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METABOLIC RECOVERY – The Next Phase of the GLP-1 Conversation: Metabolic Recovery

For the last two years, we’ve been talking about GLP-1 drugs.

Ozempic. Wegovy. Zepbound.

They work.

They reduce appetite, improve blood sugar regulation, and are reshaping metabolic health at scale. This is one of the most significant shifts we’ve seen in decades (Wilding et al., 2021).

But a quieter question is starting to emerge:

What happens after?

Because many people eventually discontinue these medications. They’re expensive, often require ongoing use, and studies have shown substantial weight regain can occur after discontinuation of GLP-1 therapies (Wilding et al., 2022).

Not because people failed.

Because the system that was being supported… is no longer being supported.

I believe we’re entering a new phase of this conversation.

Not just weight loss.

Not just appetite suppression.

But metabolic recovery.

What does the body need to help maintain stability after intervention?

The Washington State University elderberry study led by Professor Patrick Solverson and colleagues, published in 2024, caught my attention immediately (Solverson et al., 2024). Last summer, I also had the opportunity to hear the research presented during the International Elderberry Symposium.

As both an elderberry farmer and a value-added product maker, I was excited to see rigorous science emerging around American elderberry — but also genuinely curious why it wasn’t making larger headlines.

Because the findings were interesting.

In the randomized controlled trial, participants consuming 100% American elderberry juice for one week demonstrated:

  • Reduced blood glucose
  • Lower insulin levels
  • Increased fat oxidation
  • Measurable shifts in gut microbiome activity (Solverson et al., 2024)

Not a miracle.

Not hype.

But a signal.

Because the mechanism matters.

One detail that makes American elderberry especially interesting is that its anthocyanin profile appears to differ from many other dark berries.

American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) contains significant amounts of acylated anthocyanins — particularly acylated cyanidin-based compounds connected to hydroxycinnamic acid groups (Lee & Finn, 2007; Özgen et al., 2010). These acyl groups alter the chemistry and stability of the anthocyanin molecule.

Why does that matter?

Research suggests acylated anthocyanins demonstrate greater resistance to heat, oxidation, light degradation, and digestive breakdown compared to many non-acylated anthocyanins commonly found in fruits such as blackberries and in many European elderberry varieties (Sadilova et al., 2006; Fuleki & Francis, 1968).

That stability may matter biologically because it potentially allows more intact anthocyanin compounds to survive processing, storage, digestion, and interaction with the gut microbiome.

European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) contains a different anthocyanin composition, dominated more heavily by non-acylated cyanidin 3-glucoside and cyanidin 3-sambubioside compounds (Lee & Finn, 2007). Other berries absolutely contain beneficial anthocyanins too — but American elderberry appears to possess a somewhat distinct anthocyanin architecture that researchers are still working to fully understand.

Researchers believe these anthocyanins interact with the gut microbiome, helping generate short-chain fatty acids and downstream metabolites associated with insulin sensitivity, inflammation regulation, and endogenous GLP-1 signaling pathways (Chambers et al., 2018; Solverson et al., 2024).

Not synthetically.

Endogenously.

Through food and the gut microbiome.

To me, this is where the conversation may be heading next.

Not:

“What replaces GLP-1 drugs?”

But:

“What helps support the body alongside them — and after them?”

Or even:

“What supports metabolic health for people who never start them at all?”

For too long, metabolism has been framed as something we “fix.”

I think we’re moving toward something different:

Metabolism as something we support daily — through food, hydration, gut health, and the biological systems we nourish over time.

For the past year, I’ve been quietly studying this space and building around one core idea:

There may be a meaningful role for real functional food in the GLP-1 era — not as a replacement for medicine, but as nutritional support alongside metabolic health journeys.

Not a shortcut.

A system.

We’re still early in this conversation.

But if the last few years were about intervention…

the next few may be about recovery.

Curious what others in food, agriculture, metabolic health, and functional wellness are seeing emerge in this space.

— Bevin Brooks

References

Solverson, P., Teets, C., Rust, B., Johnson, S.A., et al. (2024). A One-Week Elderberry Juice Intervention Augments the Fecal Microbiota and Suggests Improvement in Glucose Tolerance and Fat Oxidation in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients, 16(20), 3555.

Wilding, J.P.H., Batterham, R.L., Calanna, S., et al. (2021). Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(11), 989–1002.

Wilding, J.P.H., Jacobsen, L.V., le Roux, C.W., et al. (2022). Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 24(8), 1553–1564.

Lee, J., & Finn, C.E. (2007). Anthocyanins and Other Polyphenolics in American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) Cultivars. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 87(14), 2665–2675.

Özgen, M., Scheerens, J.C., Reese, R.N., & Miller, R.A. (2010). Total Phenolic, Anthocyanin Contents and Antioxidant Capacity of Selected Elderberry Accessions. Pharmacognosy Magazine, 6(23), 198–203.

