Scott Benner Scott Benner

Why Movie Theater Popcorn Wrecks Blood Sugar

Popcorn Isn’t the Problem — What’s On It Is | Juicebox Podcast
Bolus Four · MEALBOLT

Popcorn Isn’t the Problem — What’s On It Is

A movie-theater tub, a box of Junior Mints, and the realization that popcorn is mostly a delivery system for everything else.

Listen · Episode 1816

Somebody asked how to bolus for popcorn, and the honest first reaction was that it seemed like an easy one. Popcorn is carbs. Cover the carbs, eat the popcorn. But once you start pulling nutrition labels — home popcorn, the bag stuff, kettle corn, and the big tub at the theater — the picture gets more interesting, and it turns out the popcorn itself is rarely the hard part.

Jenny Smith and Scott worked through it the way they work through every Bolus Four food: measure the meal, look at what’s actually in it, and think about the timing and the shape of the insulin rather than just the number. Here is how they landed.

It’s a delivery system

The thing that makes popcorn tricky isn’t the corn. It’s what rides along with it. At the theater that’s the buttery topping. In kettle corn it’s sugar. In your hand it’s a fistful of Raisinets you grabbed at the same time. Plain popcorn is a light, mostly-carb snack. Everything that makes it hit hard is layered on top of it.

And then there’s the way you eat it. A steak dinner gets your attention — you sit, you chew, you notice. Popcorn in a dark theater with your eyes on the screen is the opposite. As Jenny put it, there’s no conscious accounting of how many handfuls are going in, because you’re not paying attention. The dosing problem and the counting problem are really the same problem.

“It’s the delivery system, isn’t it? It’s how you’re eating it, not what you’re eating.” Scott Benner
Movie night?

Find a theater near you

Since we’re talking about the theater anyway — drop in a ZIP or town, or use your location, and we’ll point you at showtimes and theaters nearby. (Bonus: the wait in line is a decent pre-bolus window.)

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The carb math, without a label

If you’re not going to look anything up, Jenny’s rule of thumb is that a handful of popcorn is about five grams of carb. A large theater tub is roughly 20 cups, so twenty handfuls at five grams each puts you somewhere around 100 grams of carbohydrate — and that’s before anyone squirts the topping on.

That number lands harder than people expect. To show the shape of it, Scott ran it through his estimator using a set of made-up settings and watched what a big, fatty snack asks of you.

A worked example, not a dose

Using illustrative settings — an insulin-to-carb ratio of 10, an insulin sensitivity of 50, and a target of 90 — 100 grams of carb with no consideration for fat came back at about 10 units. Add in roughly 50 grams of fat, and the estimator suggested the same order of magnitude up front plus a slow “Warsaw wave” of another 4 to 5 units stretched out over as long as eight hours.

Those numbers only exist to show how much insulin a load like this can represent. They are not a recommendation for you or anyone else. Your own settings are yours, and any change to how you use insulin belongs in a conversation with your care team.

Ten units in one press is a lot of insulin to drop on a food with this much fat in it — and, as Scott pointed out, that’s a huge tub of popcorn you might not even finish. Neither of them would just send it all up front and call it “popcorn time.”

Why the theater tub hits different

Here’s the part most people never see. The “butter” at the theater usually isn’t butter — it’s a buttery-flavored topping. Scott found a jug of the stuff with a label on it: no carbs, no cholesterol (which is the tell that there’s no actual butter in it), and 14 grams of fat per serving. The catch is the serving size.

“There’s 14 grams of fat — in a tablespoon of it.” Scott Benner

A tablespoon. And nobody uses one tablespoon at the pump station. That fat is what stretches the digestion out, which is why a theater visit can leave you sitting at 250 ninety minutes later, watching a blood sugar that won’t come down no matter what you throw at it. If you count fat, this is a meal to count it on. If you don’t, at least don’t be surprised by the tail.

Rough numbers that came up in the episode
ItemBallpark
Popcorn, per handful~5 g carb
Large theater tub (~20 cups)~100 g carb, before topping
Buttery topping~14 g fat per tablespoon
Junior Mints, 12 pieces26 g carb (~2 g each)
Cracker Jack, ~1/2 cup23 g carb, 14 g sugar
Skinny Pop, small bag9 g carb, no sugar, 6 g fat

Estimates pulled up live on the internet during the recording — treat them as ballparks, not gospel.

