How Cheap Weight-Loss Pens Could Kill You – Pharmacist Jella Kang

[00:03]

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, it’s like being Alan Titchmarsh, having your own garden, and then going on TV and telling people what to do. The amount of fake medicines out there—it’s unbelievable. Get all the chocolates out of the house, but when you want a chocolate, go buy a chocolate, buy a single bar of chocolate, enjoy it, and enjoy, because we’re humans, we’ve got to enjoy things.

Jella Kang: Yeah, she had taken one of these fake pens, and it turned out to be insulin.

Darren Jamieson: Oh, sigh.

[00:46]

Darren Jamieson: On today’s episode of The Engaging Marketer, I am speaking to a medical practitioner—this is the first time for this podcast—called Jella Kang. Jella is exceptional at weight loss with injection pens, and he’s going to be talking to me about how they work, why they work, the dangers of using them, and why so many people across the UK are buying inferior knockoffs on social media, particularly Facebook. These knockoffs are extremely dangerous or completely devoid of any use whatsoever—they might even just be filled with water.

So, I’m going to be talking to Jella about all of this, weight loss, how these magical pens work, and possibly even suggesting it for myself. So, let’s get in there.

[01:30]

Darren Jamieson: So, Jella, tell me, what is it that you actually do? Why is it that you help people? What got you interested in wanting to do that?

Jella Kang: So, I’ve always been—like, I like people. My first thing, you have to like people.

Darren Jamieson: Oh, me and all. Love them, love them.

Jella Kang: Yeah, you have to talk to people. I mean, I remember I did a sales job once, and my boss said to me after I got the sales—it was medical sales—my boss said to me, “You—you, you…right, what you said to me…” I go, “What do you mean?” And he goes, “You talk to anyone.” I go, “Yeah.”

[02:10]

Jella Kang: And we’d gone into Tesco’s—we’d gone in because I was doing a lunchtime meeting. So, I’d bought some sandwiches, and there were some old dears, and I’m talking to them, “How are you doing?” I’m talking to the staff.

I have a philosophy. My philosophy is—even my wife goes, “Why are you talking to that person?” You know, people say, “Stop talking to that person,” and my kids are going, “Don’t talk to…” Well, if you only talk to the people that you know, how are you going to get to know new people? So, that is my philosophy.

[02:38]

Jella Kang: Sometimes people do look at me weirdly. One thing I’ll tell you is because I’m Indian, my background’s Indian, and I’ll talk to Indian women. I’ve always been taught to be respectful. So, when I speak to Indian women, especially older women, I call them “my mom’s sister.” To me, I think that’s the biggest respect you can give.

So, I just like talking to people. I’ve been respectful of people and like having a laugh with people. Now I live in Liverpool, it’s great because the whole bunch of Scousers—they all talk to you. It’s like, you know, you can have a good laugh with the people here. They’re quite friendly.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[03:14]

Jella Kang: And what have you. It’s got—it’s got a bit of a bad rap at some point, but generally, even the bad guys are quite funny, you know? When you talk to people, it’s like—you know. So, I like—it’s a good place to be.

[03:45]

Jella Kang: So that’s where I come from, talking to people. And then obviously, I’m sort of like what I do—I like helping people. My first thing always is helping people.

Someone said to me the other day, they go, “You should focus more on the financial side.” And in any business, you have someone who’s more financial, someone who’s more people-orientated—that’s a good partnership. And I’m more people-focused.

[04:21]

Jella Kang: I remember one of the girls—I’ve got a couple of businesses. One’s a pharmacy. Someone had phoned up, said, “Oh, Jella, this person’s phoned up, and they said, ‘Oh, I want to use Jella because Jella always helps me out.’”

Darren Jamieson: Right.

Jella Kang: And I’m thinking, “Well, you know, that’s great.” So, if I had a few of those people—it’s—you’ve got like what you call them, advocates, when they’re like—

Darren Jamieson: Raving fans.

Jella Kang: Yeah, raving fans. Yeah, yeah.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[04:53]

Jella Kang: So, if you’ve got enough of those people, as long as you’re servicing them properly, giving them the right advice, the right products, and you’re not—you know, you treat them—I do, I treat people as my friends. You know, that’s my whole philosophy.

[05:19]

Jella Kang: I remember opening up on Christmas Day—somebody wanted some stuff, and I just opened up on Christmas Day.

Darren Jamieson: Really?

Jella Kang: And ever since that day—ever since that day, they just used me. It’s just like when they want something, the first thing they do with my pharmacy was, “No, I’m going to Jella because he’s helped me out.”

If you give, you will get it back. And I have that philosophy.

[05:51]

Darren Jamieson: There’s a couple of things you said there I thought were quite interesting. The first one was that you’ll talk to anyone.

That’s not a natural skill in business, to be able to go out and talk to people. Because a lot of people, when they go to networking meetings or they go out and meet prospective clients—maybe it might be trade shows—they don’t like talking to people because they don’t like the rejection, or they don’t like the fact that they’re trying to drum up business.

So, that’s a really good skill, a natural skill that you’ve got that many business owners haven’t. Have you found it useful in other aspects of business as well, just being able to speak to anybody and talk to them?

