Today, 41.9% of the American adult population struggles with obesity; by 2030, about half of us will. Even more American adults, approximately three-quarters, currently battle overweight-related health conditions—including high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc. With such a large percentage of us obese or overweight, the struggle is universal: we work hard to lose weight, only to find that it slowly creeps back. With confusion surrounding which weight-loss methods actually work, the self-recrimination and shame that sometimes comes with being overweight (not to mention bias from the medical community), many of us are asking: Is lasting weight loss possible?
In DIET, DRUGS, AND DOPAMINE: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight, which goes on sale May 13th, Dr. David A. Kessler, MD—the former FDA Commissioner under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, and Chief Science Officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team under President Joe Biden—offers a compassionate, practical, and evidence-based pathway to better health by unpacking the mystery of weight loss and ultra-processed foods in the most comprehensive work to date on the topic. Scientifically rigorous yet superbly accessible, “this book is the definitive scientific source on food addiction” (Anna Lembke, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Dopamine Nation).
Having struggled with weight himself, Dr. Kessler begins DIET, DRUGS, AND DOPAMINE by naming the elephant in the room: the ultra-formulated foods are addictive. Over the last fifty years, the food industry has glutted our grocery stores, delis, and corner markets with the irresistible, highly processed, highly palatable, energy-dense, high-glycemic foods. Such ultra-processed foods are this country’s new cigarette, which Dr. Kessler knows something about as he took on Big Tobacco as the FDA Commissioner in the 1990s. Simply put, losing weight is a process of treating addiction.
Enter the GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which have radically altered our understanding of weight loss. Critical to this new perspective is the insight that weight-loss drugs act on the part of the brain that is responsible for cravings. In essence, the drugs tamp down the addictive circuits that overwhelm rational decision-making and quiet the “food noise” that distracts us. Identifying these mechanisms allows us to develop a strategy for effective long-term weight loss, but GLP-1 drugs also have real disadvantages and must be considered as part of a comprehensive approach together with nutrition, behavior, and physical activity.
In this landmark book, “one of the great medical and public health leaders of our time” (Vivek H. Murthy, MD) and the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Overeating, not only breaks taboos around this fraught conversation but offers “an illuminating exploration of the disease of obesity… that will change not only how we understand our health but also how we understand one another.” (Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD).
About the Author:
David. A. Kessler, MD, served as chief science officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team under President Joe Biden and previously served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Overeating and Capture and two other books: Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs and A Question of Intent. Dr. Kessler is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. He is a graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School.