Sadilova, E., Stintzing, F.C., & Carle, R. (2006). Thermal degradation of acylated and nonacylated anthocyanins. Journal of Food Science, 71(8), C504–C512.

Fuleki, T., & Francis, F.J. (1968). Quantitative Methods for Anthocyanins: Stability of Elderberry Pigments. Journal of Food Science, 33(1), 72–79.

Chambers, E.S., Preston, T., Frost, G., & Morrison, D.J. (2018). Role of Gut Microbiota-Generated Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Metabolic and Cardiovascular Health. Current Nutrition Reports, 7, 198–206.

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Past Business Weekly's:

When Words Lose Their Meaning

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

The phrase “food is medicine” has become the wellness world’s version of “thoughts and prayers.” Everyone says it. Everyone feels good saying it. And almost nobody means anything real when they do. That’s the danger—not the phrase itself, but what happens when language gets stretched so far it stops pointing to anything true.

The original use of the phrase belonged to grandmas, gardeners, and people who still know how to cook and where food comes from. In that world, “food is medicine” meant something simple and grounded. A piece of meat and some vegetables—and fruit when it was in season—was just a regular meal. And then there were the special things you made when someone didn’t feel well: mixtures built from botanicals, herbs, fruits, nuts, grasses, roots, seeds, and whatever the land offered that season. Things pulled straight from soil and pantry because they carried function, flavor, and a purpose. That usage was peaceful, instinctive, and honest.

Then came the influencers, using the same phrase while holding something powdered, flavored, and algorithm-optimized. “Food is medicine” became a caption under a neon shake that tastes like peach sorbet and contains a clinically irrelevant amount of plant dust. They didn’t inherit the meaning—they inherited the hashtag. And hashtags don’t carry wisdom; they carry trend cycles.

Then comes the USDA, NIH, and hospital systems, who use both phrases—but in different ways. “Food Is Medicine” is their broad, public-facing concept, the umbrella idea that nutrition is foundational for health. “Food As Medicine”—capital As—is the technical term for the clinical, billing-coded interventions:

produce prescriptions,

medically tailored meals,

medically tailored groceries.

This version has insurance pathways, reimbursement logic, metrics, screenings, and outcome evaluations. It isn’t a belief system. It’s a healthcare program.

So we end up with two phrases—Food Is Medicine and Food As Medicine—that sound almost identical but function in totally different worlds. And both of them, at their best, once pointed to something we still have right now: real plants growing from real soil, carrying real chemistry that does real things in the human body. Not ancient in the sense of “long ago,” but ancient in the sense of continuity—still alive, still growing, still here.

Once a phrase becomes universal, though, it becomes meaningless.

That’s what’s happening now.

A wellness word printed on plastic.

“Natural” stamped on a bag of potato chips.

“Immune-supporting” slapped on anything that wants to look virtuous.

Marketing fog replacing actual meaning.

It’s Peacekeepers in 1984.

It’s “community” in Big Tech.

And on the Idiocracy side, it’s the fictional Electrolyte Drink Brawndo—marketed so aggressively that the entire population believes “it’s got what plants crave.”

In the film, they irrigate crops with the Electrolyte Drink Brawndo instead of water because advertising has replaced knowledge. Marketing departments tell us what truth is. The soil dies. The crops fail. The land collapses into a dust bowl. That’s what linguistic drift does: it hollows meaning until the absurd becomes normal.

“Food is medicine” used to mean:

eat real plants,

respect soil,

trust the chemistry that grows in the field,

trust the phytonutrients that come from this earth,

food keeps you alive and makes you whole.

Now it means turmeric dust on junk food.

Or a wellness word added so a product can sell for $3 more.

This hollowed-out category is not a comfortable place for real food to sit.

The old category, where LionBerry sits—the one before wellness gloss, before powdered fantasy, before language drift washed the meaning out of the words—still exists. But sitting there is not accidental. People tell me all the time to cheapen it, powder it, plastic-bottle it, isolate it, dilute it, lab-flavor it, margin-boost it, and make it “scalable” by stripping out the thing that makes it real.

I don’t do it.

Not because it’s easy.

But because sometimes the right thing to do is always the hardest thing to do.

LionBerry sits in the old category because I fight for it to sit there.

Real plants.

Real chemistry.

Real soil.

Real function.

Zero powdered fantasy.

LionBerry is exactly what it says it is: a farm-crafted drink made out of actual food.

When I say “the phrase doesn’t need to be fixed,” I mean the phrase “food is medicine.”

We don’t need to invent a new set of buzzwords or rescue the old ones from misuse.

We don’t need to rebuild or replace the language itself.

What needs to change is this:

start making products that mean what the words used to mean.

Start making food products that are just food