How they actually handle it

Both of them pre-bolus. Scott has Arden do it while they’re still in line for tickets. Beyond that, Jenny’s move for a fatty load like theater popcorn is to not send the whole dose at once — something like 70 percent up front, with the other 30 percent extended over the first hour or so if the pump supports a slower delivery, timed to when the fat starts to catch up with you.

Jenny’s other trick is about counting, and it’s a good one: ask the theater for a small empty cup and portion the popcorn into it. Three handfuls is roughly three cups, roughly 15 grams — a known amount, refilled each time you go back for more. It turns a bottomless bucket you’re reaching into without thinking into a handful of amounts you can actually keep track of.

“A movie theater visit is get ahead, stay ahead, keep bolusing if you keep eating.” Scott Benner

Then you add candy

Now stack a box of Junior Mints on top — about 26 grams of carb for 12 pieces, and it’s essentially straight sugar. Scott’s picture of the theater high: the popcorn carbs come in, the buttery topping stretches the digestion out behind them, and then the candy supercharges the whole thing. That combination is where the stubborn number comes from.

Fast sugar isn’t all bad news, though. Scott remembers a Slurpee being almost useful when Arden was little — throw insulin in up front, then modulate backward with sips if she drifted low. Pure sugar is predictable in a way the fat isn’t. If you’re going to snack on something sweet anyway, it can give you room to stay aggressive with the timing.

Popcorn at home is the easy version

Strip away the theater and the candy and the story gets simple. Scott makes his in a pot with coconut oil; Jenny uses a stovetop crank popper with a little oil, nutritional yeast, and sea salt. For that kind of popcorn, both of them do the same thing: pre-bolus, and cover it like a carb.

Jenny noted that some people report a small later rise even from the lighter bagged popcorns, and that’s worth respecting — digestively we’re all a little different, and her own n of 1 is that it doesn’t happen to her. If it happens to you, that’s information about your body, not a rule about popcorn.

The takeaway

When people say popcorn is hard, this is usually why: it’s not the corn, it’s the fat you can’t see, the sugar you added, and the chaotic pace you ate it at. The approach that works here isn’t complicated — knowing what’s actually on it, portioning it so the amount isn’t a mystery, getting insulin in ahead of it, and staying ahead as you go. Same truth as everything else: the right amount of insulin at the right time. Popcorn just hides the amount and rushes the timing.

The Juicebox Podcast

New episodes, most days of the week

Bolus Four is one of dozens of series — from Bold Beginnings for the newly diagnosed to the Diabetes Pro Tips, mental-health conversations with Erika Forsyth, and hundreds of personal stories. All free. Follow wherever you listen.

The content on this site is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
Nothing here is a treatment recommendation. Insulin settings and dosing are individual — talk to your doctor before making any changes to your care.
Read the full disclaimer
© 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast. All rights reserved.
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Scott Benner Scott Benner

The Juicebox Podcast: 12 Years, 58 #1 Countries

The Record — Juicebox Podcast
Juicebox Podcast · 2015–2026

Number one in fifty-eight countries.

A Type 1 diabetes podcast, made by one person, that reached the top of Apple’s medical chart in fifty-eight countries and territories — and kept doing it for twelve years.

12 yearsNo off-season
~1,900Episodes
100K+In the community
21M+Downloads
The major markets

At the top, market after market

Not only the unexpected places. In the markets that carry the most weight — across North America, Europe, Oceania, Asia, and the Gulf — the show charted near the top of Apple’s Medicine chart, often inside the top five.

North America
United States #6 Canada #4
Europe
United Kingdom #6 Ireland #2 France #5 Germany #7 Italy #4 Netherlands #4 Spain #6 Sweden #6
Oceania
Australia #3 New Zealand #3
Asia
India #5 Japan #7 Singapore #1 Hong Kong #2 China #13

And across the Gulf — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan — number one in every one.

All ten. Of the ten countries where the most people live with Type 1 diabetes, the show has charted in every one — top 10 in seven, number one in Saudi Arabia.

Chart positions: all-time peak rank, Apple Podcasts Medicine. T1D population order: IDF Diabetes Atlas / T1D Index (2025); US & UK counts CDC and JDRF.

