de Johann Hari
In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasn’t alone—some predictions suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 percent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs will lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugs’ defenders, here is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, and an early death.
Still, Hari was wildly conflicted. Can these drugs really be as good as they sound? Are they a magic solution—or a magic trick? Finding the answer to this high-stakes question led him on a journey from Iceland to Minneapolis to Tokyo, and to interview the leading experts in the world on these questions. He found that along with the drug’s massive benefits come twelve significant potential risks.
He also found that these drugs radically challenge what we think we know about shame, willpower, and healing. What do they reveal about the nature of obesity itself? What psychological issues begin to emerge when our eating patterns are suddenly disrupted? Are the drugs a liberation or a further symptom of our deeply dysfunctional relationship with food?
These drugs are about to change our world, for better and for worse. Everybody needs to understand how they work—scientifically, emotionally, and culturally. Magic Pill is an essential guide to the revolution that has already begun, and which one leading expert argues will be as transformative as the invention of the smartphone.
In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasn’t alone—some predictions suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 percent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs will lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugs’ defenders, here is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, and an early death.
Still, Hari was wildly conflicted. Can these drugs really be as good as they sound? Are they a magic solution—or a magic trick? Finding the answer to this high-stakes question led him on a journey from Iceland to Minneapolis to Tokyo, and to interview the leading experts in the world on these questions. He found that along with the drug’s massive benefits come twelve significant potential risks.
He also found that these drugs radically challenge what we think we know about shame, willpower, and healing. What do they reveal about the nature of obesity itself? What psychological issues begin to emerge when our eating patterns are suddenly disrupted? Are the drugs a liberation or a further symptom of our deeply dysfunctional relationship with food?
These drugs are about to change our world, for better and for worse. Everybody needs to understand how they work—scientifically, emotionally, and culturally. Magic Pill is an essential guide to the revolution that has already begun, and which one leading expert argues will be as transformative as the invention of the smartphone.
Critiques-
-
April 15, 2024
Dunkin' peddles enough donuts daily to encircle the planet twice. After Santa Claus, Ronald McDonald is the second best-known character in the world. The typical American adult is now more than 20 pounds heavier than in 1960. Overeating, consuming unhealthy foods, and obesity keep growing. Costly new drugs producing amazing weight loss are now available. But are they safe? Hari interviews many obesity experts in his informative, lively, and careful description of weight-reduction pharmaceuticals, mainly semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus). These medications promote satiety and provoke insulin production. Concerned about his own health and weight, Hari opts to try Ozempic. After only two days, he experiences no hunger but has mild nausea. After six months, he feels emotionally dulled, but his weight loss is dramatic. Possible side effects of these medications include gastrointestinal problems, lightheadedness, and, rarely, an increased chance of thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, and suicidal thoughts. Hari worries about potential, as yet unidentified long-term adverse effects but contrasts those with the risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cancer associated with untreated obesity. Hari also considers society's preference for thinness, body image, the psychology of overeating, and concerns about the online availability of these drugs. A terrific read for anyone curious about or considering using these remarkable medications.COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-
Starred review from May 10, 2024
Journalist Hari's (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How To Think Deeply Again) approach to analyzing concerns about weight and weight-loss drugs in the United States is far more nuanced than popular perspectives from dieticians, fitness experts, and others directly working in spaces focused on obesity, disordered eating, and pharmaceuticals. He analyzes the ways in which the risks may or may not outweigh the benefits of weight loss drugs from a medical perspective, while remaining astutely aware of his own relationship to his body before and after using Ozempic. He discusses the effects of obesity on physical and psychological health and the tendency in cultural discourse to avoid speaking frankly about diets, use of weight-loss drugs, and, critically, access to these drugs, even as the use of Ozempic and its like is in evidence, particularly among celebrities. Critically, Hari also interrogates socially received notions of willpower, discipline, and shame and the United States' dysfunctional relationship with food. VERDICT This is not a simple book about weight loss. Instead, Hari explores obesity-related medical concerns and the risks of drugs such as Ozempic, all the while peppering the book with anecdotes designed to remind readers that the choices they make about weight loss often have far less to do with the number on the scale than they do with the stories they have been told about their bodies.--Emily Bowles
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
June 15, 2024
A current overview of the drugs available for weight loss. Journalist Hari, author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections, begins with a vivid description of his fascination with junk food, along with the oft-told story of the food industry's post-World War II breakthrough in manufacturing calorie-dense, fatty, salty, chemically enhanced edible products, many not found in nature but irresistible to consumers. "The average American adult weighs twenty-three pounds more than in 1960," writes the author, "and more than 70 percent of all Americans are ei-ther overweight or obese." Unfortunately, diets rarely work. Weight-loss drugs, touted for decades, were mostly worthless; the few that worked turned out to be toxic. Following the history lesson, Hari reveals that the wildly popular drugs--Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy--are effective. Six months after starting Ozempic, the author was thinner, fitter, and more confident, but also uneasy. He felt full soon after beginning a meal, food lacked its usual appeal, and he felt nauseous more than before. As he relates, 5% to 10% of users stop because the side effects aren't worth it. However, the drugs have been treating diabetes for 18 years, so the odds of a patient developing a serious side effect seem small. In addition to his personal story, Hari chronicles his travels around the world interviewing users, researchers, physicians, and the drug's developers, pausing for thoughtful essays on why we eat and overeat, why dieting almost never works, and how the world may change when these drugs become affordable after the patent expires in 2032. In a mildly optimistic conclusion, Hari argues that our first priority should be to eliminate the superprocessed quasi-foods that we can't resist--unlikely, of course, so the author offers a digestible survey of the possibilities of pharmaceuticals. A sober exploration of weight-loss pills that actually work.COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
