CNN
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Savannah Mendoza spent most of her paycheck on food delivery apps and fast food drive-thrus to satisfy her compulsive cravings.
After she started taking the drug, which is often used to lose weight and treat diabetes, she recognized it as something else: the sound of food.
“It’s so obsessive, it’s not a good feeling. It’s a very ugly feeling, because you’re locked into the one thought of wanting to eat,” she said.
Food noise is the constant internal chatter about food that some people experience, which can make it difficult to make healthy decisions about nutrition. There’s been a lot of buzz about the drug, especially online, as many people taking popular weight loss and diabetes drugs have noticed that the drugs seem to drown out the noise.
Semaglutide and tirzepatide are both glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists, known as GLP-1, which tell the body that it has just eaten, causing it to release more insulin and slow the movement of food through the stomach. It works like this. These drugs are prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes under the brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro, and their twin versions Wegovy and Zepbound have also helped millions of people lose weight.
Mendoza, 27, started thinking about food all the time in her early 20s. Even though she had to run an errand, she insisted on using the drive-thru and eating in her car. Sometimes in the morning, while making my daughter’s lunch, I would sneak a bite of the ice cream from the bathtub.
“I just thought I was obsessed with food,” said Mendoza, who lives in Huntington Beach, California.
Now that she’s on Tirzepatide, she says she feels peace without the noise of eating, and said part of what caused her to stop is the drug’s side effects. Physically, she feels “somehow bloated all the time and not hungry.”
Summer Kessel, who has been using Tirzepatide for more than two years, said it was a “bottomless pit” of constant hunger.
Kessel, 37, said: “I was still thinking, planning and ultimately thinking about how I would eat something else. I had breakfast at home, then breakfast at work. I would eat lunch at work, then have lunch at work, then have a snack.” I ate before leaving for work, ate fast food on the way home, and ate dinner when I got home. ”
A week after her first weight-loss injection, the Tampa, Fla., resident said it was “relieving her symptoms.”
“All of a sudden, there’s this noise in my head: ‘What can I eat? Where can I eat it? How much can I eat it? Will I like it? How many calories will it have? How much should I eat it?'” I felt like all the shit in my head was finally quiet and I could live a normal life without obsessing over food and being hungry all the time,” Kessel said. spoke.
Kessel is a registered dietitian who has worked in the medical field for 20 years and now also provides nutritional advice to the general public. large scale social media To be continued. But she said it wasn’t until she started taking Tirzepatide that she was able to practice what she preaches and actually eat three balanced meals a day.
“I feel moderately hungry at mealtimes. …During that time, I’m just not hungry in my head and I’m not thinking about food in terms of what tastes best or what I want. Rather, it’s about what I need to feel nourished and satisfied, and that my body will feel good if I do that,” she said.
There are various theories about the root cause of dining noise, and there are no hard numbers on how many people experience it. However, most experts believe that it is real, even if it has only recently begun to be recognized.
About 15 years ago, Dr. Michael Rowea professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia, developed a theory called. hedonistic hunger, He describes this as “a strong desire to seek food-based pleasure for reasons other than physical hunger.” Lowe describes this theory and related theories as follows: The power of food scale It’s been used in clinical trials of weight loss drugs in both adults and children to measure what he calls “the desire to eat delicious food when you’re not hungry.”
“So the previously established concept of hedonic hunger appears to be very similar to the concept of food noise that many people have reported for GLP-1 therapeutics,” Lowe said. Ta. “Throughout my career, I also studied appetite, how people experience it and try to control it. Researchers have discovered that our bodies need to replenish calories. We’ve studied the systems built in to let us know and be proactive. What we haven’t considered is that over the past 45 years, many of us have been using more than we need to stay healthy. That’s why I gained weight because I ate a lot.
According to Lowe, your stomach rumbling near dinner is a sign of homeostasis, or “normal” hunger, and “your body is reminding you that most of the calories you consumed at lunch were used for energy.” That’s what it means.
Hedonic hunger, on the other hand, is when you continue to crave and eat more food than your body needs, even after you’ve finished your meal.
“What I’m saying is that when you eat because you need calories, pleasure ‘comes with you.’ But when you’re not physically hungry but still have a strong urge to eat… , joy is the ride and the real reason you still want to eat,” he said.
Given America’s food culture, a certain amount of hedonic hunger is to be expected, Lowe said. With fast-food restaurants dotting every highway and some areas lacking supermarkets offering fresh produce, “it’s very easy to get food and end up eating the wrong kind.” It’s very easy to let it pass,” he says.
Jackson LeMay, who lives in Lilburn, Georgia, said his experience with food noises — “a constant, insatiable itch” — has been going on for more than a decade, dating back to high school.