Reach

The places you’d never expect

Number one. Top of the medical chart. Here:

Mongolia. Cape Verde. Tanzania. Liberia. Brunei. The Cayman Islands.

Fifty-eight countries and territories in all. Apple’s public chart record goes back to 2019 — there is a number one in every year of it.

All-time peak of #1 per market · most recent first · each country shown once · two were #1 across every category
202610 at #1
#1United Arab EmiratesJun 20, 2026
#1HungaryJun 9, 2026
#1PakistanMay 25, 2026
#1El SalvadorMay 24, 2026
#1BahrainMay 10, 2026
#1MoroccoApr 26, 2026
#1RomaniaMar 16, 2026
#1PeruFeb 26, 2026
#1PortugalFeb 16, 2026
#1EgyptFeb 15, 2026
20259 at #1
#1Saudi ArabiaDec 27, 2025
#1MaltaNov 28, 2025
#1QatarAug 14, 2025
#1KuwaitAug 10, 2025
#1GreeceMay 31, 2025
#1MauritiusMay 30, 2025
#1Trinidad & TobagoApr 26, 2025
#1MacedoniaMar 31, 2025
#1ArgentinaJan 12, 2025
20246 at #1
#1LaosNov 13, 2024
#1SerbiaOct 27, 2024
#1AlbaniaAug 13, 2024
#1MalaysiaApr 10, 2024
#1Bosnia & HerzegovinaMar 12, 2024
#1UruguayMar 3, 2024
20238 at #1
#1ZimbabweNov 10, 2023
#1LiberiaNov 10, 2023
#1NigeriaSep 20, 2023
#1ZambiaAug 21, 2023
#1JamaicaMay 21, 2023
#1Brunei DarussalamFeb 1, 2023
#1Turks & CaicosJan 17, 2023 all categories
#1MalawiJan 8, 2023
20225 at #1
#1LuxembourgOct 12, 2022
#1MoldovaJul 15, 2022
#1MongoliaJun 5, 2022
#1LibyaMay 27, 2022
#1NamibiaMar 9, 2022
202110 at #1
#1CroatiaDec 28, 2021
#1SingaporeNov 21, 2021
#1Cape VerdeSep 5, 2021 all categories
#1Cayman IslandsJul 31, 2021
#1Sri LankaMay 28, 2021
#1UgandaApr 5, 2021
#1JordanMar 26, 2021
#1GuatemalaMar 9, 2021
#1BulgariaFeb 23, 2021
#1The BahamasFeb 21, 2021
20204 at #1
#1PanamaNov 5, 2020
#1Costa RicaJun 29, 2020
#1TanzaniaJun 19, 2020
#1BelgiumMay 2, 2020
20196 at #1
#1South AfricaOct 30, 2019
#1KenyaOct 23, 2019
#1PhilippinesOct 18, 2019
#1NicaraguaOct 3, 2019
#1CambodiaSep 1, 2019
#1UkraineAug 28, 2019
The work behind it

A curriculum, not a feed

You don’t reach the top of the medical chart in fifty-eight countries on personality. You do it because someone who arrives frightened finds a path already built for them.

For the newly diagnosed

Bold Beginnings

The questions every family has in week one, answered in order.

For management

Diabetes Pro Tip

How insulin actually works — the spine of the whole library.

For the mind

Mental Wellness

Fifty-four episodes on the psychological side, with Erika Forsyth, LMFT.

For the clinicians

Grand Rounds

A teaching series for doctors, with a physicians’ guide attached.

Beyond these: more than two dozen structured series, written guides, self-built tools, and full transcript libraries — all free. Explore it all at juiceboxpodcast.com.

What it took

Twelve years. No off-season.

Most shows are a handful of episodes and a feed that goes quiet. This one has published without a break for twelve straight years — and only sped up. What began at a slower clip is now five days a week, and the catalog runs nearly 1,900 episodes deep.

90%of podcasts never reach a fourth episode.
1 in 10podcasts is even active right now. This one has been — every day, for twelve years.
~1,900episodes and counting — roughly sixty times the output that already marks a show as the top 1% for staying power.
Where it started

It didn’t begin as a podcast.

It began in 2007, with a parent writing — months after a diagnosis no family wants, and a choice to talk about Type 1 out loud instead of carrying it alone. The podcast came eight years later. The fifty-eight flags, the twelve years, the people who felt a little less alone at 2 a.m. — none of it was planned. It grew, slowly, from that.