[06:26]

Jella Kang: So, funny you say that. I went to a chamber meeting, and Jeff, who does a lot of the exhibitions, actually had a presentation. And what he said—one of the things he said was, “When you come…” Because I am totally new to networking.

I’ve dealt with patients and looked after patients. And I get doctors, nurses, and what have you. So, I’m totally new to networking.

Jeff was there talking about giving a presentation, and he mentioned—because when you’re in a room networking, it’s about talking to people that you don’t know.

[06:59]

Jella Kang: So, yes, I find that I’m quite happy with talking to people. But you still get a bit nervous talking to people.

And the advice I’ve always had is sort of—speaking to someone yesterday—because “Don’t be a hunter. Be a giver.”

And so, I do. I like to—if you help people, this is what I’m saying—back to helping people. If you help people first, you know, they’ll help you. You’ve got to have—at the end of the day, you know, you’re there for business, but helping people first always puts you in good stead.

[07:29]

Darren Jamieson: No, that’s 100% right. And you are the kind of person that any networking group would want as a member because if you can go out and talk to anybody, particularly if you’re talking to a lot of women, and you don’t mind walking up to somebody in Tesco’s and speaking to them, you’ll find out that their carpet needs cleaning, that their house needs decorating, that their holiday needs booking, and you’ll be able to pass business.

So, you are what’s called a natural networker. You’re a dream for any networking group. So, I hope you do go out and join lots of groups.

[08:00]

Darren Jamieson: But one thing you also mentioned there, as well as being in business, you’re a talker, a people-pleaser, but you also want to be in business with somebody who’s a financial.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: Is that your setup at the moment? Have you got somebody who’s a partner of yours that is?

[08:35]

Jella Kang: So, my setup at the moment—I have, I’ve got—so I have a pharmacy. I have my new medical center; I have a business there. My business partner there is more the financial side.

I also have a training company as well, where in a way, the roles reverse slightly, because I’ve got my business partner doing more of the clinical stuff on that side, and I’m doing more of the sort of website and the maintenance—not the maintenance—Google.

Because I want to learn about Google and all that sort of Google Ads. So, I’m doing that as well.

[09:05]

Jella Kang: And I’m doing the other—what was I just doing? The other sort of sending out the email marketing campaigns. So, I’ve done some sort of email marketing and some marketing training.

I want to keep my hand in that because what’s good then—because when I do that, then when I speak to—we’ve got a marketing team for our pharmacy and our medical center—and I’m saying to them, “Well, what are you doing here? Why are you doing that?” And I can talk with a bit of knowledge about it.

[09:33]

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, because the reason I think most businesses end up failing is because you get two people going into business together who both do the same thing. And they’re good at the same thing, and they love doing the same thing.

So, web design is a classic one. Two people love building websites. That’s all they like to do. But what they’re not good at is organization. They’re not good at sales. They’re not good at the admin, which means they don’t follow up invoices, they don’t invoice people on time, they don’t get paid, they can’t pay their staff—they go bust.

I’ve seen it a thousand times. So, you going into business with someone who has opposing skills to you, again, it’s unusual, but it is a really solid way to start a business. So that’s fantastic to see.

[10:09]

Jella Kang: And I know—we sort of know where our skills lie. So, I will bow to him when it comes to the financial side. Then when it comes to the technical skills, and when it comes to the registration—because we have a pharmacy, and we’ve got a medical center now—there’s a lot of regulations.

So, the regulations, it’s up to me. If I make a regulatory decision, that’s the decision there. So, it’s good like that.

Darren Jamieson: You mentioned you’re doing your own email marketing, your own website updates, and Google stuff. Is that just for the pharmacy, or is that for all of the businesses that you’ve got?

[10:47]

Jella Kang: No, no. So, for the pharmacy—it’s—so we have—like, with the pharmacy, I have a private pharmacy. We specialize in things like Botox, fillers, aesthetics, that sort of stuff.

So, we have a private pharmacy, and that—we have a head office in Leigh. It’s Refined Pharma—that sells nationally.

And then my pharmacy here, which I used to have with NHS, now it’s a private pharmacy. We sold the NHS bit. We have a private pharmacy, and that’s more local. So, that’s a local.

And then we have a team that does all that.

[11:28]

Jella Kang: And then with the medical center now, which is, again, I’ve got that with my business partner, so that uses the same marketing team for that.

However, I’ve got a training company with a friend of mine, which I train on weight loss products, which is the main sort of thing that we’re training on.

I tend to do, you know, the—well, we’ve got the website done. I also get help from my computer dude at Refined Pharma. So, he helps me out as well on that.

But things like the email marketing, I’ve just gone on to Mailchimp today. I was looking at Mailchimp, and then I was looking at the Google Analytics and stuff. I’m asking one of the girls at the pharmacy about that.

But that’s—it’s a small scale. So, it’s not like—we’re not talking big numbers. It’s just—it’s a smaller business, so I can cope with that.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

[12:00]

Jella Kang: You know, if I need more help, I’ve got the help there. If I need an agency, I can get an agency. But that’s like—it’s like, I tinker with that. That’s getting my hands mucky, sort of thing.

Darren Jamieson: It’s something you can use to learn because you’re happy to do that.

Jella Kang: Yeah, it’s like—it’s like being Alan Titchmarsh, having your own garden, and then going on TV and telling people what to do.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[12:30]

Jella Kang: I’m not as good as Alan Titchmarsh, but you know what I mean.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, I know what you mean.

