Protect Your Gut Mucosal Barrier for Immune Health and Vitality

Welcome everyone to another edition of the Wellness Talk Podcast. I'm George Battista, your host and your wellness advocate. Wellness Talk is the show that goes over the latest in health, healing, nutrition, and fitness. Always doing our best every single week to try to share with you some great health information, including what we're gonna start with today. Brand new study on this is out of University of Georgia. This is high levels of omega-3, omega-6 may protect against cancer. Now we know the omegas are extremely important. They're called the essential fatty acids. I'm always screaming about this on this show all the time, right? Making sure we're getting enough of the omega-3s because it's important for various reasons including bringing down inflammation. This is part of what your cells are made of, this is the fat that you need, all that type of stuff. There's no shortage of information regarding omega-3s. Now, brand new information, they're studying omega-3s and omega-6s regarding cancer. Big study on this, so we'll dive into that and show you why you should be taking those things every single day. Then from there, this is out of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Brand new information, father's gut microbes affect the next generation. Now this was a mouse model, but it's something that you can extrapolate, right? This is one of those things, right? When you have a mouse model, they try to humanize the mice as much as possible and they try to extrapolate it what could happen with humans. So what they did was they studied the parents microbiome and they wanted to see how that microbiome, if it was distorted and they distorted it on purpose, how it would affect the offspring. We're gonna dive into that because it's very telling. And then you can kind of look at it in terms of humans. Again, I've always talked about if you're looking to have a child, you know, both men and women, you should be making sure that your gut's clean, making sure that you have enough of the nutrition because epigenetically it can affect your offspring. So we're gonna dive into the whole genetic thing and the epigenetic part of it and why it's important. Very, very good information, very good study on that. Then from there, from wellness resources, we're gonna go into the gut. And this is protect your gut mucosal barrier for immune health and vitality. Now, I've been talking about the gut for a while now, especially in the last couple of weeks. If you saw my interview with Martha Carlin, which was last week, definitely, if you didn't see that, definitely check that out because, again, she's an expert on the microbiome. She talked about its relationship between, you know, an unhealthy microbiome and Parkinson's, but we also talked about just gut health. It's, you know, itself and why it's so important. And she really went into the science on that. So if you didn't see that, make sure you check that out. But on this one, we're gonna talk about the mucosal barrier of the gut. Why is the mucosal barrier so important for immune health and just overall health and vitality, and what can affect it, and how you can reverse that, and what are the things that you can take to get that back into shape. So it's very important, especially for immune defense. So we're gonna talk about, you know, gut health and how that works as well. So again, good information on that, so stay tuned for that. And then we're going to give you an update on our old buddy, these semaglutides or ozempic, and those weight loss drugs, or really what they are, diabetes drugs now being used for weight loss. They're back in the news again, information on it, and the lawsuits now are piling up. And I've got a couple of articles on the site out there, not good news at all. There's been many deaths actually linked to these drugs, as well as muscle wasting. So many things are coming out on this, and I've been highlighting this on many shows, and I'm going to continue to highlight this, because I think it's just a travesty what they're doing with these medications. The FDA is not even looking at this, but the lawsuits are piling up. So I'm going to play a clip on that, and I'll kind of cite the articles that I put on the website. So things, again, you should look out for, if you know anybody who's on these medications, or if you're looking to, you know, yourself to be on these medications, what you should look out for, and things you should know before you make that decision. That's what we try to give you. We try to give you all the information, so you can make informed decisions when you do that. So a lot of information for you. JAMPAC show, of course, as always, go to GeorgeBatista.com. Check out all the articles. They're all there, and they're referenced, so you guys can know where the articles came from. And, you know, make sure you like, share, and subscribe, as always, because that's how we get the word out. You know, make this show a global show. It is a global show, really, right? Because the show is out there. I get a lot of emails. I get a lot of comments from people all around the world, how they are enjoying the show, and how the show is growing. So thank you to those of you who enjoy, who like, share, and subscribe, and get the word out. Get the word out. It just makes us grow, helps us grow every single day. All right, guys, so before we start, of course, we want to give some love to some of our friends out there, and one of the friends we have is ProtonMail. ProtonMail, you guys know I've been using ProtonMail for many, many years now. I conduct all my business using ProtonMail, so let's talk about them. And they're one of the best email providers out there, so if you're looking for