Juicebox Podcast · 2015–2026

Chart positions from Apple Podcasts; all-time peak rank per market. Podcast-industry figures are widely reported estimates. T1D figures from the IDF Diabetes Atlas / T1D Index and CDC. © 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast.

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Most People With Type 1 Aren't on an Insulin Pump

Two Doors | Juicebox Podcast
Think Piece

Two Doors

Most people with type 1 are on injections, not a pump. Two pieces of technology, two very different stories about which doors open — and what we quietly read into where people land.

If you only knew type 1 diabetes from the way it gets talked about, you'd think everyone was wearing a pump that talks to a sensor and runs quietly in the background. That's what the announcements are about, what the conferences sell, what the loudest corners of the community get excited about.

It's not how most people with type 1 actually live.

About have type 1. By industry estimates, somewhere around — and claims data on younger and lower-income patients runs lower. Whichever number you trust, you land in the same place: most people with type 1 in this country are on injections. The pump is the loud part of the story. It's also the smaller part. And being on injections isn't a lesser version of this — it's the version most people are living.

The injection majority

How people with type 1 take their insulin

Roughly four in ten on a pump, the rest on injections. The quieter option is the common one.

Injections (MDI) Insulin pump

Pump share is an industry estimate; population from the CDC. Tap the chart to read the numbers.

Now hold that next to the other piece of technology, because the comparison is worth understanding.

The sensor went the other way. CGM use among people with type 1 climbed from in under a decade, and it has kept climbing since. It reached far more people, far faster, than the pump ever did — and most of them are wearing it on injections, not a pump. Same condition, same years, same country. Two pieces of technology. One door swung wide open. The other stayed narrow.

How fast each door opened

Adoption over time

The sensor climbed steeply and pulled most people through. The pump moved slowly and stayed lower.

CGM (sensor) Pump (estimate)

CGM figures from commercially insured claims data (Clinical Diabetes, 2024); pump shown for comparison and is approximate. Tap a line to read more.

I don't think that's a story about good guys and bad guys. The companies making these devices didn't decide who walks through which door — by the time anyone is choosing a pump, the choosing has already been shaped by what insurance covers, what a clinic stocks, what a family can carry, and a hundred small moments upstream of the device itself.

What's worth understanding is that the narrow door doesn't stay narrow evenly.

If pump use came down to preference, you'd expect the split to land about the same across different groups. It doesn't. A national study of young adults found pump use of across White, Hispanic, and Black participants. Adjusting for income and insurance shrank the gap but didn't close it. Researchers have also found something quieter at work: in the moment, people get for a device, and that read can track things that have nothing to do with how well they'd do. CGM carries its own version of this, though in some data it runs gentler, and in a few places it even flips.

The narrow door, unevenly

Device use by race and ethnicity

Young adults with type 1, by group. Notice the pump gap is the wider one — and for Black participants, the sensor reached more people than the pump did.

Pump CGM

YARDD young-adult study, six T1D Exchange clinics. Tap a bar to read the study.

So you've got two doors to roughly the same room. One opened fast and pulled most people through, injections and all. The other opened slowly, stayed narrow, and who got through it had as much to do with their zip code and their insurance and how a stranger sized them up as it did with what would actually help them.

And here's the part that's bigger than diabetes. It's a very human thing to look at where someone landed — on a pump, on shots, numbers tight, numbers struggling — and quietly build a story about the person from it. Their effort. Their seriousness. Their readiness. The two doors are a reminder of how often that story is really about the doors, not the person. Most of the time we can't see the doors at all. We just see where someone ended up.

So when I look at the injection majority, I try to start from understanding rather than assumption. Somebody on shots running good numbers is doing real, skilled diabetes management. Somebody on shots and struggling may be carrying a load I can't see from here. Neither of those is told to me by the hardware.

That's the whole piece, really. Not a verdict on anyone. Just a nudge to notice the doors before we draw conclusions about the people standing on either side of them — and to extend the more generous read, because more often than not, it's also the more accurate one.