So, in terms of you spending time doing that—having three separate—it is just the three businesses, is it?

Jella Kang: I’m just going to think now, because we’re talking like—if we talk now, like income streams—I was, you know, when people say they’ve got multiple income streams. But that’s it.

So, it is like—we have the pharmacy. And really, they’re all like sort of baby companies. So, the pharmacy has been two years old now. I’d say, yeah, two years—the private pharmacy.

[13:04]

Jella Kang: Then we’ve got the medical hub—it’s a real baby. That’s just six months old.

And then the other company is about five or six years old—a training company—maybe four or five years. But that’s been like a little side hustle, side thing. We’ve not really put that much effort into that.

And then I’ll sort of do locums as well to keep myself in with all the clinical knowledge and things like that.

Darren Jamieson: Right, okay.

[13:38]

Darren Jamieson: How does that divide in terms of your time on a weekly or monthly basis?

Jella Kang: So, I’m constantly looking at how I can, you know, get the best out of my time.

What I tend to do—I am an advocate of waking up early. I don’t always manage it, but I try and wake up at 5:00. And then what I try and do is my training company stuff—I’ll try and do that in the morning.

During the day, I have my priorities set out for the day. So, I’ve got my little book that says, “What are your three priorities that you’re going to do? And what’s the one main thing you’re going to do?”

[14:12]

Jella Kang: And I try and work on the principle that I’ve got to finish that before I start scrolling on, you know, Instagram and stuff like that.

So, that would take up most of my day job, really. Well, most of my time is spent—I’ll have, say, an hour or so a day doing my training company in the morning before I do anything.

And then I’ll also read clinical papers in the morning. Then at work, my main focus, I’d say, is probably—I’d say like 70% of my time is to do with the new medical center.

[14:50]

Jella Kang: And then the rest of the time, I’ll help out with the pharmacy and look at the two pharmacies to see how things are going. You know, we’ve got managers in both of the pharmacies now as well, so that helps a bit.

Darren Jamieson: Right, okay.

With the training company, is that face-to-face training, or is that online training, or a mixture?

[15:26]

Jella Kang: So, we started with face-to-face. But what we’re doing now is we’re doing more of the online training.

So, we’ve got a weight loss product. I say “weight loss”—it’s a weight loss training product. It talks about—there’s a new batch of drugs. You’ve seen all the—they’re called “skinny pens.” I don’t call them skinny pens; not a good—not a good name. But, um, all those sorts of pens.

So, we’re dealing with those things. But we’re actually talking more than that.

[15:57]

Jella Kang: What I say to the delegates is, when you finish our course, you’ll know about diet, you’ll know about how people’s mental state affects diet, you’ll know about the drugs that are available, you’ll know about the pharmacology—how they work in the body, their side effects, how to use them—so that you can safely prescribe the medication to the patient.

So, you should have everything you need to be able to safely prescribe those products, is what I say.

[16:30]

Jella Kang: And then our new one is a supplement to that, because that field has moved. There’s new medication that’s come out, and that’s like a supplement to that. It talks about this new class of drugs.

The one that everyone talks about—Ozempic—and the Ozempic is the sort of diabetic name for the diabetic drug.

So, it’s a pen, insulin, and it’s like a pen that you inject. The name of the drug is semaglutide.

[17:14]

Jella Kang: So, semaglutide is the name of that drug, the scientific name. Its trade name is Ozempic, which is for diabetics. And in England, they’ve got the Wegovy, which is the brand name for weight loss.

And now there’s a new drug out called Mounjaro, which is tirzepatide. Tirzepatide is the scientific name. Mounjaro is the brand name. And that one is licensed for weight loss and is licensed for diabetes.

So, we’ve had an update with talking about the new drug.

Darren Jamieson: And do these need to be prescribed? You can’t go into a chemist and buy it off the shelf?

[17:48]

Jella Kang: No, you can’t buy it. This is what I think we were discussing off-camera. Should we talk about fake medicines?

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, let’s segue nicely into it. Okay, let’s talk about fake medicines.

I cannot believe the amount of fake medicines out there—it’s unbelievable.

Jella Kang: But these are injectable, prescription-only products.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

[18:26]

Jella Kang: So, what I cannot understand is why people buy products from Facebook, from non-medical people. They don’t even know who they are, who send them something in the post, and they’re going to inject it.

Am I right? I’m a medical person, so I’ve got to ask you this—is that silly, that people would inject stuff?

Darren Jamieson: Yes.

[18:48]

Darren Jamieson: I think that’s a pretty logical assumption—that if you buy something offline from somebody you don’t know, particularly from Facebook, you probably should not be injecting that into your bloodstream.

I wouldn’t eat anything I bought off Facebook. I’d be uncertain of wearing something I got off Facebook, never mind injecting it.

So, I can’t fathom what possesses someone to do that unless it’s absolute desperation.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

[19:00]

Darren Jamieson: They’ve tried everything else—or they think they’ve tried everything else—and this just seems to be a quick and easy solution. People get so—their common sense goes out the window when they think they’re going to get a quick win.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

[19:35]

Jella Kang: So, I think—two points there. So, quick wins—everyone’s after a quick win. So, when patients come to see me, I say to them, “Right. The last thing I’m going to talk to you about is the drug, because that’s just a little tool that’ll help you.”