an easy-to-use alternative to big tech services and their surveillance business models, check out ProtonMail. Most popular email providers scan the content of your emails and use your email address to create a detailed profile on you and profit from your data, but Proton doesn't do that. Nope, Proton believes your data belongs to you. ProtonMail's end-to-end encryption and zero-access encryption ensures only you can see your emails. Not even Proton can view the content of your emails and attachments. ProtonMail is protected by multiple layers of security and trusted by journalists, security experts, and millions of people around the world. Again, I use ProtonMail to conduct all my business online, and it's the only one I can think of using because I want to make sure that my privacy is covered. I want to make sure all the business I do is private, that I can see it, and I don't want to be giving my information out to other people. I don't want to be giving my data out to other people. So if you're concerned about your privacy, check out ProtonMail. Go to ProtonMail.GeorgeBatista.com. Again, it's ProtonMail.GeorgeBatista.com. If you are truly concerned about your privacy, check out ProtonMail today. All right guys, let's get started on the topics for this week. All right, first, from the University of Georgia, we're going to talk about omega-3s and why they're so important. Brand new study on this. High levels of omega-3, omega-6 may protect against cancer. Now these, you know, omega-3s have been studied for a long time, right, regarding inflammation, regarding all different types of issues with the heart, with the brain, all this type of stuff. But they haven't done a lot of studies on cancer. Well, this is coming out now, brand new, so let's dive into it. The study relied on data from more than 250,000 people and found that the higher levels of omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids were associated with a lower risk of developing cancer. Now they say these findings suggest that the average person should focus on getting more of these fatty acids in their diet. I've been saying this forever, right, you guys listen to this show. They say participants with higher levels of omega-3s had lower rates of colon, stomach, and lung cancer in addition to lower rates of other digestive tract cancers. Higher omega-6 levels led to lower rates of 14 different cancers including brain, melanoma, bladder, and more. Now the study revealed on data or relied on data from a United Kingdom-based study of over 250,000 people who were followed for more than a decade. Of those participants, almost 30,000 developed some form of cancer during the study period. So again, great study on this. I'm hoping that they do more studies like this regarding cancer because we know that omegas are extremely important, especially in the inflammation process, right? What do we know? We know that omegas are absolutely essential for the heart, for the brain, and just in terms of fat, right? In terms of your cell walls, right? They're made of fat. They're made of omega in terms of the fat in your brain, in terms of communication, in terms of prostaglandins, right? And different types of prostaglandins that are made in your body to decrease inflammation. All this is great. You know, fish oil also has a little bit of a blood thinning effect when you look at the omega-6 properties as well, okay? But, you know, the big key to it here, and a lot of people are gonna look at this and say, well, okay, but you're saying omega-6s are also important. Yes, they are. They are important. The body also does need a certain amount of omega-6. The problem is that it's the ratio. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3s is the big problem because omega-6s are in everything, especially in the seed oils, right? So the ratios of omega-6s to omega-3s is off the charts. You're looking at like a 10 to 1, 15 to 1 ratio in most people's diets. So you're not going to necessarily be able to bring down your omega-6s to a point where it's just non-existent. It's very difficult, almost impossible to do that. But what you can do is bring up your omega-3s so you can have a balance. When you have more of a balance of omega-3s to omega-6s, then you're at less risk for all different types of illnesses, okay? That's just the way it is. Especially, that's a lot, that's what this, you know, a lot of the studies are saying. So you want to do everything you can to increase the amount of omega-3s in your diet. What are the great ways to do that, right? Obviously, you want to eat some good fatty fish at least two to three times a week if you can, right? Salmon, especially the wild-caught salmon. That's what I do. I eat a lot of wild-caught salmon during the week. I love it. Salmon is one of my favorite things. But, you know, mackerel, you know, those types of fish are great, okay? Now, if you don't want to do that, a lot of people don't want to do that, then you want to have a good omega-3 supplement, okay? A good fish oil supplement. You can do krill oil, you can do straight fish oil. Now, I would suggest the triglyceride form of fish oil because that tends to be one that's the best absorbed and it tends to be the one that, you know, that just works well in your body, okay? I would steer away from the stuff that you see on TV. You want to get it from a very, very good source. It's very important, okay? Because a lot of those sources have a lot of contaminants in it. You don't want to even deal with that. You want good, pure fish oil that is in the triglyceride form, in my opinion. So, you know, definitely good to have that, but at least here you're seeing that now they're starting to see an association with the omega-3s and cancer reduction. Now, I want to see more