Pulse Perfect MD

  Lately, I get this question more often than I did a year ago.   “Should I be on a GLP-1 drug?”   I hear it from both patients and other doctors, and it almost always comes with one expectation: weight loss.   That’s usually where the conversation begins, but it’s not where my decision-making starts.   I don’t see GLP-1 receptor agonists mainly as weight loss drugs . To me, they are tools for managing cardiovascular and metabolic risk.   That difference shapes every decision I make about prescribing them.   I start by looking at risk, not weight.   When I consider whether a patient should take a GLP-1 agonist, my first question isn’t , “How much weight do they need to lose?”   Instead, I ask, “What is driving this patient’s long-term risk?”   If a patient has atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, like a prev ious heart attack, stroke, or known plaque, the conversation is very different than with someone who is healthy but worr...