Ozempic, Wegovy, GLP-1 – they have all become online buzzwords. A miracle drug for weight loss that makes you feel full and has apparently minimal side effects? But there is more. A flood of studies and clinical trials are investigating whether Ozempic and its sister drugs could treat an assortment of heart, kidney, and liver diseases, as well as having neuroprotective effects in neurodegenerative disease and dampening compulsive behaviors. It seems to be the drug that does it all, but is it too good to be true?What are GLP-1 drugs?Glucagon-like-peptide-1 (GLP-1) is naturally secreted in the body after a meal, stimulating insulin production to control glucose levels in the blood. When its effects on insulin were first found in the late 1980s, it seemed promising as a new treatment for diabetes, if it wasn’t for how quickly it gets broken down in the blood.In comes the Gila monster, an impressive name for a venomous slow-moving lizard with bad breath. One of the compounds in its saliva is about 50 percent similar to GLP-1, enough to bind to GLP-1 receptors, but with the added benefit of a longer half-life allowing it to be effective over longer timescales. It was synthesized under the name exenatide and became the first GLP-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) drug approved for treatment of Type 2 diabetes.What are GLP-1RAs good for?GLP-1RAs don’t just stimulate insulin production. They also slow the emptying of the stomach into the intestine after a meal, one way in which they make you feel full. These are the pathways that in addition to controlling blood sugar levels have led to the main side-effect of these drugs: weight loss. After 68 weeks of treatment overweight or obese people lost an average of 12 percent body weight due to the effects of the drug alone, according to a 2021 study. These effects were seen with the next generation of GLP-1RAs: semaglutide, most popular under the names Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus. That’s when GLP-1RAs really started taking off. After inducing weight loss in people with obesity, it was flying off the shelves with the promise of weight loss for everyone.Approved in the USA in 2017, and in the EU, Canada, and Japan in 2018, the popularity of Ozempic has been growing ever since. In recent years, it seems to be everywhere, with a surge in online interest in Ozempic and Wegovy (FDA approved in 2021) at the end of 2022, not long after Elon Musk claimed to be using the latter. It is unclear how many non-obese or overweight people are taking GLP-1RAs now, but the manufacturers of Ozempic report increasingly high demand.Now it also seems to be good for everything. It is not uncommon for a drug to be multipurpose. Gabapentin, initially prescribed for epilepsy, is often used as a painkiller. Sildenafil, developed as a blood pressure medication, is best known as an erectile dysfunction drug. As reported by Dr Daniel Drucker, a clinician-scientist and diabetes treatment expert based at The Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, in a new Perspective article, clinical trials are now being carried out to test the effectiveness of GLP-1RAs as medications for peripheral artery disease, to prevent major cardiovascular events, stroke, kidney disease, and heart attacks, to treat metabolic liver disease, as well as Parkinson’s disease. Initial studies are testing its potential as a therapy for dependence-related behaviors. If that seems like an overwhelming list of unrelated diseases... it kind of is.What do we know about how it works?How could one drug, or even one family of drugs, do all of this? The receptor that these drugs bind to, GLP-1R, has been found in many different tissues and organs. Its expression in the pancreas is how it mediates its originally targeted effect on insulin secretion. It is also expressed in many different groups of neurons: for example, in peripheral neurons that control the emptying of the stomach, and in central nervous system neurons that control food intake. For these pathways, scientists have proposed mechanisms of action of these drugs.GLP-1Rs are also expressed in the heart, liver and kidney. However their mode of action in these tissues is not clear, leaving scientists with correlation between GLP-1RA administration and disease outcomes without a mechanistic understanding.That’s in part why some theories of GLP-1RA magical mode of action have turned to its role in inflammation. Taking GLP-1RAs seems to reduce inflammation in the whole body, from the gut to the brain, even in tissues that don’t express the receptor. The reduction in neuroinflammation is thought to underlie the therapeutic effects for neurodegenerative disease. Low-grade inflammation accompanies Type 2 diabetes and obesity; is the anti-inflammatory action of GLP-1RA necessary for its beneficial effects? It should be noted that several of these studies reporting therapeutic effects on the heart, liver, and kidney were carried out only in people with Type 2 diabetes and/or obesity. Reducing inflammation in these tissues could reduce the risk of complications in these patients.Is it all good? Are GLP-1RAs being overused, and are the potential downsides not being sufficiently weighed? For all the many tissues and organs they target, they seem to have surprisingly few adverse effects, at least in the short term. Patients often report gastrointestinal discomfort, as well as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and constipation. Not pleasant, but potentially treatable.Of greater concern is the loss of muscle mass. Despite their powerful efficacy, GLP-1RAs are not magic bullets, and taking them has to be accompanied by lifestyle changes, particularly diet and exercise. Because GLP-1RAs make you lose weight by reducing your appetite, if not paired with exercise this can actually lead to significant loss of muscle mass. People report that taking these medications is making it easier to stick to diets and exercise. Rarer, but more serious side-effects include pancreatitis, retinopathy, gallstones, and malnourishment. It also seems to be tied to cancer risk, but results are still unclear about this.In the long term, however, we simply don’t know. We're living through the "great Ozempic experiment", as the New York Times put it. The trick with these drugs is that once you start, you are taking them for life. Their effects wane after consumption is interrupted. We simply don’t know what happens if you take them for 10, 20, 50 years. Or if you stopped taking them after a long period of administration. Added to all this is the growing problem with counterfeit GLP-1RAs – with potentially even more dangerous side-effects – being circulated on the black market, leading the World Health Organization to issue a warning in June 2024. GLP-1RAs have been used for treatment of Type 2 diabetes for 20 years, suggesting their safety in that context. They were approved for obesity only 10 years ago, and are still under investigation for all their other potential uses. The risk vs. benefit analyses will also have to be expanded to identify which patients may be most responsive to these treatments.The Perspective is published in Science. 

