The Ben Mulroney Show - Has Science finally solved the problem of Obesity?

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Has Science finally solved the problem of Obesity? with Guest: Dr. Nadia Alam, Family Doctor and Past-President of The Ontario Medical Association If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thank you so much for starting your Monday with us. It's going to be a long week. And so let's let's let's start fresh. And let's let's don't forget to don't forget to limber up because you might pull a hammock. That's that's my medical advice. But here with who knows a finger two about that that I don't is Dr. Nadya Allam, a family doctor and past president of the Ontario Medical Association. Doctor, welcome to the show. Happy Monday. Happy Monday to you too. So a number of stories that I want to broach with you. The first very sad story about a Montreal woman who passed away at 32 of breast cancer after being told she was too young for breast cancer. And it's that it's a it's a really nervous like it's a nerve racking trend that breast cancer is affecting women younger and younger. Correct. And we have seen this trend, the research certainly bears it out. It's a worrisome

trend for sure. What this means though, is that the medical system is going to have to catch up, and medical technology has to catch up. The traditional teaching has been that as women get older, particularly after the age of 50, their risk of breast cancer spikes higher because they're postmenopausal, all of that. There's a bunch of risk factors involved. So that's why we generally used to screen women who were the age of 40. In Ontario, we've now started to screen women who are the age of, sorry, before we used to screen women who were the age of 40. In Ontario, we've now started to screen women who are the age of, who are the age of, sorry, before we used to screen over the age of 15. Now we screen over the age of 40. So for any listeners out there, women, whether you have breast lumps or not, you can now qualify for a mammogram. And well, that's that, that's something I just,

my heart, my heart goes out to this woman's family. I mean, being told by a medical professional, you're too young for breast cancer and then finding out you got it. My guess is she then found out too late. That's, and I guess they didn't test for it, which is. Yeah. Part of what? We don't have good tests for it.

Part of it is that we don't have. I thought we had, I thought the mammogram was the test. I thought that you put the, it's like, I thought that was the thing. It's one of our tests that we can use to screen for breast cancer or diagnose breast cancer. It's not that great in women who are younger. That's been the problem.

Why not? Is there something about the tissue that makes it harder to spot cancerous growth? Really? So women who are young and women who are around the age of when they're having kids, so in their 20s and 30s, they have very dense breasts that have a lot of ducts in them, a lot of glands in them. When you look at a mammogram itself, the picture that it produces, it's shadows upon shadows. Yeah. So sometimes those shadows are just glance.

Sometimes those shadows are actual cancer. And it's very hard to detect between the two. I see. So for young women, we say MRIs, but even an MRI, a breast MRI done in a center where they're trained in doing breast MRIs, it's also not a perfect test. And this is what I meant when I said medical technology has to catch up.

We have to get better at diagnosing it, particularly in a woman who notes a breast lump. Right, cause then that's different from women who have nothing in their breast, who feel nothing, feel fine. But for a woman who has a breast lump, that is a symptomatic woman where the symptoms, the lump has to be sorted out. Right.

All right, well, let's move on to a story that I, listen, if this doesn't improve the stock of these already massive companies, I don't know what will, the World Health Organization is set to back the use of weight loss drugs like the Wigovies and the Ozempics to treat obesity in adults globally. This is according to a memo.

So like this is that welcome to welcome to a new world, right? This is not obesity is not to be treated with diet and exercise or alone anymore. But this is now a valid option that is endorsed by the World Health Organization. So first of all, are these weight loss drugs completely trustworthy? And is this the cure all? I mean, are these weight loss drugs completely trustworthy? And is this the cure all I mean, are we going to solve obesity as a medical issue? The obesity medically defined as a BMI. So your your weight to height proportionality is that is a very challenging illness.

Other illnesses, some of it, you can do something about. You can control your diet. You can control your exercise. You can control to some extent your stress and you can control your sleep. Those are the four things that can contribute to obesity that you can control. You can control your alcohol intake.

You can control whether or not you choose to smoke. All of those things are really important. But there's a lot about the illness that's outside of your control. Your genetics are your genetics. You can't control those. These drugs work really well in some people for the non-modifiable risk factors to treat the illness itself. Much like blood pressure pills do or diabetes medications do, these medications for obesity can help control an illness that's often very difficult to treat and can have significant consequences. I mean, we were just talking about breast cancer. Obesity raises your risk of breast cancer by two and a half times. Wow. Like that's wild. It's like more than two times, more than double the amount just by being obese alone,

even if you don't smoke or do anything else. But what do we do, Doc, about those studies that show that so many people who, once they get off of these weight loss drugs, they put the weight back on. I mean, unless we have a workflow that enables these people to to take advantage of the weight loss and keep it off, then we're just throwing all we're doing is enriching these drug companies. Yeah, we're just spinning our wheels in that instance. Yeah. The thing is, I think we need a cultural mindset shift, where we're looking at

obesity, not as a lifestyle decision. It is an illness. And much like high blood pressure, much like diabetes, if you come off any of those medications, your illness will become uncontrolled. The risk here though, and this part makes me nervous too, we're learning more and more about these drugs as time goes on. Right? It doesn't mean that these drugs aren't. Yeah. Oh, doctor, you still there? Doc? For some people, and we're learning that they're not suitable in all conditions. So we have to balance that. Yeah. We want to treat the illness. We need to be careful that the treatment isn't going to cause problems either. Agreed. Absolutely. And we've got my, my, my, my my what I've heard about it is that it also doesn't it like this there's different qualities of fat in different

parts of the body and when you lose weight naturally your body knows when where to take it from at the right times and in the right proportion but these drugs accelerate fat loss in such a way where you're taking it off in places that it shouldn't be leaving you first and people get ozempic face, I think is what it's called. It is you're right, there's different kinds of fat all over your body. They do different things. We know that fat itself

is almost like an endocrine organ, right? So endocrine has to do with all the hormones in your body. Fat is a part of that because it releases certain hormones. The challenge with medications, medications do not come with a pamphlet that tells them where to go. They go all over the body. Yeah. that tells them where to go. They go all over the body. And in this instance, in some people, the fat that we need them to get rid of, so the fat that's around their liver, around their bowels, around their gut, that central obesity, that can be the problem. That's a bigger problem than say, the fat on your arms. And so the drugs do not know to target that as opposed to the ones that are in places

where it's not a big deal. But it still helps. It's still better than nothing. No, and listen, and I take everything you say as fact. The one thing I would dispute with you is when you compared it to diabetes, for example, you said if you had to get off your diabetes pills or medication,

then you can get sick again. But in the case of these drugs, if you get off the drug, you should be able to be okay if you maintain a healthy lifestyle. No. No? No, because obesity is so much more complicated. No, but my point is if you're trained, oh, I see what you mean, if there's a genetic component

to it, for example. Yes. Right, yes. Exactly. But are we able to, is there a test? Is there a component to it? Is there a test that can be done? And we only have a few seconds left.

Is there a test to be done that can tell someone, you know, your obesity is triggered primarily by your genetics? No, but what we can do is look at the family. If there is a family history of obesity, the person has a higher risk of obesity, all else being controlled, right? If they've controlled everything else about their lifestyle, they've managed their medications, they're active, all of that stuff, and they're still obese. times that has a lot to do with family history. There are certain cultures where people are more prone to obesity. Yeah, we're gonna have to leave it there.

You mean that they're unhealthy. Thank you, doc. Okay. Take care,000. There can only be one winner. Tune in to Renovation Resort every Sunday and look for the code word during the show. Then enter at homenetwork.ca slash watch and win for your chance to win big. Amazing! The small details are the difference between winning and losing.

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