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A Simple Truth About Digestion, Hormones, and Long-Term Health No One Is Talking About

You hear about GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, and your first thought is, “I’m not taking those drugs.”

Then your doctor recommends one.

As you think about it more, you see celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Sharon Osbourne, Mindy Kaling, and others openly talking about using these drugs and losing weight.

Then it gets closer to home.

People you personally know are taking them.
They’re losing weight.
They look different.
They’re getting compliments.

So finally, you think to yourself, “I might as well jump on board and finally lose this weight.”

This is how many people arrive at the decision, not through deep science, but through trust, social proof, and hope.

When Drugs Are Promoted, the Full Story Often Comes Later

History shows us that drugs are often praised early, widely adopted, and only later fully understood. Over time, side effects emerge, risks become clearer, and sometimes medications are restricted or removed from the market.

There are many concerns that could be discussed with GLP-1 drugs. However, as a Clinical Nutritionist, I want to focus on one issue no one can dispute, because everyone agrees on it.

That issue is the digestion and absorption of the food you eat.

How Digestion Is Supposed to Work

Think of digestion like a wash cycle.

You load the dishes (eat the food).
The cycle runs (digestion and absorption).
The dishes come out clean (nutrients are absorbed).
Then the system resets so it’s ready again.

In a healthy body:

• • Digestion and absorption take about 2–4 hours
  • Insulin, a hormone that acts like a key to let sugar from food into your cells for energy, rises and then falls
  • Hunger returns naturally once the meal is processed
  • The body shifts back to burning stored fat between meals

This rise-and-fall pattern matters.

When insulin rises after a meal and then declines, cells remain sensitive to insulin, and energy moves into and out of cells efficiently.

When insulin remains elevated for too long, the body enters a state of storage and stores fat rather than burning it. Over time, cells also become less responsive to insulin.

This loss of response is called insulin resistance, and it begins at the cellular level (Reaven, 1988).

What GLP-1 Drugs Change

GLP-1 drugs slow gastric emptying, meaning food leaves the stomach more slowly than normal (Horowitz et al., 2012).

On these drugs:

• • Food can remain in the stomach for 12–24 hours
  • Hunger signals are suppressed, not restored
  • Digestion and absorption are no longer natural

Using the washing-machine analogy, this is like starting the machine but never allowing the cycle to finish. The dishes sit in water for far too long. That does not make them cleaner. It slowly damages the system.

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What Happens When Food Sits Too Long

Nutrient quality and absorption efficiency decline

A longer time in the stomach does not necessarily mean that nutrients are absorbed more effectively. In many cases, the opposite happens.

Stomach acid is necessary for digestion, but it is meant to act briefly, not for extended periods of time. Under normal conditions, food remains in the stomach long enough for digestion to begin, then moves into the small intestine, where most nutrients are absorbed (Camilleri, 2006).

When food sits in the stomach for far longer than normal:

• • Sensitive vitamins, such as certain B vitamins and vitamin C, can be damaged by prolonged acid exposure
  • Amino acids, the building blocks of muscle, can be broken down beyond what the body can effectively use
  • The timing of nutrient delivery to the small intestine becomes disrupted
  • By the time food finally moves forward, there may be fewer usable nutrients left to absorb

Think of it like overcooking food. While some foods benefit from proper cooking, leaving food on the heat too long can damage delicate nutrients you were trying to preserve.

Hormones stay turned on too long

When digestion drags on, hormones that are meant to turn on and then shut off stay elevated far longer than they should.

Normally, hormones such as insulin and satiety hormones rise after a meal and then fall once digestion is complete. This clear on-and-off pattern tells the body when to store energy and when it is safe to burn it.

When food sits in the stomach for many extra hours:

• • Insulin remains elevated longer than normal
  • The body stays in storage mode instead of switching to fat burning
  • Hunger signals become blunted and confused
  • The body loses its normal metabolic rhythm

At this point, a fair question comes up: If insulin stays elevated, why don’t people gain weight on GLP-1 drugs?

The answer is simple.

People taking GLP-1 drugs are usually in a caloric deficit, meaning they eat so little that the body does not have enough calories to gain weight, even though insulin remains elevated longer than normal.

Weight loss still occurs, but not because metabolism is healthier.

Instead:

• • Metabolism slows
  • Muscle is broken down to conserve energy
  • Fat is protected as a survival fuel

At the cellular level, prolonged insulin exposure reduces cells’ responsiveness to insulin. This is how insulin resistance develops, even as the scale declines (Reaven, 1988).

Resting energy expenditure drops

Resting energy expenditure is the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive.

When digestion is slow and fuel trickles in constantly:

• • The body senses no urgency to burn stored energy
  • Energy demand drops
  • The body adapts by burning fewer calories at rest

This metabolic downshift makes continued fat loss harder and increases the risk of weight regain later.