This is a peer-to-peer piece, not medical advice. The statistics here come from the CDC, the T1D Exchange, and published studies. Nothing here is a recommendation about your own therapy — that's a conversation for you and your care team.
Read the full disclaimer
Sources: CDC National Diabetes Statistics Report; industry estimates of U.S. pump utilization; commercially insured CGM utilization trends (Clinical Diabetes, 2024) and regional CGM cohort data; T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Collaborative; YARDD young-adult study on racial-ethnic disparities in pump and CGM use.
© 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast. All rights reserved.
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Eric Benjamin, Omnipod's COO, Live from ADA

Insulet Details Omnipod 5 Update, Omnipod 6, and a Type 2 Closed-Loop System at ADA — Juicebox Podcast
Episode #1882 · From the ADA Scientific Sessions

Insulet Details Omnipod 5 Update, Omnipod 6, and a Type 2 Closed-Loop System

Speaking on the show floor at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, Insulet chief operating officer Eric Benjamin laid out what is shipping now, what is coming in 2027, and where the company is heading next.

Listen · Episode 1882
Eric Benjamin, Omnipod's COO, Live from ADA
0:00--:--

Jump to a moment

Disclosure Omnipod is a sponsor of the Juicebox Podcast, and this episode was recorded at Omnipod's booth at ADA. The features, data, and claims described here reflect statements made by Insulet and have not been independently verified.
Report

At the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, Insulet used its booth to walk through a near-term Omnipod 5 update, preview its next flagship pod, and describe a separate system the company is building first for type 2 diabetes. Eric Benjamin, the company's chief operating officer, sat for an interview with the Juicebox Podcast to detail each one.

An Omnipod 5 update is rolling out now

Benjamin said Omnipod 5's lowest selectable glucose target is now 100 mg/dL. He pointed to company data presented earlier at ATTD indicating that about half of Omnipod 5 users are not set to the lowest target, and said moving a target from 120 down to 100 was associated with as much as five percentage points more time in range. According to Benjamin, the lower target was shown to offer tighter glycemic control without an increased risk of hypoglycemia.

He attributed the gap partly to caregivers of children, who he said sometimes choose higher targets out of fear of hypoglycemia, and to adults in care settings receiving less guidance on adjusting the system. Insulet said it is working through clinicians, its field teams, direct customer outreach, and a newly launched data platform called Omnipod Discover to make clinicians and patients aware that lower targets are available.

The same update changes how the algorithm behaves during long stretches of high glucose. Benjamin said a safety constraint built into the first-generation algorithm, which asked users for manual intervention after the system had run at maximum output for an extended period, has been removed because real-world data showed it was not needed. The stated goal is to keep people in automated mode longer with fewer manual steps.

The change ships as an app update that Insulet said began rolling out on June 3 and would reach its customer base within days. It requires compatible pods, which the company said it has been shipping for some time; an indicator shows whether a given pod supports the 100 target. Benjamin said Omnipod 5 also added compatibility with the Freestyle Libre 3+ sensor this week.

“It actually doesn't trigger frustration. It triggers motivation for me.”

Eric Benjamin, on hearing that some clinicians say they lack time for the technology

Omnipod 6 is targeted for 2027, with an updatable pod

Benjamin described Omnipod 6 as the company's next flagship pod, due to launch in 2027, and said its STRiVE data was being presented during the conference weekend. He framed it around a new algorithm aimed at better glycemic control with less user effort, plus hardware changes intended to let people wear the pod in more locations while maintaining a connection to a CGM — what he referred to as reducing dependence on “line of sight.”

The last of the Omnipod 6 changes Benjamin described was an updatable pod. With Omnipod 5, he said, new capabilities have to be manufactured into a new physical product, a process that can take six to nine months to reach pharmacies; he cited the Freestyle Libre 3+ compatibility, manufactured in late 2025 and announced at the conference, as an example. Omnipod 6, he said, would allow updated pod software to be pushed to the pod hardware during priming through app updates, so prescribers write a single SKU and updates reach customers faster. He noted the change does not alter the device's regulatory requirements, and that fully updating every part of the pod would take a couple of product generations.

A fully closed-loop system, aimed first at type 2

Insulet also released feasibility data at the conference on a fully closed-loop system that Benjamin said is designed to start with no required inputs. He said the company began with type 2 diabetes because of access barriers in primary care: roughly 70 percent of people who take multiple daily injections and live with type 2 are cared for there, and Omnipod 5, despite simplification work, remains too complex for broad primary-care adoption.

