 Hello everyone, this is Dr. Ahmed Ergin. I'm an endocrinologist and Adobe's education specialist. Today I am going to talk to you about the best weight loss medications. Now a lot of you have struggled going through diets, this diet, that diet, keto diet, Mediterranean diet, but then eventually most diets fail. Why? Because you know we are not created to follow a diet, we are created to follow a normal natural eating pattern. Unfortunately we do not eat natural anymore and then we kind of you know in a western society we just eat for social in social gatherings, we just eat out of boredom, food is available everywhere, it just is hard to lose weight and some of you will like amen to that, some of you will be like oh no yeah I have a great willpower, I can't lose weight anytime. Well then that video is not for you so you can close and move into my other videos that talks about the diet, but if you are the one who are looking for a weight loss medication I will tell my honest opinion right now. Coming up. All right guys so basically I'm going to tell you about what I would love for myself for weight loss. If I want to lose weight what would I use? What would Dr. Ergen use for himself or for his family for weight loss? And I have and I have used for myself and for my family as well and this is totally off-label although there is an on-label, there's a label drug for that as well, but you some of you will know this. Victosa for example, Osempic, Trilocidine, Biorhein, Bayetta, a lot of patients who use these diabetic drugs, these diabetic medications have lost weight. Some of them lost so much weight in my clinic they'll come and say that can we stop this medication because I don't want to lose weight anymore and you don't really hear that statement from a lot of other weight loss drugs to be honest with you and I get these inquiries they're like oh well my diabetes is totally in remission, my A1c is 5.3, I have lost 60 pounds and I look too skinny can I change this medication? And I'm like that's a weird question because normally people always ask for more weight loss medications but to be honest with you these medications are great so my favorite and actually the best result that I get with the weight loss drugs in that class we call them GLP1 class for diabetics and also for non-diabetics by the way you know it works the weight loss feature works for diabetics and non-diabetics the problem with the non-diabetics is that the insurances typically do not cover the drugs as easy for weight loss than for diabetes if they have diabetes coverage is a lot easier if you don't have diabetes then it's a little bit harder but there are ways around it and I'll tell you in a minute so I didn't say about the rebalsis right so rebalsis is also another one that just came as a pill so most of these agents were like injections and the newest addition to the class is rebalsis which is same thing as ozempic in the injection form but it's in the pill form which makes it a little bit easier to deal with for some people but the bottom line is ozempic for example is once a week injection to lose it the same way victoza is a once a day injection and these are basically gastrointestinal hormones that slows down your stomach so your stomach slows down your appetite in your brain directly goes down and suddenly you feel full way faster than you would otherwise be feel you know feel full so that's one of the main future but also you don't really crave for foods anymore you don't really crave for all the things that you have been craving all day long and fasting is not a huge problem anymore on these drugs now you're gonna be like oh well these are diabetic drugs diabetics has to eat otherwise your blood sugar goes down but that's not true for this class of drugs basically when you're in a glp1 unless you're on a sulfonyluria or insulin glp1 by itself does not really drop your blood sugars it can normalize your blood sugar it can bring your blood sugar down to 80 and between 80 and 120 all the time and the good thing is you can still eat the things that you like to eat but you're not going to crave too much for them let's say you know instead of just quitting on the bread and rice and pasta totally now you're going to be able to be satisfied with a very little rice or very little pasta you know a very little bread will still satisfy you and you're not going to feel like you're totally deprived of all the goodness in your life so that's why i use these medications very heavily and believe or not you know there's a lot of this negative you know things in the in the media sometimes or actually in the commercials people see but these are legalities like they talk about like this pancreatic cancer medullary thyroid cancer i have been doing this for 10 years i've not seen a single patient who had pancreatic cancer from these drugs and i don't know i probably prescribed tens of thousands of it so it has been seen in rats not in human beings if you have a family history of pancreatic cancer or medullary thyroid cancer like they say on the commercials you know we take this extra precaution i'm like no some people beg for it they'll come and say hey you know i have this cancer pancreatic cancer in my family but i i like i read about this drug and i want to be on it i want to always wait i'm like you know what i'm sorry i'm sorry because it's a legality issue i don't think it's gonna cause pancreatic cancer on you but isn't the label the other family history i'm not gonna give it to you you know i have a license to protect you know so but other than that in my opinion i give it to my family and my friends comfortably of course my patients and i think they are the most evolutionary class because it avoids you going to insulin if you're on insulin it helps you to come off the insulin if you're not on insulin or any other agent it helps you to lose weight and still be able to be on a reasonable diet that is low carb but not necessarily no carb and still have a peaceful you know normal life now if you look at these youtube videos you will see these youtube doctors or chiropractors or some other people who have no medical background they'll just tell you just eat no carbs and they have hundreds of videos saying the same thing eat no carbs so i'm like why would people watch them to just listen to them saying eat no carbs because it doesn't make any sense people eat carbs okay you know there are different ways of doing things so i think these drugs help diabetic patients