Common Sense Health: Who can solve the chronic disease crisis?

By Dr. Gifford-Jones and Diana Gifford-Jones on January 10, 2025.

Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. He got the title thanks to innovative thinking and masterful moves in the business world. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk intends to apply economic efficiencies in fighting the crisis of an obese society by making weight loss drugs cheap.

In a post on X, Elon Musk wrote, “Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan, and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public. Nothing is even close.”

GLP inhibitors are a class of medications that help manage blood sugar in people with diabetes. Ozempic is the brand name for one such product that is enabling pharmaceutical executives to join the ranks of the ultra-rich.

But are these powerful synthetic drugs the right way to fight the problem? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is another of Trump’s controversial appointments. He will be the next U.S. Secretary of Health, charged by Trump to end the chronic disease epidemic. Kennedy believes promoting a better lifestyle is the answer. In his own post on X, he said “ultra-processed food is driving the obesity epidemic.”

So, who is right? Neither of them is a doctor. But we mustn’t hold that against them. Doctors haven’t done near enough to address the steady destructive progress over several decades of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. North American was not a land of obesity in the past. But it is today, at a huge cost. And now the scales have tipped, and the fight is on, one way or another.

Kennedy is right that lifestyle is the answer, but hell will freeze over before companies put healthy products ahead of corporate profits. Processing things is what companies do.

Kennedy faces another major human conundrum. Study after study show that following good nutritional guidance does lead many people to lose weight and gain better health. But history shows that humans are not angels. They get tired of diets, go back to eating what they enjoy, and obesity returns with a vengeance. So, Kennedy’s plan gets a failing grade.

Is Musk’s plan to get innovative, costly drugs into the hands of the masses the better way? The new class of weight loss drugs are effective in helping people lose weight and fight Type 2 Diabetes. But there are consequences of turning to drugs to make life easy. Year after year, synthetic drugs result in thousands of deaths, and negative side effects can accumulate when they’re used for prolonged periods of time. Doctors, politicians, and businesspeople who fail to acknowledge the risks associated with drugs are not being honest. People who turn to synthetic drugs without pause are ignoring their options.

Musk’s plan has this and other challenges. How does he propose to lower the cost of weight loss drugs while also slashing federal spending on health? And how will he corral health insurance companies that are now starting to say no to coverage for such drugs. So there’s no high grade for Musk either.

Meanwhile, the health of North Americans is declining as the medical complications of obesity and diabetes march on. Blindness, heart attack, kidney failure and sometimes amputation of both legs due to gangrene are the complications of diabetes.

The only winners will be the ones who knuckle down with the determination and dedication required to lose extra weight. They will follow Abraham’s Lincoln’s advice about having legs. Use them!

No drug offers a glitzy reward free of repercussion. Shakespeare wrote, “A substitute shines as brightly as a king, until a king be by.”