The system, as Benjamin described it, is meant to be as easy for a physician to prescribe as a CGM. A patient would pick it up at a pharmacy, bring it home, and start it without entering settings such as basal rates or carb ratios, with optional target personalization available. He cited trial data, referred to as Evolution 3 and being presented at a product theater, in which participants started on the pod and the system adapted to each person's insulin needs, producing what he called significant improvements in time in range.

Asked about GLP-1 medications, Benjamin said people with type 2 diabetes who use a GLP-1 alongside automated insulin delivery tend to see the best outcomes in the company's data, and that GLP-1s are accounted for in the company's work. He noted GLP-1s have been used in diabetes treatment for nearly two decades.

Type 1 stays “bolus optional” for now

Benjamin said people with type 1 diabetes would reach a more hands-off experience iteratively rather than at once. He argued that many systems described as fully closed loop today are really “bolus optional,” and that the type 1 population, along with others cared for by specialists, generally wants the choice of how much to engage with the technology.

A truly hands-off product for someone with type 1 eating a typical, carb-containing diet, he said, would likely require faster insulins to keep time in range at a level he put roughly in the seventies for a motivated user. In the meantime, he said, better automation lets people choose to bolus less often — once a day, on some days, or not at all — based on their own goals.

The backdrop: low penetration

Benjamin returned repeatedly to how few people use automated insulin delivery. He said less than half of people living with type 1 diabetes in the United States benefit from it, and roughly 5 percent of those on multiple daily injections who live with type 2. Across the markets Insulet serves, he put the figure at about 14 million people with insulin-requiring diabetes, of whom roughly 10 percent benefit from AID. Lowering barriers to prescribing, he said, is the throughline across all three products.

Asked what next year's conversation would cover, Benjamin said it would center on Omnipod 6 and, increasingly, the fully closed-loop type 2 product.

Read the full transcript Searchable, chaptered, and printable — every word of the conversation.
Open transcript
Nothing in this report is medical advice. Product features, availability, and data described here reflect statements made by Insulet at the ADA Scientific Sessions and have not been independently verified. Always consult your physician before making any change to your care plan.
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© 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast. All rights reserved.
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The Eli Lilly CEO says inflammation is the next frontier

Listening Notes

The Eli Lilly CEO says inflammation is the next frontier. For an autoimmune family, that's familiar ground.

Most of the coverage of his hour on Scott Galloway's podcast was about the money — a trillion-dollar company, weight-loss drugs everywhere. For a family living with an autoimmune condition, the parts worth your time were somewhere else: what the research is quietly chasing, how to think clearly about what you read, and — at the very end — what he said about being a father.

Scott Benner June 2026 Commentary

If you live in an autoimmune body — and if you're reading this, you or someone you love almost certainly does — there was a moment in this interview worth more than the trillion-dollar headline it got buried under.

David Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, was talking about where GLP-1 drugs might go next, and one of the frontiers he named lands right where we live: inflammation. He didn't use the word "autoimmune." But you can't talk about one without brushing up against the other.

The inflammation thread

Ricks ran through several places these drugs might go next — metabolic and cardiovascular disease, addiction (drinking, smoking, gambling), and early, unproven signals on cancer. The one that's our neighborhood is inflammation. On top of obesity, he said, "America is in an inflammatory crisis" — and he pointed at asthma, psoriasis, and arthritis as the chronic inflammatory conditions the research is moving toward. He even described obesity and inflammation as "close travelers."

Here's the connection he didn't make, but we can. Autoimmune conditions are, underneath everything, inflammation stories — the immune system inflaming and turning on the body's own tissue. Type 1 is that. The thyroid disease so many of us also carry is that. Celiac is that. And if there's one thing this community knows in its bones, it's that autoimmune conditions travel in packs too. So when the most valuable healthcare company on earth names inflammation among the places these drugs are headed, we have a reason to listen — not as patients waiting for a prescription, but as people who already live on the ground the research is walking toward.

"America is in an inflammatory crisis." — David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on where the science goes next

Nobody in that interview claimed these drugs do anything for the autoimmune process behind type 1, and I'm not claiming it either. There is no "GLP-1 fixes your diabetes" here, and the day you hear that sentence from anyone, walk away from it. None of this is medical advice, and nothing here is a reason to change a single thing you're doing. The point is gentler and more interesting than a miracle: the attention, the money, and the science are turning toward inflammation — and inflammation is the soil our conditions grow in. That's worth understanding. It isn't something to act on.