Irvin, Texas — The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) showcased a mysterious material believed to be from an alien spacecraft at their annual symposium held earlier this month in Irvin, Texas. Ron James and Bob Spearing led a presentation detailing the properties of the “unknown material,” which has intrigued researchers and enthusiasts alike. For the first time, MUFON exhibited small fragments of the anomalously light material, described as being so lightweight that it cannot bend a flower petal. The material, which displays a black porous texture with a hint of gold, was subjected to rigorous testing using advanced NASA-grade technology. According to MUFON, approximately 90% of the material remains unidentifiable. “It’s very, very light material,” Spearing explained. “It almost looks porous, like it has pores. It has a tinge of gold in it, but it’s basically a black material. Seems to be some sort of composite. It’s so light that it won’t even bend a flower.” The origins of the material add to its mystery. An individual in Russia, referred to as ‘Arkady,’ allegedly acquired the samples from a non-human entity claiming they were fragments from a crashed UFO. MUFON’s laboratory in Missouri conducted extensive tests but could not match the material to any known metal. “That either means it’s A) not a metal, or B) a metal alloy that isn’t recognized or something in the periodic table,” Spearing noted. “The signal was unique, because they have looked up the standard peaks for most known metals, and nothing matched it exactly.” Spearing speculated that the material could serve as lightweight insulation suitable for conductive insulating or heat protection, potentially aligning with its supposed origin as debris from an extraterrestrial craft. For those interested, the full MUFON presentation can be viewed below. The post MUFON unveils alleged alien spacecraft material at annual symposium appeared first on Anomalien.com.

