As Ozempic-era weight loss continues to dominate headlines, a new and unsettling term is starting to surface behind the scenes. Dr. Terry Dubrow, well-known for the reality series “Botched” as well as “The Real Housewives of Orange County” alongside his wife, Heather Dubrow, is seeing a growing wave of people who aren’t just getting thinner, they’re showing signs of what he calls “chemical starvation.” This brings on hollowed features, muscle loss, and an accelerated aging effect, as well as other health concerns.
Dubrow is sounding the alarm on what happens when GLP-1s are pushed too far, and even worse, when off-the-market drugs that are not FDA approved are used without medical supervision, proving that this trend is even more dangerous than it looks.
Dr. Terry Dubrow Uses The Term ‘Anorexia Ozempica’ For The Dangerous Trend He’s Seeing
It’s no surprise that GLP-1s are currently having its time in the spotlight. More and more people have recently begun their weight loss journeys with the drug, and that’s something that Dubrow is happy about.
“I’m obsessed with the GLP-1s. I’m a huge fan. I’m so huge a fan that I actually went to the trouble of studying for and taking the American Board of Obesity Medicine certification exam. I’m not only a board-certified plastic surgeon, I was a board-certified general surgeon, but I’m now also board certified in the American Board of Obesity Medicine,” Dubrow told The Blast during an exclusively chat.
“They’re amazing. It’s not the drugs that are the problem. We’re going to talk about this whole ‘anorexia Ozempica’ thing, this whole ‘chemical starvation’ thing that I’m obsessed with. I think that they’re amazing when used properly, but now there’s a problem we’re recently seeing.”
He said that after watching the Oscars, he realized that there’s a serious issue with people misusing the drugs and not using them with proper medical supervision, and that’s something he wants to shed some much-needed light on.
“These are powerful metabolic drugs and what I think it’s now doing is a new kind of eating disorder that I’m worried about,” he said. “The major problem is this, it’s not that they’re just getting super skinny and it looks funny, it’s that when you go on a GLP-1 drug, lose weight, if you misuse them, you’re losing muscle. And that’s a whole problem.”
What Is ‘Chemical Starvation’?
Dubrow said that he’s seeing a rise in “chemical starvation,” which basically means taking a GLP-1 to a degree where it’s shutting off your appetite completely.
“I’m seeing this with people. You go to dinner with them and they eat nothing, zero,” he told The Blast. “You’re not only shutting off their appetite completely, you’re so not hungry that you can’t even get in the protein you need.”
Lacking in much needed vitamins, minerals, protein, and calories means your body has no choice but to take from itself. That’s where you can see a radical reduction in muscle mass and the metabolic rate of the body goes so low that your immune system begins to deplete.
“It allows those people who are on the verge of wanting to not eat anything, you’re now enabling them to go above and beyond,” he continued. “Social media, now with every celebrity being skinny, is influencing this culturally. It’s like the perfect storm.”
Dubrow said this is happening because people are getting the drug online and are taking it with no medical supervision, which is necessary to take the drug the way it’s intended and to achieve weight loss goals safely.
“The end point is not supposed to be no appetite. It’s the perfect storm of unapproved medication and a not supervised cultural influence from celebrities and society,” he said. “It’s like the early 2000s again. Emaciated is the new skinny. It’s important for this to be acknowledged that it’s a thing right now.”
‘No One Is A Bigger Fan Of These Historic, Life Changing Medications Than Me’
Dubrow doubled down on the fact that he loves GLP-1s and feel they have really helped not only weight loss but also other health issues.
“I think it’s the greatest thing to ever happen in the history of medicine. Because the number one risk factor for all the top four causes of mortality is obesity,” he told The Blast. “No one is a bigger fan of these historic, life changing medications than me.”
The issues lie with not having medical supervision, or listening to an influencer or “gym bro” giving medical advice when they are not qualified to be doing so. Without medical supervision, the people taking these drugs are not getting the proper blood tests done and they do not have a qualified professional telling them when to slow down the weight loss because it’s getting unhealthy.