But what I do say—because what I do want to talk about—is your mental state, about, you know, are you ready to lose weight? You’ve got to be in the mental state.

Then I talk about your diet. Then I talk about exercise. And then I talk about the drug.

[20:13]

Jella Kang: But people like—they want the drug first. That’s going to give them a quick win first, which isn’t good, and for longevity as well, it’s not good. So, I try and promote, “Try and do it the other way.” That’s what I do.

So, with regards to patients being desperate, now, what we have had is—we’ve had a lot of stock issues with these medications. And obviously, unscrupulous people have taken advantage of that.

They’ve either been selling totally fake stuff, which is—hopefully it’s just water or something—but even worse. And they purchase stuff which isn’t licensed in this country, maybe it’s a lot cheaper, and they brought it over.

[20:47]

Jella Kang: So, people have been sort of desperate in a way to get hold of it. And then someone’s got it online, someone’s got it on Facebook, someone’s got it on Instagram. “Okay, that looks right. Let’s grab hold of that.” And people have got that.

So, I can understand, yeah, people’s desire. But like you said, common sense does go out the window.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[21:26]

Jella Kang: So, horror story-wise—let me talk about a couple of horror stories of that. So, one was actually—I don’t know if you remember—there was a girl from somewhere down south—Oxford or Cambridge or somewhere.

She had taken one of these fake pens, and it turned out to be insulin.

Darren Jamieson: Oh, right.

Jella Kang: Insulin. What does insulin do? It reduces your blood sugar. She would have been in a coma if her daughter—I think her daughter was alerted—found the police.

And then what it turned out was that—one of my medical practitioners knew her and used to prescribe her the proper pen, you know, do the proper consultation, prescribing the proper stuff.

[21:59]

Jella Kang: She couldn’t get ahold of her or something, and she’d gone online and thought, “Well, it looks the same. It’s not quite the same, but it looks the same.” And then got the pen.

And God, she’s lucky to be alive.

Darren Jamieson: Wow.

Jella Kang: And that was—

Darren Jamieson: That was bought off Facebook, presumably, or some social media?

Jella Kang: Somewhere like that, yeah. So, again, she could have died.

I mean, some people have stuff, and it just doesn’t work. You know, it just—it doesn’t work.

[22:30]

Jella Kang: And then I’ve had someone the other day text me, and they said, “Jella, is this fake?”

The reason they—a lot of people send me this stuff as well—is on my Instagram now. So, I have my own Instagram.

The reason I have my own Instagram—my staffer said to me, “Jella, you have your own Instagram because you talk a lot about weight loss. If you talk about weight loss, like on Instagram or Google, or all those companies—they don’t like you talking about it. They might stop you.”

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[23:03]

Jella Kang: Even though I’m talking about it from a medical standpoint.

So, I talk a lot, and then I post a lot about fake stuff. So, people send me these pictures.

She had sent me a picture of a product which was like—the strength isn’t even in this country. The box was—like, I look at the box—it’s like a white label box.

So, she said to me, “Is this fake?” Because I think it is. And then she said to me, when I saw her, when she came in, she was a nurse. She came in, and she said the patient ended up in intensive care unit with pancreatitis and something else, and they were in intensive care unit taking that medication.

[23:43]

Jella Kang: So, you know, it’s—it’s not—it’s not good.

Darren Jamieson: No.

Jella Kang: So, if we talk about the licensing and regulations quickly—I’ve just had—so this is a big thick book. I’ve got to go through this big thick book. Had a little exam and everything, because we’ve got a wholesale dealer’s license now.

And we had to go through—it’s a lot of stuff. We had to go through—the inspector—I think it was nearly a day, the inspector, we were actually on Zoom, talking to us: “What have you got here? What about your temperature? How are you doing your fridge? What about that? What about your vehicles?”

[24:15]

Jella Kang: So, that was one of the businesses that they were—you know, they went through so much stuff.

So, if we look at drugs and how they get into the market—say the factory. Say the factory is abroad. The factory has to be tested. Then the factory—they’re sending drugs from the factory to the airport. The vehicles have to be tested and checked and risk-assessed.

The airplane, okay, that has to be risk-assessed. Is the temperature going to be kept the right temperature? It gets to our country.

The courier has to make sure that, you know, if it’s a cold product like this—it’s like a fridge product—that has to be tested. It goes to the wholesaler—they have to be tested, you know, their whole thing.

[24:49]

Jella Kang: So, we’re the wholesalers—we have to be tested. Then, say we’re selling it on. Depending on who we’re selling it to, whether it’s a pharmacy or what have you, we have a courier now, like what they call Polar Speed, we use now.

So, they have—they’re obviously tested. They’ve got their own wholesale.

So that’s the whole procedure in the market.

What happens is, people are going to, like, Turkey. Suitcase full of—suitcase full of stuff in it goes. Paid for the holiday, got a load—a bag full of stuff, which, you know, it’s just not been tested.

[25:25]

Darren Jamieson: Presumably, that’s not actually legal to bring through anyway?

Jella Kang: Probably not. Well, no, no, it’s not. But this is what I hear.