On July 15, the opening day of the Republican convention, federal judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments of Donald Trump for misuse of classified documents. Legal arguments aside, it cast a shadow over all the breathless media hype that came before it. Year after year, partisan “legacy media” outlets have churned out thousands of stories full of anticipation that the walls of scandal would close in on Trump. Once again, a litany of Trump “legal woes” haven’t damaged his political standing. A new Media Research Center study of 2023 and the first half of 2024 by Rich Noyes revealed that the evening news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC produced a whopping 1,608 minutes of airtime on Trump legal matters, and as you might expect, it was fiercely negative (95 percent). The only successful case, the accounting-records case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – very rarely described as an elected Democrat – attracted 485 minutes of TV news. Even the dry details of jury selection were treated as fascinating. Reporters thrived on negative words. They used the word “crime” or “criminal” 29 times to talk about Trump’s actions; “guilty” was heard 40 times; “felony” was used 48 times, and “convicted” or “conviction” was employed 108 times. Jack Smith’s cases on Trump’s alleged election interference (311 minutes) and Trump’s possession of classified documents (243 minutes) followed behind. The Georgia election case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (elected Democrat) brought another 187 minutes of negative publicity. None of these will proceed before the election, much to the media’s chagrin. On and on, these cases went, and their political effect boomeranged. Instead of damaging Trump, it destroyed the chances of his primary opponents. This collection of cases formed the lion’s share of the networks’ coverage of the GOP primaries, crowding out both Trump’s competitors and policy issues. They cared less about candidate debates (which Trump skipped) and more about forthcoming court dates. On January 1, 2023, an average of polls calculated by Real Clear Politics showed 37.2 percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Trump. By July 10, 2024, that had risen more than five points to 42.5 percent. At the same time, those viewing Trump unfavorably declined by more than two points to 54.5 percent. It’s a stark indication of the media’s dwindling influence. Most Americans view these prosecutions, and the subsequent press hype, as overtly partisan, so they are dismissed. The target became a more sympathetic figure through the onslaught. In the end it can feel like endless hours of noise, like…Fake News. That’s not to say every fact is false, but the promotional hype turns out to be false. The Robert Mueller probe never achieved the expected Trump indictments that journalists so deeply desired. Conservatives challenged the legitimacy of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. The New York Times and The Washington Post won for stories that “dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.” The Pulitzer gang reviewed the winning articles again and insisted “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.” But many of these articles described a prosecutorial process – a process that fell flat.  As November approaches, this media-prosecutorial complex clearly failed to accomplish what it hoped for -- a deeply damaged Republican nominee. All they have is a Pulitzer participation trophy. 