Back then, food noises meant “hiding food, moving food in and out of the pantry or refrigerator, hiding wrappers. Eating food when you’re not home, saying you need lunch money.” I would often ask for more money or go to the vending machine.”
As an adult, he said, it’s easy to binge, but hard to stop, with targeted social media ads and food deliveries constantly available.
The 27-year-old lost 155 pounds through diet, exercise and Munjaro, which he still uses to maintain his weight, but it wasn’t until he started medication that he realized how much of an effect the noise of eating was having. He said he had not done so.
“I don’t really realize how bad my relationship with food is, and how obsessed my brain is with eating and making food decisions…because it’s ingrained in me,” says the part-time employee. says LeMay, who is doing his part. content creator For telemedicine companies that prescribe weight loss drugs.
Dr. Najaf Asrar, The endocrinologist and obesity medicine specialist at Advocare North Brunswick Medical Associates in North Brunswick, New Jersey, works next door to a cookie shop. Every time he looks out the window, he thinks about buying a box for his family.
“Food noise is greatly amplified by our environment and what’s forced on us. I think there’s also a psychological component. Before, we didn’t have entire stores dedicated to desserts,” he says. said. “The sounds of food become patterns through our environment.”
Asler works with patients using weight loss medications in conjunction with lifestyle modifications.
“I tell my patients that obesity is a lifelong disease, but you don’t have to take medication for life,” he says. He noticed that when some patients reach their goal weight, their brains are rewired so that the noise of eating becomes less of a factor.
GLP-1 drugs may seem like a solution for some people who are overweight or obese and have trouble eating noise, but they’re not necessarily the only option. And for people with normal eating noise, GLP-1 drugs may not even be an option. BMI.
“What we started learning and came up with that idea was through experience. [of food noise] “It may be driven by signals from the stomach and the body in ways we don’t fully understand until now.” Dr. Tom HildebrandtDirector of the Center of Excellence in Eating and Weight Disorders at Mount Sinai Health System in New York.
He describes food noise as a series of peripheral signals that lead to excessive food-related thinking and emotional cues, which society tends to attribute to a lack of control.
“Perhaps it’s not just a personal responsibility, but actually how the human brain perceives hunger, satiety, and how our skin feels – issues related to body image that we think of when we think. They have a metabolic condition that changes them. It’s an eating disorder,” Hildebrandt said. With so many food options available in an overstimulated environment, it can be difficult to make the right choices.
At the Center of Excellence in Eating and Weight Disorders, Hildebrandt’s team treats food noise through 12 to 20 cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions, “inoculating against toxic food environments” and “inoculating the system.” “Learning how to self-regulate.” It may have been thwarted by attempts to control or limit food noise. ”
“It doesn’t work for everyone, but it works very well,” he says. “What most people see in this context is that eating becomes less noisy and they are able to approach their lives more functionally and effectively.”
Doctors at Hildebrandt’s center may also prescribe antidepressants and Vyvanse, which is used to treat bulimia, before turning to GLP-1 drugs.
“We’re waiting for scientific proof that food is really effective in reducing noise before we put it on the triage list, because both pharmacologically and psychotherapeutically it’s effective. Because there are other things that we know are there,’” he said.
People who are bothered by food noises may find that GLP-1 drugs modify metabolic signals and reduce brain chatter, Hildebrandt said, but they also address another problem: food noises that bother them. It could lead to new fears of being harmed or sickened, he said.
“And if you’ve talked to people who have used GLP-1, it’s not uncommon to eat certain types of food, or certain amounts of food, and feel physically uncomfortable. It feels bad, but that’s part of what makes it work. But that cue makes me fear the food in a different kind of way, as if I’ve learned from my own experience that that’s the case. Let’s start.”
zep bound and wegobee Although it is not a cure for food noise, some patients say its effectiveness is undeniable.
Kessel, a Florida dietitian, said that even if she didn’t lose weight, Munjaro was satisfying because “the noise of the food is quieter.”
The drug has two benefits, according to Lowe. It means you can reduce the noise of eating and lose more weight than with old drugs or lifestyle changes alone.
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“This drug targets the underlying physiology of excessive appetite over normal appetite. And it literally changes the chemical structure, especially in relation to brain pathways and hormonal pathways, when it’s not needed.” “It stimulates food cravings and helps reduce chronic thoughts about food,” Lowe said. “This brings us much closer to a magic pill, as it results in greater weight loss, significantly reduces obsessions with unpleasant foods, and requires little self-control to achieve these benefits.”
Lemay said her eating habits immediately improved after starting Munjaro, but she still enjoys mealtimes.
“Before I took drugs, I really lived to eat. Now I eat because I need to live. I eat because I need to nourish my body. I want to replenish my energy and feel better. I eat because I want to feel better,” LeMay said.