of this because they really don't explain in this article what the mechanisms of action. They're just saying, okay, you know, there's a correlation here, but I hope that they can get into more of the mechanisms of action. That's really what I want to see in this, but this is good promising information. Again, fish oil is not a one-size-fits-all, but standard recommendations tend to be at least a thousand milligrams, you know, of EPA and DHA and, you know, start there and hopefully, you know, that can help you, but at least at the end of the day you still want to get your omega-3s in no matter what. So, it's very important. Good study on this and hopefully we see more studies that talk about this. Stay tuned. All right, so now we're going to pivot from omega-3s to the gut. Okay, so again, brand new information on this and again, this was a mouse model. This is father's gut microbes affect the next generation and this is from the source from European Molecular Biology Laboratory. So, let's discuss this. So, we know again how important the gut is to regulate all different types of things including the immune system and the endocrine systems and they're still finding out more information about what the gut does. Now, what they set out to find out in this study is whether an altered microbiome in the father or the parent or specifically in this case the father could influence the fitness of the offspring. Now, this was a mouse model, okay, so kind of take it for what it's worth, but again, like they do in these a lot of these studies they extrapolate that, right? So, let's take a look at this. So, the researchers altered the composition of gut microbes in male mice by treating them with common antibiotics that do not enter the bloodstream. This induced a condition called dysbiosis where the microbial ecosystem in the gut becomes unbalanced. A lot of people have that by the way. So, the scientists then analyzed changes in the composition of important testicular metabolites. They found that in male mice dysbiosis affects the physiology of the testes as well as the metabolite composition and hormonal signaling. At least part of this effect was mediated by changes in the levels of the key hormone leptin, which we talk about on this show all the time, the leptin in the blood and the testes of males with induced dysbiosis. These observations suggest that in mammals a gut germline axis exists as an important connection between the gut, its microbiota, and the germline, okay? So, keep that in mind, the gut germline there. Now, to understand the relevance of this gut germline axis to traits inherited by offspring, the scientists mated either untreated or dysbiotic males with untreated females. Then, mouse pups seared by dysbiotic fathers, or that basically were raised by dysbiotic fathers, showed significantly lower birth weights and an increased rate of postnatal mortality. So, automatically they see the difference. They see lower birth weights in these pups and they see an increased rate of postnatal mortality. That's key. Next, importantly this effect is reversible. Once antibiotics are withdrawn, paternal microbiota recover. When mice with recovered microbiota were mated with untreated females, their offspring were born with normal birth weight and developed normally as well. Isn't that interesting? So, what does this tell us? This tells us that we have the genetic component and then we have the epigenetic component, right? So, we hear all the time about the genetic component, especially in mainstream public health and these types of things. We hear that something is genetic, there's nothing you can do about it. We still hear that to this day. But, when we look at this, when you altered the gut of the father, which is an environmental thing, you literally altered the environment of the gut, then their offspring also had a higher propensity for low mortality, low weight, all these types of things, right? When you fixed that portion, then the mouse came out normal and they were fine. So, this tells you that really epigenetics is the key here. Epigenetics is the key. Now, we all have, we all have a, you know, genetic weaknesses, right? A lot, you know, most people have some kind of genetic weaknesses. It could be for all, you know, many different reasons. But, a lot of it has to do with the environment. I would say a good majority has to do with the environment. Epigenetics is the big thing and we're seeing that here. And, this goes back to what I've talked about again, many, many times on the program, right? The environment that you create before you have offspring is going to make a huge difference. I always suggest, you know, and again, this is what we did when my wife and I, before we had our daughter, right? We want to do everything that we could to create the environment for my daughter could, you know, could be born and be born with no major issues, right? So, you know, it's, it's everything you can do possible. So, if your microbiome, and again, kind of extrapolating this to humans, really, if your microbiome is out of balance, and I'm talking about men and women, okay? And obviously, they, they looked at the, the male mice here, but I'm, I'm saying for both, if your microbiome is out of whack, I would always suggest to try to fix that before you're going to have your offspring, if you're looking to have kids, okay? Because you don't want to pass those things down, because number one, obviously, especially for the women in the audience here, if, you know, obviously your, your nutrition is going to be shared by you and your child, but you don't want to be passing along deficiency, because when you pass along deficiency, that's a, you're looking at a higher rate of being born with all different types of problems. Deficiency