Beyond Ozempic: Functional Medicine Strategies for Binge Eating Disorder

Americans have long been obsessed with the idea of a quick weight-loss fix. Recently, the craze has focused on injectable medications originally used for diabetes, the GLP-1 agonists that include semaglutide, despite the risks and concerns over serious long-term side effects. This “semaglutide craze” stems from mainstream medicine’s failure to provide viable solutions for obesity, binge eating disorder (BED), and food addiction as doctors still often blame a patient’s lack of willpower rather than recognizing the biological roots of these conditions.

Research shows that obesity, BED, and food addiction are driven by metabolic disruptions and gut-brain signaling problems, not a lack of willpower. An understanding of this biology opens new treatment avenues. Dr. James Greenblatt will present one arm of his proven “New Hope” model for treating these disorders: amino acid therapy. By providing the appropriate amino acid precursors, it’s possible to address some of the biological underpinnings of the condition rather than just blaming patients’ lack of willpower.