Magic Pill

The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs

De: Johann Hari

Narrado por: Johann Hari

The bestselling author of Lost Connections and Stolen Focus offers a revelatory look at the new drugs transforming weight loss as we know it—from his personal experience on Ozempic to our ability to heal our society’s dysfunctional relationship with food, weight, and our bodies.

In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasn’t alone—some predictions suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 percent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs will lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugs’ defenders, here is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, and an early death.

Still, Hari was wildly conflicted. Can these drugs really be as good as they sound? Are they a magic solution—or a magic trick? Finding the answer to this high-stakes question led him on a journey from Iceland to Minneapolis to Tokyo, and to interview the leading experts in the world on these questions. He found that along with the drug’s massive benefits come twelve significant potential risks.

He also found that these drugs radically challenge what we think we know about shame, willpower, and healing. What do they reveal about the nature of obesity itself? What psychological issues begin to emerge when our eating patterns are suddenly disrupted? Are the drugs a liberation or a further symptom of our deeply dysfunctional relationship with food?

These drugs are about to change our world, for better and for worse. Everybody needs to understand how they work—scientifically, emotionally, and culturally. MAGIC PILL is an essential guide to the revolution that has already begun, and which one leading expert argues will be as transformative as the invention of the smartphone.


* This audiobook edition contains a downloadable PDF with additional resources and endnotes.

Fantastic Thoughtful Examination of Weight Loss

In an engaging story-style, the author investigates the issues related to everyday weight loss problems and addresses them in common sense ways from eating and psychological changes to prescription interventions.

So much good information

He does a great job narrating. He is very clear and concise and therefore easy to follow, even with the scientific information.

An insightful listen

An insightful listen on a an early stage uptake of the solution that is shaping how we may see weight loss.

Phenomenal!

This is an urgent message to us all about obesity, food relations, societal impacts, and a medication that brings it all into focus. A raw, honest, balanced assessment around whether or not the new weight loss medications are good or bad, helpful or hurtful, promising or discouraging. Hari does great investigative work to try to find answers to the tough and insightful questions. This is a must read for society at large today!

Wonderful story done in a wonderful thoughtful way

The author’s candidness and empathy shines through. While I thought this was mostly about the “Magic Pill”, it was much more. Anyone who has struggled with their weight should read this book. This book is a gem.