is a big deal here. And if you have dysbiosis, automatically, what happens? Your gut is out of balance. So, when you take in nutrition, you're not going to be able to metabolize that nutrition properly. Therefore, that's going to affect your metabolism. Therefore, if you're going to have offspring, and that continues down the line, that can affect your offspring's metabolism, right? That can affect your offspring, because they, there can be a higher propensity for deficiency. It's not that, you know, I mean, it's not that crazy of a thing, right? So, you know, this is why doctors put, you know, expected moms on prenatal vitamins. This is a good idea. You're sharing nutrition. You want to make sure you've got enough nutrition for both the baby and the mom. Good idea. Okay. But you want to create the environment. And I always talk about this, and I talked about this a couple of podcasts ago, about creating the environment. It's all about creating the environment internally, because then that is going to, that is going to create the environment eventually externally. And that also includes with the offspring. So, this is a good piece here. I think this is great information on this. Again, it's a mouse model, but I think you can really, you know, there's no reason to believe that that wouldn't happen, or that that wouldn't be the case for people. You know, I think it's absolutely the case for people. So create the environment to make sure that your offspring grow and are able to thrive with the proper nutrition and the good environment that they need. And their guts are in good shape. Okay. Because we know that right now, this biosis is running rampant around the world. We have young kids now that are born with all different types of issues. Antibiotics are playing a key role here. And this is what they did with this model, right? They, they actually created the environment of this biosis with antibiotics. Well, that's what's happening with kids now. That's what happened with me. I was on antibiotics every single year for my bronchitis and my coals and all these types of things that ended up happening through my gut completely out of whack. And it took me years to get that back. Now again, obviously antibiotics have their use, but when you use those antibiotics, you have to make sure that you create the balance and you have to give the balance back to the gut, which means probiotics, which means enzymes, which means again, creating the environment. So good piece on this. Again, I hope they can, you know, they can do something with regard with people now on this, but at least this is, you know, a good sign and something you should make sure that you keep in the back of your mind in terms of having offspring. All right. So we're going to continue with our discussion on the gut and we're going to dive a little bit deeper now, and this is a piece from wellness resources. This is protect your gut mucosal barrier for immune health and vitality. Okay. So let's talk about the mucosal barrier. First of all, you have a mucosal barrier in many different areas of your body. Okay. You have it in your gut, you have the nasal passage, you have it in your lungs. So that mucosal barrier is extremely important, especially with host defense. Okay. But let's specifically talk about the gut right now. So, okay. So in the small and large intestine, this barrier, this mucosal barrier, what does it do? Its main job is to prevent from toxins and germs from getting into the bloodstream that are not supposed to be there, but it also helps with the absorption of food particles and make sure that you are basically, you know, absorbing the nutrition that you need. So it's kind of like the interface between the gut microbiome itself, food substances, toxins in the environment, and the rest of it. Okay. That's basically what it is. Okay. Now within these, um, within this mucosal barrier, you have a single layer of tissue called the epithelial layer. Okay. And this is important. This is a very important component because within this epithelial layer, you have these cells that are kind of like doors and they're basically what they are called basically tight junction. And these doors selectively open and close in response to the ingestion of food and beverages and basically the movement of metabolic waste. Okay. So very important. Now these tight junctions are signaled many times by the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system. Okay. So when you have things like inflammatory markers, markers, mass cell activation, histamine activation, and other immune modulatory compounds, they can affect the opening and closing of these tight junctions. Very important. Why is that a big deal? Because if you're dealing with stress, if you're dealing with, you know, physical, chemical, or emotional stress, you're dealing with gut dysbiosis, you know, Candida viruses, bacteria, all this types of stuff, all that can lead to problems and prolonged opening of these tight junctions. Okay. The stress responses, including with, you know, tumor necrosis factor, alpha histamine production, mass cell activation, all these cytokines and other compounds can compromise these junctions and actually start to break them down. When they start to break them down, they become loose. And this is a big deal because what happens here is because you start, when they start to become loose, you can start to have things pass through them that are not supposed to get through them. Again, including germs, including bacteria, undigested proteins, all different types of things. Also, what are other things that can affect it? Ultra processed foods that create inflammation, alcohol use, excessive consumption of gluten, especially if you have an intolerance to