And also, the other day, I think someone—it was one of my staff said, “Oh, this—is this product legal?”

I go, “No, that’s not legal stuff.” So, I texted and told them, “It’s not legal.” And I looked, I go, “Where did you get it from?” She told me.

So, I went on the website, said, “PKA.” I go, “That’s Pakistan.” So, your website was Pakistan, you know?

[26:00]

Jella Kang: I go, “So, I wouldn’t think that it’s…” And then I can tell by looking at the pack—it doesn’t look like the proper stuff.

So, you know, there’s a lot of fake stuff coming in. If—it sort of—the thing is, if it looked real, I’d say fine, you know. But sometimes as well, what people are doing is—

So, it’s like—let me just show you. That’s like a demonstration pen. This is the latest stuff. It’s like a pen.

Darren Jamieson: That’s a weight loss pen, effectively?

Jella Kang: Yeah, yeah.

[26:38]

Jella Kang: What I saw the other day was—so, these are needles—needle syringes that we use. Can you see them?

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, yeah.

Jella Kang: So, we use these—not for this pen—I use them for other things. But people—so, it was on Facebook, and they were selling—they must have decanted the medication into four of these, like four of these, and selling them as a package, and telling you this is what you do.

I remember, like—you know, I’m trained in sort of aseptic technique, meaning how I can keep everything clean. And if I’m going to give you an injection, I have a clean, sort of sterile vial. I have sterile gloves, everything.

[27:13]

Jella Kang: But they’re buying stuff on the hope that someone has put them in here in a sterile manner.

So, there’s so much about that which is just—it’s not right. But the biggest thing is, it’s putting people at risk. So, at the end of the day, it’s putting people at risk.

And can I tell you—I’ll tell you one funny thing. Some of them are charging more money than I am, and I’m selling the proper stuff.

Darren Jamieson: What?

[27:46]

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: Well, they’ve probably got better marketing than you.

Jella Kang: That’s the illusion—

Darren Jamieson: Well, it’s the illusion of a bargain, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be cheaper; people just have to think it’s cheaper.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: And they’ll buy it.

[28:17]

Darren Jamieson: You talked earlier about the process you go through when somebody is interested in weight loss. And was it the psyche that you start with?

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: What did you mean by that, in terms of someone’s psychology?

Jella Kang: I don’t do like a deep—it’s just a case of like, you know, I just go straight up: “Do you really want to lose weight?”

[28:50]

Jella Kang: You know, it’s like, “Do you really want to lose weight? How have you set yourself up to lose weight?”

And they go, “Well, I’ve started to do this, I’ve started to do that.” You know.

And I tell them it is—it is a journey. So, it’s just making sure—it’s just like—I’d say it’s a light bit of psychology, just to make sure that, you know, they are committed to losing weight.

And like, I had someone the other day—it was like, “Well, my brother died an alcoholic quite young. My dad died from cardiac problems quite young. I want to be the exception.”

[29:20]

Jella Kang: So, that’s someone who’s strongly motivated to lose weight. So, it’s good working with people like that.

And then also, it’s like—when I speak to people about, you know, asking people their weight. Sometimes—I mean, I’m going to weigh them as well—but asking people their weight, sometimes people get a bit funny.

So, I normally start with, “Well, where are you on your weight journey? I mean, are you the biggest, or have you lost weight?”

So, then you get an open question, and then they’re telling you about how they ended up there, you know, how they ended up where they are.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[29:56]

Darren Jamieson: So, when you move on from the psychology, is it diet or exercise you’re looking at next?

Jella Kang: Yeah, then it just sort of depends. You know, then it’s—it’s one or the other. They are—they are important.

I mean, diet is probably the biggest sort of practical factor that you’re going to get in weight loss.

And sort of looking back at psychology again—if you go back a step—I tend to teach habits. I always say to them, “Right, we’re going to teach you one habit today, one or two habits. We’re going to have one or two habits which I want you to do for the whole of the month, and then we’ll teach you some more.”

[30:22]

Jella Kang: Because I could teach you 15 things now that would help you straight away, but they’re not going to absorb that. They’re not going to do all that.

So, you know, teaching them one thing like, “Okay, depending on the patient—it’s normally—one of the main things is no snacking. You just have your three meals. That should be enough food for you. If it’s not, and you’re snacking, you need to have something else.”

And then depending on—it all depends on the patient. Do I talk to them more in depth about what you should have in the meals? I may or may not, depending on where they are.

[30:55]

Jella Kang: The big thing I do, though, is I do talk more now about—and there’s a lot of research now—about protein, the amount of protein you need.

Because people lose—when you diet, you lose fat, but you lose muscle as well. And if you look at all the papers now that look into this, for longevity, you want good muscle mass. And as we grow older, we lose muscle.

So, I talk about how you can retain that—one, by diet, generally talking about protein.

[31:37]

Jella Kang: And then exercise—I’m talking about making sure you add resistance training, which could be like weights. It could be just—it could be something like weights or resistance bands or something that makes you strong.

So, to different depths, I’ll include that in every conversation.

I mean, talking about—I was talking to someone the other day, and I was saying to them, “You’re nearly 60.” And I was talking about, “You need to do some exercise. You’re not doing anything.”