Dubrow fears that it’s going to take a “sentinel event” for everyone to wake up and realize the issues.
“With this, we’re going to have one celebrity who’s going to have a giant problem on these unapproved, illegal drugs from an online pharmacy and everyone’s gonna go, okay, that’s the sentinel event,” he said. “I would rather that didn’t happen.”
Dr. Terry Dubrow Shares Why Losing Weight Too Fast Comes With Serious Risks
When you’re losing weight, the rate of speed that the weight sheds is something important to keep in mind. While it may sound great to lose a lot of weight quickly, that’s not healthy and comes with many risks.
“If you lose too much weight too fast, you’re losing muscle. When you lose muscle, your metabolic rate is depleted and when you’re not hungry, you’re not eating protein, eating calories, that’s when your physiology becomes abnormal,” he said. “That’s when your cardiac activity diminishes, your immune system is depleted, your hormones are messed up, and the irony of that is you feel great about being skinny, but your hair, skin, and nails look terrible, your skin is hanging off your bones and your face pays the price. Your face is deflated, depleted, you’re getting early wrinkles, your nasolabial folds are deepening, you’ve got temporal wasting. So now what?”
He said “now what” often brings people in to see a dermatologist or plastic surgeon to get “filled up with all this filler” and that in turn can make you “look weird and overfilled and have complications from too much filler use or you’re coming in for a facelift at 28 when you shouldn’t be having a facelift.”
“So there are both cosmetic problems and general health related problems which are very significant,” he said. And what if someone gains the weight back? Will that reverse any of the effects? “Once you stretch your skin out enough, someone who gains and loses, gains and loses, their skin gets stretched out and it looks terrible even after they gain back the weight,” he shared.
One question that pops up is about non-surgical medspa treatments such as Xerf, Sofwave, and RF Microneedling. These are things that Dubrow said can help tighten skin but they can only do so much so it’s something that would need to be done regularly along the journey. But even with that said, it’s not always a plausible answer.
“That is the future of cosmetic medicine and plastic surgery. We will hopefully, sooner rather than later, get to the point where you don’t have to slice someone open to tighten their skin and you can do non-invasive energy transmission devices to tighten the skin,” he said. He added that these treatments are more effective if you do them often, and you should not expect them to be life changing after one use.
Dr. Terry Dubrow Shares Some Warning Signs To Watch For
Whether you are the one taking the GLP-1 or someone close to you is, there are warning signs to keep in mind that might indicate an issue.
“No appetite. Don’t zero out your appetite,” he said. “You’re not eating protein. No protein intake. And this is very significant, the speed at which you are losing weight.”
He said if you are losing 1-2% of your body weight every week, that’s too much. Slow it down to losing 1-2 pounds a week instead. Another warning sign is that you’re not getting your GLP-1 under doctor supervision.
Ultimately, he said you’re “sacrificing your health for vanity,” and “don’t write checks your body can’t cash.”
“These are very serious medications that are very powerful,” he said. “And the next gen version of these is more powerful. These are serious drugs.”
Another red flag is getting medical advice from someone without a medical background. Trusting a random “gym bro” or influencer online is not the same as getting medical advice from a board certified physician. Dubrow said he wishes there was some sort of penalty for non-qualified people giving medical advice to help stop this dangerous trend.
What happens when you hit your goal weight while on a GLP-1? Dubrow said that there is a way to safely stay on the drug.
“I think where we will end up is there’s gonna be protocols. There’s gonna be minimum effective dose so you can sustain but you’re not maximizing the side effects or going too far,” he said. “The goal is not no appetite, the goal is to be in control. These are brilliant drugs made by brilliant pharmaceutical companies.”
He further explained that once you hit your goal weight, you might want to drop the dosage because, “we do want to be on these drugs forever.”
To keep up with Dr. Terry Dubrow on social media, visit Between Us Podcast on IG, Dr. and Mrs. Guinea Pig Podcast on IG, and Dr. Dubrow‘s IG page.