#460: Dr. Priya Sumithran – Body Fat Regulation, Pros & Cons of Weight Loss Interventions, and GLP-1 Receptor Agonists
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2022
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases and negative health outcomes. And trials where a sufficient amount of weight loss is achieved show health improvements. However, despite the “straightforward” nature of causing weight loss through a hypocaloric diet, it is clear that most people who lose weight will regain some or all of the weight.
This is a result of both the physiologic control of intake and expenditure (i.e. homeostatic regulation by the body to avoid staying at a lower body or fat mass), and environmental factors. Diet-induced weight loss is followed by a number of hormonal change that encourage weight regain. So how do we tackle this problem?
In this episode, Dr. Priya Sumithran discusses this physiologic control of body mass, in addition to environmental and behavioural factors that make weight loss maintenance difficult. Dr. Sumithran also discusses what this means for setting weight loss targets, choosing the correct intervention, and looking to non-weight-centric approaches for certain individuals. We also discuss the evidence on GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs, such as Semaglutide, as a treatment for obesity.
Links:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 460 of the podcast. I am your host, Danny Lennon, |
| 0:24.8 | and you are very welcome to the podcast. Today, I have the pleasure of bringing you a conversation |
| 0:31.7 | I had with Dr. Priya Smythran when I was recently in Melbourne, Australia, where she is based as an endocrinologist |
| 0:38.9 | and a clinician researcher. |
| 0:41.8 | And she has done some very important and fascinating work in the area of obesity research |
| 0:47.4 | and has therefore been someone's whose work have been reading for quite a period of time |
| 0:51.9 | with her clinical interests lying in this area |
| 0:55.3 | around the neuroendocrine regulation of appetite and eating behavior. |
| 1:00.0 | And this gets into things like body mass regulation, some of that physiological control |
| 1:06.0 | over intake and expenditure and how that relates to obesity. |
| 1:09.8 | And then many of her other areas relate to |
| 1:12.8 | what do we actually do in terms of interventions. So in addition to her work as a researcher, |
| 1:18.2 | she's also in practice working with people. So she's the head of obesity medicine at Austin Health. |
| 1:24.8 | Like I said, she has a background as an endocrinologist. And in addition to that |
| 1:29.1 | work, she does her research at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Medicine there. |
| 1:34.3 | And so in this episode, we talk about a number of really interesting topics from things like |
| 1:39.4 | different models of body mass regulation and Dr. Smith-Rand's thoughts on which one of those lines up with |
| 1:45.4 | the evidence pretty well, what we actually should know about this physiological homeostatic |
| 1:50.4 | control of intake and expenditure, what happens in cases of obesity to that? |
| 1:56.1 | And then in relation to actually interventions around weight loss, some really interesting questions that I've |
| 2:01.9 | pondered for quite a period of time. So where do we start to see benefits to health in terms of |
| 2:08.2 | weight loss? How do we weigh those up in relation to the potential risks or harms of advising |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Danny Lennon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Danny Lennon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.