[32:13]

Jella Kang: And their diet was okay. It wasn’t brilliant. But they said, “For the last 10 years, I’ve not gained any weight.”

And I thought—but I was just reading these papers, and I was thinking about, because—hold on. So, for 10 years, you haven’t gained any weight, but you’re not exercising, and you’re not particularly optimizing your diet to put more protein in.

And we know that as you grow older, you sort of get weaker, and you lose muscle if you’re not actively using it. And they weren’t actively using it.

[32:51]

Jella Kang: So, even though they’re the same weight, their body composition is not going to be the same.

So, they’re probably going to be skinnier but fatter.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: Because their body—their muscle is going to go down, and their fat’s going to go up.

So, I’m constantly now preaching: make sure you do stuff to maintain muscle, maintain strength.

[32:51]

Darren Jamieson: It’s confusing, I think, from a person’s perspective about losing weight. You mentioned there, “Don’t snack during the day.” But I’ve seen other dietitians and health nutritionists saying that you should snack through the day because you should eat little and often rather than eating three main meals.

It’s kind of contrary information. Unless by snacking, you mean specifically things like cakes, biscuits, chocolate bars—that sort of snacking?

[33:25]

Jella Kang: Yes. From what I’ve read, generally, if you can—I mean, I tend to try—and my wife heard me now, she’d go, “No, you don’t.”

So, I have two meals. I try to lose—because I need to lose a bit of weight on my tummy. So, I tend to have like two meals a day and fast until lunchtime, and have two meals a day.

But I don’t always do that. And then when I—or I’ll try and have three meals, but I find it hard to get rid of some of my tummy fat if I have three meals.

[34:04]

Jella Kang: But looking at a couple of papers, a couple of books I’ve read, they generally say two or three meals a day, no snacking.

The thing with snacking is, when you have a snack, you think, “Oh, I’ll have a snack, and I’ll eat less for my next meal.” You don’t. You don’t tend to eat less for your next meal.

That’s why—it’s just extra calories. So, I tend to say two or three meals a day, unless you’ve got some sort of crazy shift pattern.

However, it’s whatever works for you. If you find that, you know, one meal, two or three meals works, or snacking works for you, and you’re having a healthy snack—like, I’d always count—you’d want something with a bit of protein in it.

[34:39]

Jella Kang: I don’t count a meal unless you’ve had some protein in it. So, ideally, if you had something with protein in it, that’s fine. That’s great.

But I don’t—I try to prescribe less of, “You should eat this, you should do that.” I give it sort of in general terms.

[35:10]

Darren Jamieson: And as you say, I imagine some foods are worse for you than others.

There’s a friend of mine who was on this podcast two years ago. He—what did he say? He was about 21, 22 stone at his heaviest. He’s lost—I think it’s something like 11 stone in the past year.

And obviously, everybody wanted to know, “How did he do it? What was he doing?” And he said it was three things.

Firstly, he cut out sugar.

[35:45]

Darren Jamieson: And he doesn’t drink, so there’s no sugar going in through alcohol. He was walking at least 10,000 steps a day.

And he was doing weight training, resistance training, as you’ve said there. That’s kind of the three things you’ve talked about.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: But is—I mean, I don’t eat sweet stuff much, but I do drink a bit. So, is cutting out sugar a huge factor?

[36:23]

Jella Kang: Yeah, so sugar—sugar, even like—you know, sugar definitely is, because that spikes your blood sugar up, and then you have a release of insulin.

From insulin—insulin’s job—insulin will try and bring that down by pushing it into your muscles, taking it out of your blood, stop your blood rotting.

So, sugar—and then sugar is just—it’s energy, basically. Sweets, chocolates—it’s just extra energy. Do you need the energy?

Then you could have—you know, there’s a lot of debate about porridge, whether porridge is good or bad. Oats—are they good or bad?

[36:56]

Jella Kang: I mean, some people say it spikes their sugar, some people say it doesn’t. I tend to be okay with porridge.

Sugar, in its rawest form, or—the more processed something is, the easier it gets broken down into sugar, I’d say. You know, like biscuits, cakes, all that sort of stuff—if you can do without, great.

I was watching this lady—I forget her name. I think she’s the “sugar goddess” or something. But I’ve read stuff about, in the past, similar stuff.

So, if you are going to have sugar, she advocates sort of having it with some green leaves or something with a bit of fiber, and then having the sugar. Ideally, if you can, you have it at the end of a meal, maybe.

[37:27]

Jella Kang: You know, ideally, if you can leave out the sugar, that’s great.

But just talking about that, I’ve just thought of something. Have you heard of the buffet effect?

Darren Jamieson: No.

[37:38]

Jella Kang: So, the buffet effect is like, you know, when you’re having a roast dinner, and you’re stuffed. Then you can’t eat anything else, and then the dessert comes out. You can eat the dessert, and you could probably have seconds of the dessert.

Darren Jamieson: Because you’ve got a second dessert stomach.

Jella Kang: Yeah, yeah.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

[38:04]

Jella Kang: So, what I tend to teach as well is, I tend to teach, if possible, just have one sort of—either have a sweet meal or have a savory meal.

So, if I was saying to have, like, a sweet lunchtime meal, I tend to have like Greek yogurt. And then I’ll put some fruit in there, the sweetness, and I’ll put some nuts and seeds in there, get some—there’s some fat in there as well, some good healthy fat.