Muscle breaks down while fat storage increases

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. It burns energy even at rest. Fat, on the other hand, is easy for the body to store and costs very little energy to maintain.

When metabolism slows:

• • Muscle becomes “too expensive” to keep
  • Fat is preserved

This leads to reduced metabolism, decreased strength, and higher body fat percentage, even when body weight decreases (Wolfe, 2006).

Digestive symptoms increase

The digestive system is designed to move, not stall.

When food sits too long:

• • Pressure builds
  • Gas accumulates
  • Acid has more time to irritate tissue

This leads to bloating, nausea, reflux, and constipation. These are not random side effects. They are predictable outcomes of slowed digestion.

Gut motility and signaling are disrupted

Gut motility is the natural movement of food through the digestive tract and plays a major role in communication between the gut and the brain.

When digestion is slowed:

• • Normal gut movement becomes sluggish
  • Signals sent to the brain are altered
  • Appetite regulation, mood, and inflammation are affected

Over time, this disruption weakens metabolic health and resilience.

Why This Matters for Long-Term Health

Insulin resistance does not begin on the scale.
It begins inside the cell.

When cells stop responding well to insulin:

• • Sugar has a harder time entering cells
  • The pancreas produces more insulin to compensate
  • Insulin levels rise even higher

Over time, this contributes to:

• • High blood pressure
  • Type 2 diabetes
  • Fatty liver disease
  • Cardiovascular disease

This is why someone can lose weight, feel less hungry, and look healthier on the outside, yet still move toward metabolic disease on the inside, especially after stopping the drug (Drucker, 2018).

Weight Loss Is Not the Same as Metabolic Health

Yes, people lose weight on GLP-1 drugs.

But that weight loss happens because:

• • Appetite is suppressed
  • Food intake drops
  • The body is forced into a calorie deficit

This is forced weight loss, not metabolic repair.

It’s the difference between turning down the thermostat to lower the bill versus fixing the heating system so it works properly.

Final Takeaway & Call to Action

It is clear and well established, including through my own Diet Free Life methodology, that people can lose weight by learning to eat regular, everyday food in a way that does not feel like dieting, restriction, or deprivation.

Unfortunately, many people are choosing GLP-1 drugs not because they are the best option, but because they have lost hope, are unaware of the proven power of nutrition education, and have been influenced by pharmaceutical marketing that has made these drugs appear to be the easiest solution.

Although I could have focused this article on many health concerns associated with GLP-1 drugs, I intentionally focused on the one issue everyone must agree on:

The biology of human digestion and absorption.

The facts are the facts.

If a GLP-1 drug does what it is proven to do, digestion and absorption are disturbed. When digestion and absorption are disturbed, metabolic suppression occurs. And metabolic suppression, regardless of how much weight is lost, never ends well.

This article is not about fear.
It is not about risk.
It is about facts.

There are no drugs and no workaround that can change the biology you’ve learned here.

If you would like to learn how to lose weight, improve metabolic health, and restore normal digestion without medications, through education and real food:

📧 Email: robert@dietfreelife.com
📅 Schedule a free consultation by request

You deserve solutions that work with your body, not against it.

References

1. 1. Camilleri, M. (2006). Integrated upper gastrointestinal response to food intake. Gastroenterology, 131(2), 640–658. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2006.06.007
   2. Drucker, D. J. (2018). Mechanisms of action and therapeutic application of glucagon-like peptide-1. Cell Metabolism, 27(4), 740–756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2018.03.001
   3. Horowitz, M., Flint, A., Jones, K. L., et al. (2012). Effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists on gastric emptying and postprandial glucose. Diabetes Care, 35(5), 1254–1263. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc11-2250
   4. Reaven, G. M. (1988). Role of insulin resistance in human disease. Diabetes, 37(12), 1595–1607. https://doi.org/10.2337/diab.37.12.1595
   5. Wilding, J. P. H., Batterham, R. L., Calanna, S., et al. (2021). Once-weekly semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity. The New England Journal of Medicine, 384(11), 989–1002. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2032183
   6. Wolfe, R. R. (2006). The underappreciated role of muscle in health and disease. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 84(3), 475–482. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/84.3.475

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Robert Ferguson is a California- and Florida-based single father of two daughters, clinical nutritionist, Omega Balancing Coach™, researcher, best-selling author, speaker, podcast and television host, health advisor, NAACP Image Award Nominee, creator of the Diet Free Life methodology, and Chief Nutrition Officer for iCoura Health. He also serves on the Presidential Task Force on Obesity for the National Medical Association and the Health and Product Advisory Board for Zinzino, Inc.

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