drastically now if you don't have diabetes it will still help you lose weight now how do you get your hands on on these drugs now if you have a wonderful insurance that doesn't question if you're diabetic or non diabetic your doctor prescribes it you get it there are a lot of insurance like that so if you're if you have one of those great because doctors can prescribe off label medication so when i say off label let's say you know we have a lot of things we use like for example i'm going to use you know a medication that is used for blood pressure but i may use it for something else for kidney protection you know i may use a medication that is used for prostate i may use it for hair loss so stuff like that that we do because we know it works or we know it will work as a doctor but it's not been studied it's not been sent to fda for approval so when fda did not approve it yet or when there are not enough studies to make it fda eligible then we call this off label it off label does not mean that it's harmful for you that's all so as long as your physician is looking for your best interest and thinks that that medication may be helpful for you and your insurance is reasonable to get that medication to you they can get it now sometimes you know if your insurance is asking prior authorization and if you have done don't have diabetes don't even don't even try that they're gonna outright reject it now when it comes to how other ways you can get your hands on there is a medication called rubelsus it came from the market recently similar to ozampic it's a pill and it works as like a voucher so so far i have prescribed rubelsus to so many people and if they have a commercial plan not the Medicare or Medicaid if they have a commercial plan it goes through all the time as long as they use the voucher they have to go to website they have to text a number you just go to their website rubelsus.com and you know in there you can it says you know how to get help or whatever so text that number you text help and they text you some things and and they finally send you a voucher and then boom and you take it to the pharmacist the pharmacist runs it as a secondary insurance or as a voucher um and then suddenly you get your medication for ten dollars a month and it helps with the weight loss now of course you your physician has to be familiar with the medication you have to make sure that you are adjusting your dose slowly and according to your response the the adjustment is typically once a month but in my opinion as i said the ozempic, trilocity, rubelsus, victosa are best medications for weight loss now succenda is another medication so succenda is a drug that is primarily approved by the FDA for weight loss now what is succenda it is a drug that is same thing as victosa it's just a higher dose and i believe trilocity is doing studies right now to try to have trilocity become a weight loss drug you know FDA approved or on label instead of off label but these are the things that that that will help you the succenda succenda definitely uh can be approved if you have an employer coverage for for example some employers will say you know what i care about my employees health and wellness and i'm gonna you know cover this drug even if your insurance doesn't cover it or your employer insurance may have that specific benefit because like you may have a united health care or blue cross but but your employer plan may have a different benefit than a regular blue cross or regular united health care so you can run it by your employer if it is an employer benefit then definitely you can get your hands on succenda and that is another name for victosa that is used for basically for weight loss again sb under physician supervision physician prescription is required now what else out there so we also have this phentermine right so it's a generic it's it's adipax you know there are a lot of doctors will just run a weight loss clinic and all day long they're going to prescribe phentermine now phentermine or adipax now what's the problem with the phentermine or adipax they're controlled substances you know you have to be monitored it can affect your heart rate it can give you a lot of side effects but also it has to be stopped after you know after three months or so because it is what the law says in most states you cannot just keep writing a prescription for life you know that is controlled because it is not necessarily tried in studies to prove that it's safe still to continue with that medication on the other hand there's a medication called kusemia and that medication basically has been studied and has phentermine in it as well as topomox now they have this phentermine and topomox in a long acting form and it is a little bit more effective than phentermine alone and it can be used in the long term yes it is still controlled but it can definitely be used in the long term and yet it's definitely more expensive very limited the insurance was covered typically the price range is around $100 to $130 you can shop around but you will need a prescription and more than likely you will need to report to doctor's office because it's a controlled substances in most places you will need to be monitored for your heart rate and so forth so other than that there are some other drugs out there but really you know your kusemia your phentermine your other oral appeal options the other medications are not that effective recently there was something called belvic which was recalled from the market so that's out you don't really have a lot of options at this moment other than the phentermine and kusemia. Velbutrin sometimes or bupropion also has been used for weight loss but the efficacy is not that great but you know it's an antidepressant drug you know a lot of antidepressant drugs will cause weight gain but velbutrin or bupropion will cause a little bit of a weight loss so that is a plus but the bottom line again my favorite is the glp1 class yes they can give you a little nausea maybe a little gastrointestinal problems in the beginning but they fade away and in my opinion they will change your cholesterol they will improve your insulin resistance they will give you a bunch of weight loss and that is the best weight loss strategy with the minimal side effects in my opinion again this is a totally non-sponsored video it's my honest opinion what i think what i do in my practice and i hope that video was useful to you guys please give a thumbs up and we'll see you in the next video