessler, former Dean of two US medical schools as well as Chief Scientific Officer to the White House during the Covid-19 pandemic and the man who ran the US Food and Drug Administration for many years.

The author knows whereof he speaks. Kessler not only has the scientific chops to speak on the subject, but the lived experience too, having recently used weight-loss drugs (for which he urges caution) to shed the over 40lbs he gained through a lifetime of high-stress work linked to over-eating.

And what he concludes is that it’s not laziness or lack of self-control that causes the problem, but a food industry scientifically engineering its products to create addiction. These processed foods, Kessler argues, hijack our brain’s reward system, altering the neurohormones that regulate blood sugar, creating highs and lows and compulsive cravings.

The answer to all this is pretty obvious and starts as soon as we next go shopping. So why not use Live Well with Pain’s new cookbook to plan some healthy and nutritious meals and make that the basis of your shopping list?