gluten, medications, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, aspirin, steroids, antibiotics, all that type of stuff can all affect this. And again, can break down these tight junctions. Now, what happens if these junctions get broken down? You start to get this undigested protein, these undigested toxins into the bloodstream. They start to set up shop in different areas of your body. And what can that create? That can create autoimmune issues that can create inflammation in all different types of joints. You can have more likelihood of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, all these other types of things. Inflammatory markers, you start to get different types of things that start to come out in the skin. That can be, that can all be from the loosening of these tight junctions and leaky gut. Extremely important stuff. Okay. Now all these, these mucosal barrier breakdowns puts a strain on your body and can put a strain on your immune system. So you can actually start to feel, you know, you start to become more susceptible to colds and flus, especially because you got to remember that a big part of, you know, the most of your immune system is in your gut in general. Okay. So also tight junctions again, are also found in other parts of your body. Again, the respiratory tract, your skin, your kidneys you know, your blood brain barrier, your blood vessels and your lungs. You also have a gut lung barrier connection. So the cutting edge research has shown a strong connection between gut barrier health and lung health. For example, the lung gut axis and various studies show prolonged changes in the gut barrier integrity and microbiome occurs with upper respiratory challenges and vice versa. So it's not only just the, the gut brain connection, which I talk a lot about a lot, but it's also the gut lung connection. Again, this is where, this is the problem that I ran into because I had, I know that I had, you know, my gut was trashed basically when I was young, again, due to a lot of antibiotics. And therefore I know I had leaky gut. I know I had a lot of inflammation going on, had a lot of dysbiosis going on. And what did that lead to? A lot of chronic bronchitis. My lungs would get filled immediately and they would become a problem. How did I fix that? I fixed my gut. I, and therefore I fixed my immunity and therefore no more chronic bronchitis. Haven't had chronic bronchitis in many, many years, but it began with fixing the gut. So it's extremely important. So those, so again, that lining, now you can fix it by the way, you can get that back in shape, but it's going to require a lot, especially if you've been dealing with this for a long period of time. So what are some of the nutrients that can help you that, you know, can help to start to tighten up these gut barriers? Okay. The most important nutrients are short chain fatty acids like butyrate along with vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc, glutamine, glutathione, and NACO cysteine. Okay. Also pro-anthocyanins like grapeseed extract, extremely important. These nutrients are critical to maintain repair and support several aspects of the mucosal lining integrity, modulation of oxidative stress and defense system of the gut microbiome. So you have to kind of assess whether you need this support. Okay. And you'll know if you need to support, especially like me, what I found is I found that the direct correlation between the dysbiosis I was having in my gut and my lung problems and my lung weakness, right? So when I fixed one, the other kind of, you know, came into balance. Okay. But think about this. More than 40% of the global population is affected by functional gastrointestinal health concerns. Even more of the population is affected by other conditions triggered or worsened because of disrupted my mucosal barrier integrity and changes in tight junction function. Okay. So what are the things you can do? Okay. So obviously we want to strengthen that. Okay. If you want to take a look at the wellness resources supplements, which is a main supplement company that we work with here, you can take a look at their daily protector. I am immune. It contains vitamin a carotene and acetyl cysteine and other antioxidants necessary to protect the epithelial linings in the gut and respiratory barriers. Super doppelis. Now, if you're looking at putting back some of the beneficial bacteria, then you want to take a look at super doppelis because that is a great supplement with all the probiotics in it. You're going to take a look at also tributyrin plus and GI and muscle helper. Okay. So those are great things. You can, that can help you get started to repair all those tight junctions, but also help at the same time, get your immune system up to par. Because again, there's a direct correlation. Keep that in mind between the gut and the immune system and what your susceptibility is. So remember it's the gut. And then we have susceptibility to immune system problems. We have susceptible susceptibility to autoimmune system problems, all different types of issues. So clamp down on that. The gut, the gut microbiome and that barrier is extremely important. So do everything you possibly can to keep it tight. The more tight you can keep it, the better off you're going to be. So obviously changing the diet, getting on some of these supplements is key and doing this for a long period of time. You know, it took me years. It took me years to get this on track because it took me years of not doing it to get to where I was. So it took me years to get to where I am now. So again, do not think it is a three month, six month thing. It takes years to get this done. You have to be on this stuff. You have to be on track for years. I know it's a hard thing to hear for a lot of