Following the failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, one topic has been on virtually everyone’s minds — left, right and center: How was the shooter able to get off eight shots at the former president from such a close distance? By all accounts, the day was filled with numerous failures and lapses in security. To help evaluate what went wrong, Blaze News spoke to experts, including a 24-year veteran of the Secret Service, to answer some of the most obvious questions that Americans are asking. As more news continues to leak about the events of last Saturday, more questions continue to arise about law enforcement’s response to Thomas Matthew Crooks on the day of the shooting. For example, Fox News reported that Crooks’ parents reported him missing to police. CNN also reported that Crooks was checked by security outside the event hours prior and was found to have been carrying a range finder. It was also later discovered that Crooks had two remote explosive devices in his car. How was someone whose presence was noted as suspicious to the police able to obtain an easy line of sight to the former president at such short range? Why were agents so slow to respond even after Crooks was spotted on the roof? In terms of official answers, these questions remain unanswered, except for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s excuse that the roof was sloped at the top, thus making it an apparently insurmountable safety hazard. The rooftop To answer some of these questions, Blaze News spoke to Kenneth Valentine, a retired Secret Service agent with 24 years of experience. Valentine retired at the rank of special agent in charge of the Dignitary Protective Division. He also served on the Presidential Protective Detail for 10 years. Having worked for Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, the former agent called the Pennsylvania shooting a failure of prevention, describing such a “close call” as “someone else’s loss and failure.” “That doesn’t happen except in training ... and what happened [to Trump], that doesn’t happen either.” When asked directly about the Secret Service director’s reasoning for not putting an agent on the rooftop in question, he said he disagreed with Cheatle’s reasoning but indicated that he also would not have placed agents there, for other reasons. “A sloped roof is not a good enough reason to not put someone up there.” “That would not be my first choice either,” he continued. “Posting that roof with an officer poses risks to an officer that are unnecessary. Done correctly, you would post multiple officers on the ground outside that building that prevents ... anyone, especially someone with a weapon, to get access to that high ground overlooking a secured venue.” Dallas Alexander, former sniper and record-holder for the longest recorded sniper kill in history (2.2 miles), told Blaze News that the nearby rooftop being uncovered made “no sense” to him. “This is the closest building to where the former/potential future president is going to be speaking. 150 yards is an extremely easy shot to make, even with minimal amounts of training. There is a ladder ... on to a rooftop that was not secured, that close to where Donald Trump is speaking,” he said in confusion. “It makes absolutely no sense,” he added. Comms and surveillance With reports showing Crooks walking around, appearing to survey the very rooftop he would later use, citizens — and experts — are demanding answers regarding the apparent lack of communications between law enforcement agencies on site. Videos circulated online appear to show that approximately two minutes passed between the time local attendees pointed out the shooter to authorities and the first shot being fired. Many have suggested that with even minimal communication, Crooks should have been stopped well before shots were fired. “Communication is so key, and it’s what can save the day,” Valentine stated. Valentine explained that it is up to the Secret Service to plan the communications for an event like a presidential rally. This would include a “command post that would be staffed with not only Secret Service but every other law enforcement agency that is participating in the security plan.” 'They went out and looked at those buildings, they numbered those buildings ... they knew this building well, I assure you.' “Communication is what’s supposed to happen there. Ideally, if agents and officers working in tandem ... encounter a man with a gun, that would be communicated twice. Once by the Secret Service, and once by the officer or detective that’s there so that the command post has the information they need to relay that to the working shift, to the snipers, and the assault team,” Valentine explained. The retired agent said he was somewhat baffled by the fact that Crooks was able to walk around the area without being stopped again. He explained that there are supposed to be teams of Secret Service or law enforcement personnel tasked specifically to be on the lookout for such suspicious persons. “That’s what those teams are out there to do — to spot the duck amongst the geese.” “You’re out there looking for what doesn’t belong. If you have someone in a trench coat on a hot day, you go talk to that person. If you see someone behaving erratically ... you check it out, you go ask them.” Valentine noted that it’s not even unusual to encounter people getting onto rooftops in situations like these. “You go check it out. You have a team that’s dedicated to going to rooftops to talk to people that are opening windows in venues that are overlooking the event ... you go check it out.” “That happens, we deal with it, but looks like to me that the plan was not executed.” Despite the existence of a checkpoint at the outskirts of the secure area — where Crooks was found with the range finder — Valentine guaranteed that people in the general area of the event are still under surveillance, even if they do not go through the checkpoint. This includes any person behaving suspiciously in the general area, as well as any suspicious vehicles nearby. “That area should be somewhat saturated with law enforcement to ensure no one gains access to high ground,” he specified. In fact, Valentine said that the very existence of snipers in the area meant that the security team did an advanced, detailed scouting of their surroundings. “They went out and looked at those buildings, they numbered those buildings ... they knew this building well, I assure you.” Despite the constantly changing dynamics of a security landscape like a presidential rally, Valentine still said the shooting “should have been prevented.” Alexander also added that what he saw constituted massive gaps in security from a team that should not assume anything will go according to plan. As he stated in a now-viral video post, Alexander said he believes based on his experience that Crooks likely was assisted in his assassination attempt in some way. “I believe that — because I was in a sniper counterterrorism unit for a lot of years, we did a lot of close protection for a lot of years. ... This is beyond just a lapse in security; this is beyond a small gap not being watched.” “I believe ... that he had help from somewhere,” Alexander said. Both experts called for an in-depth investigation as to how there could be so many failures at one single event, especially one involving a presidential candidate.

