and his first gig post-parliament?
writing a column for the daily fail, of course. on ozempic lol
ORIS JOHNSON: The wonder drug I hoped would stop my 11.30pm fridge raids for cheddar and chorizo didn’t work for me. But I still believe it could change the lives of millions
By BORIS JOHNSON
PUBLISHED: 16:57 BST, 16 June 2023 | UPDATED: 17:20 BST, 16 June 2023
I first thought that something was up when I saw that a certain member of the Cabinet had miraculously changed his appearance. He had acquired a new jawline. His neck emerged without effort from his collar. When he rose from his chair at the Cabinet table, that chair no longer tried to cling longingly about his hips.
I got it! He had lost weight, stones and stones of belly and dewlap; and I immediately thought of Julius Caesar, and his preference for well-fed colleagues.
‘Let me have men about me that are fat,’ said the Roman dictator, shortly before his assassination. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.’
As it turned out, Caesar was right to be worried about Cassius. Then I noticed another colleague whose silhouette was shrinking visibly; and another. By this time my spider senses were jangling.
If an otherwise healthy middle-aged man displays sudden weight loss, I reasoned, there are only two possible explanations. Either he has fallen hopelessly in love, or else he is about to mount a Tory leadership bid.
I was going to search for the hero inside myself — the one that was three stone lighter
I consulted the doctor, and he told me that I was an ideal candidate for these drugs
Then one of those colleagues came up and whispered the truth — that there was an entirely separate explanation. He had access, he said, to a wonder drug. ‘It stops you wanting to eat,’ he said. Really? I boggled.
‘Look at me,’ he said, and twanged his braces in triumph. He was right: there was a whole lot less of him than I remembered — so much less, in fact, that he looked almost gaunt by comparison. Suddenly I was interested.
I was going to search for the hero inside myself — the one that was three stone lighter. I was going to locate that svelte and dynamic version of Johnson, imprisoned for decades in pointless extra body weight, and I was going to set him free.
Tell me how, I said; and so my friend shared the number of a brilliant physician who had prescribed this magic potion. ‘Are you sure it works?’ I said. He twanged his braces again. There was no argument. It was a miracle.
I consulted the doctor, and he told me that I was an ideal candidate for these appetite-suppressing drugs. It works like this, he said: when you have had a meal, your body produces a hormone that tells your hypothalamus (at the base of the brain) that you are full; so you stop eating.
The trouble is this natural hormone only circulates for a couple of minutes, and before you know it you are chowing down again. So for decades scientists have been looking for the exact molecule that will tell you to stop being so damn hungry: the satiety molecule.
Back in the 1990s they thought they had cracked it when they extracted a hormone from the digestive system of the Gila monster — a giant black and orange lizard from Mexico.
They took this hormone, gave it to human beings, and somehow fooled the human alimentary system into slowing its metabolic rate.
Their stomachs started to think they belonged to Gila monsters, and began digesting things with reptilian slowness. People no longer felt quite so hungry, and for all I know they just sat there motionless, occasionally blinking and darting their tongues out at flies. It was an amazing breakthrough — and there is a campaign to get the scientists concerned the Nobel Prize.
But the Gila monster hormone was still too short-lived; it didn’t last long enough in the system to defeat human greed. So scientists in Denmark (with some help from Oxford) started searching ever harder for the knock-out satiety hormone, one that will suppress your appetite for a whole week.
I must have been losing four or five pounds a week - maybe more - when it started to go wrong
It was a huge effort that lasted six or seven years — until bingo, they got it. The hormone is called semaglutide, and the proprietary name of the drug is Ozempic.
It’s a cinch, said the doctor. All you need to do is inject a tiny dose of clear Ozempic fluid into your abdomen, once a week, and hey presto — no more raiding the fridge at 11.30pm for the cheddar and chorizo washed down with half a bottle of wine.
Say goodbye to that unconquerable mid-morning lust for a bacon sandwich. No longer will you stand over the children waiting for them to push aside their bowls of pasta — and then ruthlessly scoff whatever they have left.
After 40 years of moral failure, 40 years of weakness in the face of temptation — of akrasia — I was going to acquire a new and invincible chemical willpower. I was going to become an ex-glutton, a person of moderation and grace and restraint, and like my Cabinet colleagues I was going to start to resemble a chiselled whippet.
He wrote out the prescription, I zoomed to the chemist’s; and though I was frankly a bit taken aback by the cost, what the hell, I said to myself, think of the benefits to health.
So for weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked. Effortlessly, I pushed aside the puddings and the second helpings. Wasn’t it amazing, I said to myself, how little food you really need.
I must have been losing four or five pounds a week — maybe more — when all at once it started to go wrong. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was something to do with constantly flying around the world, and changing time zones, but I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill.
One minute I would be fine, and the next minute I would be talking to Ralph on the big white phone; and I am afraid that I decided that I couldn’t go on.
For now I am back to exercise and willpower, but I look at my colleagues — leaner but not hungrier — and I hope that if science can do it for them, maybe one day it can help me, and everyone else.
I believe we are still in the foothills of what these drugs can do. They could be transformative. I talked to Mads Thomsen, the brilliant Dane who led the search for semaglutide, and he described how these drugs will eventually become much cheaper, and orally ingested. He described how people could use them daily, like statins, and radically improve their health — and I think he is right.
The obesity crisis in this country is appalling: more than three-quarters of older people are overweight or obese — and the numbers are terrible among the kids.
Yes, the drugs will cost a bit to begin with, but those who can afford it should pay; and think of the savings for the NHS in diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. We are performing terrible invasive and destructive surgeries and treatments — all because people could not restrain their appetites. Why not help them?
I agree with the fundamental conservative instinct — that we should be relying on good old-fashioned human determination to keep that fridge door shut. We should all be taking more exercise. But in the end it may not be enough.
I see nothing morally wrong in using these drugs to help you lose weight, any more than it is wrong to use an electrically assisted bicycle to get up the hill. Even for us fatties, it turns out, there is such a thing as satiety — and science has found it.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12203407/BORIS-JOHNSON-Wonder-drug-hoped-stop-raids-cheddar-chorizo-didnt-work-me.html