And that would be a nice, sweet meal—a high-protein, sweet meal.

[38:38]

Jella Kang: And then if I’m going to have something savory, I just have something savory. So, I always try to split them if you can.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: So, don’t have both. Because, yeah, if you eat savory, you tend to crave sweet afterwards.

Darren Jamieson: I do that. I sometimes have cheese and biscuits as a meal, or cheese and bread as a meal. And I always crave something sweet afterwards.

Because the cheese is very, very dry, very savory. And usually, it’ll be something like grapes or a yogurt—it won’t be bad. I won’t crave cake or anything, but I still need that something sweet.

[39:08]

Darren Jamieson: I think the million-dollar question I’ve got to ask is: once you’ve sorted out your exercise, you’ve sorted out your diet, and you’re not doing all the horrible things you used to be doing—you’re not having a bottle of wine every day like you used to—speaking from personal experience there…

What do those injections actually do?

Jella Kang: So, in a nutshell, what the injections do is—well, first of all, they’re not 100% sure. So, they’re still working on the science.

[39:43]

Darren Jamieson: And you know more, presumably, than what the ones you buy off Facebook will do, because you have no idea what those do.

Jella Kang: A bit more.

So, they’re sort of like—well, they’re not sure exactly how they work. I’d say they know most of it, but not exactly why. That’s exactly it.

What they do in a nutshell is they tell your brain—so, they are what’s called hormones in your body.

So, in the back of your stomach, you have hormones in your body that make you feel hungry, and then you have hormones that say that you’re full.

[40:15]

Jella Kang: So, what these are—they’re hormones that help you say, “You’re full,” basically.

So, they make it so that they’re telling your body, “All right, I don’t need any more food.” In a nutshell, that’s what they do.

“I’m full. I don’t need any more food.” So, then you start eating less.

There are a few other things they’ll do. They’ll slow your stomach down so that your stomach’s full for longer.

They work in your brain as well to tell you you’re not hungry.

[40:46]

Jella Kang: They might also shoot a small bit of insulin in—so that it maintains your blood levels. It might sound counterintuitive, but it helps with blood level regulation.

And there’s a lot of good science coming out about the positive cardiac effects. I haven’t read the paper, but they were talking about positive kidney effects as well.

Darren Jamieson: Is there a potential risk with that drug for somebody, for example, who had an eating disorder—wanted to trick themselves into thinking they were full—somebody anorexic, for example?

[41:25]

Jella Kang: So, when we give a drug, there’s a license for a drug—a licensed indication. That means that the drug has been licensed to treat this patient as long as…

There’s a certain BMI that these drugs are for.

So, if patients—generally, if you’re fit and healthy, you’ve got a BMI of above 30, which means you’re sort of biggish to look at.

And if you’ve got some co-morbidities, which means you’ve got other diseases, like, say, for example, diabetes—I don’t personally treat diabetic patients because we’re a private practice, let the GPs treat them—if you’ve got high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or you’ve got obstructive sleep apnea—one of those things—we can treat you at a lower BMI of about 27.

However, I’ve just done a blog now for our pharmacy, which talks about BMI. BMI is just one of the ways we can measure if you’re overweight, but it’s not a brilliant tool.

[42:08]

Jella Kang: It’s not brilliant because you could be a big rugby player.

Darren Jamieson: According to BMI, bodybuilders are obese, aren’t they?

Jella Kang: They’re obese, yeah. BMI doesn’t take into account your body composition—how much fat, how much muscle you’ve got.

You could—you know, you could look at things like your height-to-weight ratio. That talks about how much fat you’ve got around your stomach.

We know that fat relates to poor cardiac health, for example.

[42:43]

Jella Kang: So, those are other things. When I see a patient, I may sometimes treat them what’s called “off-label.” Because I’ll look and say, “You’ve visibly got stomach fat. I can see there’s enough there to warrant me being able to give you this medication.”

But I did have someone in the other day, and they came in and went, “No…” And I said, “She then said, ‘I’ve just had a baby. I need…’”

I go, “No.” I go, “People want to look like you. You’re not…”

[43:19]

Jella Kang: I said, “You’re too skinny. I’m not giving…” But to me, she had a great, slim body, like a model-type body. And I said, “No, you’re not getting it.”

Now, everyone has their own idea of what they think a model-type body is, but it was a slim body. The BMI was obviously too low, and I refused to give it to her.

So, what I’m saying is—going back to your question—yeah, could people who have psychological problems use it and keep using the pens? Yeah, they could.

Because it’s going to make them feel, you know, not hungry.

[43:58]

Jella Kang: And I suppose those people—I mean, I’ve got no evidence—but maybe more of those people are buying stuff off the internet.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: Are buying stuff off the internet without having the checks and balances.

Darren Jamieson: Because they can’t get it by going to a GP or a practitioner.

Jella Kang: Exactly.

[44:34]

Darren Jamieson: If somebody was to take on a course of this—say, somebody like myself, who has an athlete’s figure, if you consider a sumo wrestler an athlete—how long would somebody like me need to use one of these before we, I don’t know, start seeing good results, great results?

Jella Kang: Because you can eat with them, it sort of depends on you, really.

