Leveraging the gut to treat obesity with Dr Randy Seeley

In this episode, Dr. Randy Seeley joins Nathan to discuss the latest scientific research regarding weight management – and it’s absolutely fascinating. While treatment of overweight and obesity has traditionally focused on energy balance and glucose regulation, the future of weight management may actually lie in the gut. Seeley unpacks valuable lessons learned from bariatric surgery, explaining how leveraging the gut may serve as an important therapeutic opportunity.

Dr Randy Seeley is the Henry King Ransom Endowed Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He has published over 270 peer-reviewed articles, featured in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature and Cell Metabolism. Collectively, his work has been cited more than 20,000 times and Dr Seeley has an H-index of 66. As the podcast topic suggests, Seeley’s scientific work centres around the role of peripheral hormones in the CNS that serve to regulate food intake, body weight and the levels of circulating fuels, and developing new treatment strategies for both obesity and diabetes.

*Highlights *

• Why are we so overweight? (3:30)
• Signals involved in weight regulation (13:00)
• Lessons learned from bariatric surgery (20:00)
• Looking to non-surgical interventions that mimic the results of bariatric surgery (38:00)
• Iron deficiency anaemia in bariatric surgery (47:00)
• Tips for weight management (54:00)
• Combating the stigma of obesity (104:00)

Useful links:

Paper –
Gimeno RE, Briere DA, Seeley RJ. Leveraging the Gut to Treat Metabolic Disease. Cell Metab. 2020;31(4):679-698. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2020.02.014
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32187525/

Resource –
https://www.obesityaction.org/