What's interesting about the drugs themselves

Ricks made one point that's underappreciated. Most medications, he said, work "on average" — they help some people and not others. He believes this class is different: it works for nearly everyone, and — the unusual part — people like being on it. That runs against how most chronic-disease medicine feels. You usually take something, feel a little worse, definitely feel a little poorer, and get told you're preventing something years away. A medication people don't fight to quit is a different kind of thing.

The claims worth holding loosely

A few of his statements are striking enough to repeat — as long as we're clear they're claims, not settled facts. He's a CEO with a product to sell. Here they are.

He said their next, more powerful drug — a triple-acting version of these same GLP medicines, the one he's hoping to launch next year — came back as the most powerful pain reducer ever tested pharmacologically, on arthritic knee pain. Same family, scaled up, which is what makes the inflammation thread tighter rather than looser. He pointed to lower cancer rates in people who'd been on these drugs for years, and flagged that finding himself as observational — a pattern someone noticed, not a cause anyone has proven. And the reports of reduced drinking, smoking, and gambling are early — some noticed in trials, some just what people say about themselves. Promising, not proven — worth knowing, not worth banking on.

On "peptides," and how we read what we read

This is the part most relevant to our community, because it's really about us — people who share what worked for them, and who sometimes go looking on their own when the system comes up short. Ricks was blunt about the online "peptide" market. His term for the unregulated stuff was "unstudied medicines" — no trials, no safety data, no FDA. And the caution underneath it: leaning on what he called "N-of-one anecdotes," one person saying it helped me, and treating that as proof.

I want to handle this carefully, because I host a podcast built largely on people sharing their experience. So here's the line as I see it. There's a real difference between a community comparing notes on how to better use an approved medication a doctor prescribed — and buying an unstudied chemical off the internet because a stranger swore by it. The first is people filling a gap the clinical world left wide open. The second is rolling dice with your body. Both come from the same place.

Healthcare is "one of the worst consumer experiences we all have." — Ricks, on why people start looking for their own answers

Ricks didn't just scold people for going looking, though — he named why they do. No one can tell you the price. You wait in line. You often feel unheard. People don't strike out on their own because they're careless; they do it because the front door is hard to open and nobody will tell them what's on the other side. We know that feeling better than most. What I take from it isn't "trust the system" or "trust the internet." It's to keep curiosity and caution in the same hand.

And the money, since that's what the headlines led with

Eli Lilly just became the first healthcare company worth a trillion dollars, and by Galloway's count, about two-thirds of its sales now come from GLP-1s. This is also the company that made insulin commercially available back in 1923. So the company many of us depend on for the thing that keeps us alive is now, by its own math, mostly a weight-and-metabolic business. I don't say that as an accusation — it's just the map, and it helps to know where you're standing on it. Insulin isn't the center of that company's universe anymore. The center is wherever the inflammation research goes, which, as I said up top, is our part of town.

The part I keep thinking about

Near the end, Galloway moved the conversation to family, and this is the section I'd hand to people. Ricks has three kids and raised them in a dual-career household where the in-the-room-together time was limited, so he's clearly thought about where connection really comes from. His answer wasn't the big moments. It was the small, boring ones. The walk. Throwing a ball in the yard. He said standing on the sideline cheering is good to do, but he's not sure it's where you connect — you connect side by side, doing something ordinary, with half your brain, when there's finally room to just talk.

For anyone raising a kid with type 1, there's a catch in that. So much of our side-by-side time gets quietly eaten — by the site change, the number on the screen, the math at the table, the 2 a.m. check. The ordinary moments are still there, but the disease keeps trying to move into them.

That is the whole reason I care so much about people getting good at this. Not so you can become an expert for its own sake. So that the diabetes recedes far enough into the background that you get the boring walk back — so the ball in the yard is just a ball in the yard. Competence was never the goal. It's what buys you the ordinary day.

The Source

This is my commentary on an interview with David Ricks, Chair & CEO of Eli Lilly, on The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway. All quotes belong to the speakers; go listen to the full conversation for everything in context.

The content on this site is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
Nothing here is an endorsement of any medication, and any health claims described are those of the interview's speakers, not the Juicebox Podcast.
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