I had—I’ve got a patient who phoned the other day and said they’d lost about seven pounds in a week.

Darren Jamieson: Wow.

[45:08]

Jella Kang: Now, the first week, you always tend to lose more when you first start—maybe water and that as well.

But then it depends on your lifestyle. If you’re drinking alcohol every day, snacking on chocolates and stuff every day, you know, compared to someone who occasionally has a drink, snacks every now and again—obviously, one’s going to lose more weight than the other.

So, it depends.

And the way I tend to go is, once you—you know, you get weighed, and then we can see where your weight is. If you start to fall too low, then we don’t give you the pen.

[45:40]

Jella Kang: That’s the other thing I say—if you’re eating chocolates and what have you, get all the chocolates out of the house. But when you want a chocolate, go buy a chocolate. Buy a single bar of chocolate.

Enjoy it. And enjoy—because we’re humans, we’ve got to enjoy things.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah, you’ve got to enjoy your life.

[46:27]

Darren Jamieson: What’s the cost for somebody taking a treatment of pens, for example, per month?

Jella Kang: It varies. It varies. You know, average about £200-ish, about £200. I’ve seen it lower than that. I’ve seen it a lot higher. I’ve seen it even like £300.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

Jella Kang: But I’d say—

Darren Jamieson: Does that depend on how many injections they need?

[47:04]

Jella Kang: Most people will just need the pen. So, say, for example, Wegovy, it’s good. You’d have four injections in the pen.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

Jella Kang: And even if you’re like—off the top of my head—even if you’re 30 stone, you’d still need the same amount of medication.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

[47:38]

Jella Kang: You wouldn’t have to—you generally wouldn’t have to give someone, “Oh, they’re a bit bigger than me, so I have to give them a bit more medication.”

You wouldn’t have to.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: But they’d obviously need it for longer.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: So, they’ll need it for longer, obviously, because they’ve got more to lose.

They don’t need it—there’s no dosage adjustment. And generally, the drugs are quite good in terms of—like, if you’ve got, you know, kidney problems, liver problems—they’re generally well-tolerated.

[48:12]

Jella Kang: You can have them as long as they’re not crazy kidney problems or crazy liver problems, and you discuss that with your medical practitioner or the prescriber anyway.

Darren Jamieson: Right.

Darren Jamieson: I’ve found that quite—I’ve never even thought about it before. But I do need to sort my diet out first.

[48:45]

Jella Kang: So, I mean, I’ve tried them. They work. But I don’t have them anymore because I’m no good at remembering. So, I waste them.

I’ve had them, so it’s good I’ve had them because I know what they feel like. I know the sort of side effects—main side effects tend to be like stomach sort of side effects, nausea, and what have you.

So, I know what they feel like. But I waste the pen because, for some reason, I just never remember to take them. So, I don’t bother.

[49:27]

Jella Kang: So, I’m trying to do it without, which is what I’m trying to get all my patients to do—to get them off the pens, really.

You know, it’s not a good financial business, trying to get your patients to stop using your products.

Darren Jamieson: No.

Jella Kang: But the companies—the companies make loads because people are constantly back on them.

The companies are worth billions now, and because people are constantly off the pens, on the pens, off the pens, on.

[49:45]

Jella Kang: My plan is to try and get you off the pens. Use them as a tool and then wean you off them.

Darren Jamieson: Yeah.

Jella Kang: Yeah.

Darren Jamieson: And in terms of actually injecting—because I don’t have a phobia of needles or anything, but I don’t fancy the idea.

Jella Kang: So, they’re 4 mm needles. Most needles that you get injections with are one inch—is that 25 millimeters?

Darren Jamieson: Right, okay.

[50:04]

Jella Kang: So, an injection might be like a one-inch needle, which is 25 mm. This is 4 mm.

So, imagine—4 mm is like just about as big as your nail. You’re not going to feel it.

Darren Jamieson: Where do you put it?

Jella Kang: Generally, your tummy. You can put it sort of on the sides of your arms or on your thighs. But generally, most people just pop it in your tummy.

It’s dead easy. I hate needles, but you cannot feel these needles. They’re so slim.

Darren Jamieson: Okay, I’ll take your word for that.

[50:43]

Darren Jamieson: As a final question—because we’re almost out of time now, but I’ve found this absolutely fascinating—if somebody wants to get hold of you, either it’s for the training business or the consultancy or the practitioner business…

You’ve got so many businesses! What’s the best way for them to reach out and get hold of you?

Jella Kang: Oh, I’m at the Medical Hub, which is my base now. It’s our new medical center.

I really haven’t had a chance to talk about that. But at the medical center, the Medical Hub, it’s themedicalhub.co.uk.

[51:04]

Jella Kang: So, we’re here at the Hub. Our office number is 0151 722 1944.

Generally, I’m here. I’ll see patients here.

And just briefly—you know, so this is our new medical center, and we’ve literally just started two things.

I’ll tell you—we’ve just started a menopause clinic, and we’ve just also started a migraine clinic as well.

So, we’re trying to do services that we feel that people need at the moment.

Darren Jamieson: It’s been an absolute pleasure, and I’ve learned a lot. And I’m now considering my life choices once again. So, thank you.

Jella Kang: Thanks a lot.

Darren Jamieson: Thanks for your time.