Dr. Mark Gold: Can GLP-1s Help Treat Addiction? The Science Behind Cravings & Recovery

Thank you.

It's my pleasure to be here.

Your entire career has been based around studying addiction.

What is the most exciting thing about the GLP-1 conversation right now?

Well, um, that's a, it's a great point, Richard.

I mean, I've been working in the field in earnest since about 1973.

And I started by looking at amphetamines and memory and looking at pleasure.

I, I didn't intend to be an addiction researcher, it just turned out that way.

Um, my research led me in that direction because there was really no other way at the time to study pleasure.

Um, we had at that time a focus on simple neurotransmitters, norepinephrine, serotonin, acetylcholine, less on dopamine.

I brought dopamine out pretty much in the '80s, early '80s.

But right now with the GLP-1s, as you bring up, we're, um, in a new age because, um, historically we know that the gut is connected to emotions.

We know that because people who have inflammatory bowel disease or other bowel diseases often have concurrent psychiatric problems.

People who have eating disorders have concurrent, uh, substance abuse problems and psychiatric problems, so we know it's connected.

And even 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates said, "All diseases begin in the gut." I mean, the father of modern medicine in Greece said all diseases begin in the gut.

So for the first time, we have kind of gut-brain proof, and so the GLP-1s have a chance to have a revolutionary impact in addiction medicine, uh, because of their relationship to food, their relationship to addiction, and the fact that they not only are gut messengers, but they're brain messengers.

I, I, I, I have to let you know that [clears throat] we opened two and a half years ago after my five-year non-compete after selling my last place.

31 people came from my last place to do this with us.

So we're not re- and they're the best practitioners in the industry, okay? From rated the best treatment center in the country in 2025.

So I took those people and brought them here from my last place.

So we're more like 20 years old when you think about it.

[clears throat] 20.

My people are so good that my doctor, Kenneth, said to me, "I wanna put you on the GLP-1s." I said, "Why? I'm not fat." He goes, "Well, you could lose five pounds, 10 pounds, but that's not why I'm doing it for you.

The reason I'm doing it for you is because you smoke so many cigars.

I've never seen you without a cigar in your mouth." Okay? And he says, "It's going to cut you down." I said, "I don't wanna be cut down." He said, "Of course you do.