Somebody tried to kill Donald Trump over the weekend because he was convinced that Trump's a fascist. Let’s look into that definition. What exactly does it mean to be a fascist? The media is convinced that Trump is in the same echelon as Hitler, yet journalists never say what it actually means to be a "fascist." How convenient. It appears some definitions of fascism have changed recently in the dictionaries that conveniently appear to reflect the leftist agenda driving the media narrative. Having read them, I can see why you might think Donald Trump is a fascist.If you can’t trust your vote, you don’t have a democracy. You don’t have a republic. You have nothing.According to Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, fascism is a:Political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945. ... Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism.Let’s break this down. First, many people may claim that Donald Trump is a fascist because he wants a strong military. Yes, he does want a strong military, but as a means of deterrence, not aggression. When you have strength, nobody wants to hit you because they know you'll hit back — and probably hit back harder. You need to be the tough guy on the playground.Tough guys often do become fascistic, however. They promote “forever wars” by interfering in foreign conflicts. That's what makes Trump different than most Republicans. Trump hates war and hates the conflict of war. That’s why he separated from so many people on the right for so long. Luckily, many of us have woken up and realized that these wars that our leaders put us in never end. They're ridiculous to fight. We always seem to lose in the end, one way or another, because it's not our responsibility to go in and tell other people how to live. That’s not fascistic. I just think that’s right. The Encyclopedia Britannica continues to describe fascists as having a “contempt for the electoral democracy.” We've been having a discussion recently about what a democracy is. Are we a democracy, or are we a republic? You can do your own homework on this. America’s founders were very clear. In fact, when Ben Franklin walked out of the constitutional convention and a woman asked him what form of government they had adopted, he answered, "A republic, if you can keep it." This was something that we all understood up until Woodrow Wilson started changing things.Democracies last for a very short time. The average constitution lasts 17 years, but our Constitution is coming up on its 235th anniversary. Why? Because we have balanced democracy with a republic. Democracy is “one man, one vote.” You vote for a representative. Once you are done voting, then the representative begins to vote on your behalf. That’s where it’s gotten screwed up because we’re not electing good and honest people — people with our own values. It’s also screwed up because we can’t trust our vote. If you can’t trust your vote, you don’t have a democracy. You don’t have a republic. You have nothing.This is why the Republicans have been saying that we need paper ballots. We need to have ID requirements on Election Day. This is not something that fascists do. This is something that they do at your 7-Eleven when you go to buy beer. This is something you must have if you’re driving a car. This is something you need if you're going to college or applying for work in many places. You need to have an ID to vote. That’s not racist. That’s not fascist. That’s protecting the “democratic” part of our democratic republic.Yet the government wants you to have some sort of a vaccine ID to enter buildings. How could you be in favor of the government interfering in a decision as personal to you and your body as getting an experimental drug? Yet you don't want people to have any form of ID to show that they're a citizen and a registered voter? That is not a democracy. That’s just corruption. Encyclopedia Britannica also defines fascism as “a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites.” This is something that I used to disagree with vehemently for a long time with liberals. They used to say, “These corporations are going to take over the world because they're so powerful.” They were right. In my lifetime, I never thought a corporation could be as powerful, corrupt, and controlling as the government. Before AI and before Google, elites didn't have that power. But they have that power now. We are now living under the ruling of elites. If you didn’t go to the right college, if you don’t hold the right opinion, you’re not an elite. You’re an idiot. And we “idiots” are told to only listen to the elites.Encyclopedia Britannica also says that fascism is “a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a ... ‘people’s community.’” This is where it gets interesting. This is where they equate Donald Trump’s love for his country to “nationalism.” They think he’s trying to replicate 1930s Germany. That is deeply misguided. What makes us great isn't about any particular race. What makes us different is our heritage.This society was forged by people who came here from all over the world. How could we possibly be anti-immigrant? People self-selected to come here and forge the West. Have you watched a Western? Have you watched a cowboy movie? Have you watched “1883”? Have you watched “The Magnificent Seven”? Have you seen “Horizon,” the new Kevin Costner film? These people were insane. I have a grandmother who lost an eye while crossing the mountains. She just yanked it out and said, "Keep moving." These people were nuts. That's what made us. That’s what makes us different. Our heritage is one of explorers, of risk takers. That’s why we’re good entrepreneurs.But in fascist Germany and Italy, individual interest was subordinated to the good of the nation. The individual didn’t matter. It was the collective that mattered. That’s a key sign of fascism.Who is the champion of the individual? Who is the figurehead of the party who champions the collective? Let me answer that clearly: Donald Trump is an enemy of the collective, a champion of the individual, and a defender of the republic. He is anything but a fascist. Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep and more delivered to your inbox.

Plus: J. D. Vance is tapped for veep.

The film-buff doc combines self-mythology with a tribute to Powell and Pressburger.

His critics’ comments were thoughtless, ahistorical, and utterly removed from the lived reality of Americans.

One need only look to what is unfolding in Switzerland to get a harrowing picture of what can happen when parents are kept in the dark about their children.

In a rush to achieve political wins, the agency has neglected taxpayers.