Ep. 34 - Food Noise, GLP-1 Medications, and the Set Point: Why Weight Comes Back

Dr. Tim Sayed walks through a recent New York Times article on food noise — the persistent mental chatter about eating that many people with obesity describe as relentless — and what GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide appear to do to quiet it. Drawing on both his clinical experience prescribing these medications and his own personal use of them, Sayed unpacks the concept of the set point: the weight a body seems to naturally gravitate toward, which researchers believe may be dysregulated in obesity. The piece raises a question Sayed finds genuinely unresolved — if GLP-1s are suppressing food noise by resetting the set point, what exactly is being reset, and where in the brain is that happening?Patient accounts from the article illustrate how dramatic the shift can feel — and how quickly food noise returns when the medications stop. Sayed doesn't frame this as a failure of the drugs. He's more interested in what it reveals about the underlying biology, and whether behavioral changes adopted during treatment can outlast the medication itself. He also touches on the broader compulsion research emerging around GLP-1s — gambling, alcohol, smoking — and what it might mean that a single drug class appears to quiet such different urges. The honest takeaway here isn't a clean answer but a more precise version of the question: the drugs work, the biology is real, and the mechanisms still aren't fully understood.Contact Dr. Tim Sayed:Phone: (858) 247-2933Email: [email protected]: timsayedmd.comInstagram: @timsayedmdYouTube: @TimsayedmdFacebook: Tim Sayed MD