people out there. It's very difficult. That's the only way it's going to be done. It's consistent. Consistency is the key in this whole thing. Okay. So check it out. If you are having gut issues, also again, check out my interview with Martha Carlin. She's got great information regarding the gut. I think she did a great job on it discussing just gut health and its connections. She's got some supplements on there as well. That has helped her and helped a lot of folks. So check that out, but it's really, really important. You have to make sure that integrity is key and those doors can open and close when they need to. All right. So these GLP one weight loss injections are in the news again, and it seems like they're in the news more and more. So I'm going to highlight this because I've been highlighting them for the past few months, because I think it's something that really needs to be looked into. A lot of people are ignoring as a lot of the agencies are ignoring this, but more and more people are getting injured from these things. And again, like I say, I want to give you guys the information for those of you who may be looking into this to always ask that question. Do the benefits of these medications outweigh the risks, right? Because remember these were initially given for diabetes and now they're being used for weight loss, but are the side effects worth it? Well, I put two articles on the site here. Uh, the first one is by Joseph Mercola, Dr. Mercola, and it's Ozempic similar weight loss drugs linked to 162 deaths in the United States. I'm not going to go through the whole article, but I'm just going to highlight it. Just a couple of pieces here, a couple of bullet points. It says Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs have been linked to 162 deaths in the United States with adverse reactions, increasing by 40% in six months as usage expands. Also, these medications are associated with serious side effects, including pancreatitis, bowel obstruction, stomach paralysis with 80% 80 to 90% of users experiencing at least one adverse event. Studies have found a significant link between the semaglutide and the suicidal ideation, particularly in patients also taking antidepressants or anti anxiety medications. Now, where's this from? This is from the FDA's own adverse events reporting system. Okay. So this is not me saying this. This is not even Dr. McCullough saying this. This is actually what the adverse events reporting system is saying. Okay. So again, that's the first thing to take a look at. Second one is by Pennington Biomedical Research Center and this is skeletal muscle health amid growing use of weight loss medications. Now, why is this a problem? Because what they're saying here is, um, according to this, that the critical importance of muscle math, muscle mass with weight loss medication. So what they're finding is that the more and more people that are using these medications, yes, they're losing the weight, but they are critically losing muscle mass. And that's a problem, especially if you're not doing anything to keep that muscle mass. Now people who are older, a lot of people use these medications are older folks who've had a, you know, a long issue with trying to lose weight and they haven't been able to, okay. Or maybe had a long issue with diabetes, right? And now they're seeing this as a solution because they get a two in one, because obviously it helps their diabetes, but it also helps them lose weight. The problem is that the older you get, and we've talked about this many times, the faster, the rate of muscle decrease, especially if you're not doing anything to build that muscle or to keep that muscle. Well, it's a problem, especially if you're losing this muscle at a faster rate when you're on these medications. Why? Because muscle mass is important for the metabolic process. You have to have good muscle mass. And I'm not talking about bodybuilding. I'm talking about just a good muscle functioning, muscle mass in your body for your body to function the way it's intended to. So you don't have any issues with the metabolic process in your body. And we're seeing that people are losing muscle mass at an increased rate in this. This is a big problem. Okay. So again, you need to find out what all the side effects are and where you know, there's going to be way more side effects as we go on. We're just starting to see it. I'm going to play a clip here now of somebody who went through this. I've played clips before on this, and I'm going to continue to do this again. This is somebody, it's a five minute clip. Okay. But it's an important story and I think you guys really need to check this out. Okay. Important story to what happened to this woman who was on this medication. She was put on this medication because of her diabetes, but check out what happened to her while she was on this medication. A Louisville woman claims a popular weight loss drug almost killed her. Her photos tell the story of before and after taking Ozempic. I'm Scott Reynolds. And I'm Fallon Glicken for Hayden Ristevsky. She was prescribed the drug for diabetes. WDRB investigates reporter, Valerie Chin started digging into the serious side effects and found thousands of others are suffering as well. Jacqueline Barber wasn't trying to lose weight, but this is all her body could handle. Five or six of these and sometimes one of these cookies. When she was prescribed Ozempic three years ago. How has this affected you emotionally? How has this changed your life? Sad. Um, um, I just see my sisters and my dad, how upset and scared they were. They didn't know what to do. And they would just see me every week and I would just get smaller and smaller. Now the Louisville woman has to get the nutrients she needs through an IV. These are my vitamins and nutrients. This has, um, carbohydrates, lipids, protein. When she can't hold down food to lay on the couch for over a year and throw up nonstop. Can't hardly make it to walk anywhere, go anywhere. It's very depressing. Doctors prescribed Ozempic to treat Barber's type two diabetes back in 2021 pictures showed just how frail she got while on the drug. I ended up losing. It was about 140 pounds. So I was down to around 87 pounds. Couldn't walk or get around. Couldn't get up off the couch. Back then Ozempic, Wigovy, Mount Jaro, and other drugs like them were not popular for weight loss. Now you see commercials for them on TV and social media. The drug helped get Barber's diabetes under control, but it came at a price. Her doctors told her to stop taking it in 2023. Two years after being on Ozempic, Barber was diagnosed with gastroparesis. My stomach was paralyzed. I could not tolerate anything. And she's not the only one. What gastroparesis mean is where the food goes down into the stomach and the stomach just does not want to empty out into the small intestine. So it just sits there in the stomach. Dr. John Oldham is a bariatric surgeon for Baptist health. He says doctors often see patients in the ER for complications to weight loss medications. I have one patient that's going to be doing a gastric bypass on that has gastroparesis. She was taking the medication back in the fall and only taking it for a month and now having a severe gastroparesis where just nothing is helping with medication. Barber's attorney, Andrew Van Arsdale represents 213 patients across Indiana and Kentucky with similar issues. You know how you look at it. 1% of the population that takes this drug ends up with gastroparesis or one of these horrible side effects that literally just derails their life. His lawsuit against Novo Nordisk, the makers of Ozempic and the makers of similar drugs represents over 2000 patients across the country. We're not demanding they take the drug off the market. Somebody today has just started this medication. They do not understand the risks of gastroparesis because these drug companies have failed to adequately warn them. And we're asking them to correct that problem. When WDRB started investigating more and more patients reached out, a prospect woman on what Govi had to have major surgery for bowel issues. Another woman on Ozempic says the drug deteriorated her leg muscles. So many claims against the drugs, the lawsuits have been combined. And hoping to get to a trial as soon as humanly possible to put on our evidence to show why the drug makers knew of these dangers and why they are liable to Jackie and everyone else for failing to prevent this from happening to them. Novo Nordisk declined an on-camera interview, but released this statement to WDRB. It says Novo Nordisk believes that the allegations in these lawsuits are without merit. And we intend to vigorously defend against these claims. The known risks and benefits are described in their FDA approved product labeling. Well, the drug was on the market for a couple of years. All of a sudden all these people had gallbladder issues. A lot of people having their gallbladder removed as a result of taking these drugs, they updated the label. We're asking them to do the same thing about gastroparesis. We also reached out to Eli Lilly, the maker of Bounjaro and haven't heard back. People do not realize how close to death I came to. Like it was unreal. Barber is now gaining weight, but has to have a gastric stimulator device to treat her stomach muscles. And now you deal with this every single day. What are you hoping will happen now? I'm hoping that the drug manufacturers have to change this drug. If, if it's that great and it's helping the whole population of obesity, great, but tell people what can happen to them. Um, try to do better. With photojournalist Jeff Gordon, Valerie Chen, WDRB News. Interesting, huh? You know, the poor woman, what she went through and she's right. Do better. Okay. Inform consent, inform people of what everything that they're going to be dealing with. Cause you know, they know it, you know, they know it. They just don't want to inform people. Okay. That, that, we've had this problem for how long in, in, in public health. Right. So, you know, take a serious look at that, you know, and, and just see if this is worth it or not. Because again, you don't know, obviously, yeah, it's a small percentage of people. I always say side effects are rare until they happen to you. But just take a look at that and take a serious look at if this is something that's worth you doing, you know, I'm sure there's going to be people that are on these medications that love it. Right. Celebrities talk about it all the time, how it's great, that type of thing. But you don't see a lot of that. You don't see a lot of these things. So I'm glad, you know, these, these stories are finally starting to come out now and hopefully these companies and hopefully even the FDA and all this gets held accountable for this. But if you are on these medications, you have to do everything you possibly can to, uh, you know, to try to do everything to keep yourself healthy because you don't know what these medications are going to do to you. It's just, you just don't. Okay. So I hope this highlights that again, and I'm going to continue to highlight this until, uh, hopefully they start to make some changes. We'll see what happens with that. All right, guys. So, uh, that's it for today. Hopefully you, uh, enjoyed all the information. Hope you got a lot out of it. I want to thank you so much for joining me, uh, as always, make sure you guys take care of yourselves and make sure you take care of each other and as always control your health. Have a great week.