---
title: "Dr. Edward Walker of Calocurb: The Principle of Challenging Scientific Consensus to Unlock Natural Health Innovations"
url: "https://authoritymag.co/articles/dr-edward-walker-of-calocurb-the-principle-of-challenging-scientific-consensus-to-unlock-natural"
publisher: "Authority Magazine"
author: "Maria Angelova"
authorUrl: "https://authoritymag.co/authors/maria-angelova"
interviewee: "Dr. Edward Walker"
company: "Calocurb"
category: "Wellness"
datePublished: "2023-12-02T01:20:18.993Z"
dateModified: "2026-11-12T19:24:07.180Z"
tags: "Business"
---

# Dr. Edward Walker of Calocurb: The Principle of Challenging Scientific Consensus to Unlock Natural Health Innovations

*Scientist and lecturer Dr. Edward Walker shares his journey researching plant-based appetite suppressants and the vital lessons learned from challenging conventional academic thinking.*

> Get your ideas out there, it doesn’t matter where, so long as people have access they can read the information and decide for themselves.

---

T*he pursuit of healthy weight management is a journey many of us embark on. In a world where quick fixes are often sought after, weight loss drugs have found a notable presence. However, like any medical intervention, there’s a need for understanding, caution, and professional guidance before considering such options. In this interview series, we are talking to doctors and medical and wellness professionals about the science, safety, efficacy, and ethical considerations surrounding weight loss drugs. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Edward Walker.*

*Dr. Edward Walker is a scientist and lecturer, who believes that developing a healthy relationship with food is key for long-term wellness. He works at Plant & Food Research, undertaking commercially focused research of nutraceutical products for human health applications, with a focus on clinical validation of lab-based results. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Auckland on the topic of nutraceuticals and functional foods.*

*Over the last 13 years Dr Walker’s primary research focus has been the investigation of plant-based, appetite suppressants that may reduce hunger and support healthy food choices. This work led to the development of a novel NZ hops-based appetite suppressant, Amarasate, that activates the gut’s endocrine system to stimulate a sense of satiety. This mode of action is like new anti-obesity drugs.*

*He is passionate about plant-based nutraceuticals and believes that with the appropriate scientific research, they have the potential to improve health and even prevent or delay the development of chronic disease.*

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**Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?**

I was born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand. My Father was from England, and worked as a chemistry teacher. He was a keen runner, having attempted to qualify for the Olympics in the marathon, and he held the NZ school mile record for almost 40 years. My mother is a classically trained stage actress who became an antique rug dealer. Growing up I was always interested in health and nutrition. There was a health food store across the road from my mother’s shop that sold frozen yogurt. I used to go there every day after school, eat yogurt and look at all the amazing supplements for sale — I guess that is where my passion for health and nutrition came from. I have always been good at science, sport, and creative pursuits, and I’m almost pathologically disorganised. My father passed away when I was an undergrad and I had to work full-time through university, firstly as a furniture mover and then during my MSc and PhD as a functions manager at nights and on weekends. I chose to do a PhD with Plant & Food Research that focused on the health benefits of berry fruit, trying to figure out exactly what made them healthy and how they could help people. I then moved to researching how foods can affect the gut, doing one project on how diet affects Crohn’s disease and then onto my current research focus of gut targeted appetite suppressants.

I have a strong belief that natural products can greatly contribute to people having healthy lifestyles. As a fitness enthusiast I have been highly committed to my personal health journey.

**Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?**

From a science point of view it was from my PhD, without getting too much into the details, I was basically pushing against the conventional thinking. My whole thesis was saying that what scientists had been doing in the past was wrong. They were using the coloured compounds from berry fruit for their lab experiments on human cells, but these compounds are changed when you digest them and end up as completely different chemicals when they are in your blood. The cells they were using would have almost no exposure to these coloured compounds in the body, and that meant their experiments didn’t relate to actual human health outcomes. My work was using what was actually present in your blood after eating berry fruits, and in some cases these chemicals gave very different results.

Probably unsurprisingly, when I came to publish this work I got so much push back from reviewers that the papers kept getting rejected. I bet they would be thinking — Who is this upstart trying to tell us we are wrong? I got disheartened and gave up. Fast forward a few years, and now other people have started publishing the same work I had submitted before. I was right and should have been published. What did I learn? Two things, 1. Get your ideas out there, it doesn’t matter where, so long as people have access they can read the information and decide for themselves. Two. Don’t let people tell you what you can’t do, you have to believe in yourself and that you can make a difference.

**You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?**

Curiosity: I am always looking to answer questions and find a better way. Do not believe in the status quo and anyone can make a difference.

When I started research gut targeted appetite suppressants, it was a pretty bad time for nutraceuticals. The FDA had banned the most effective product (ephedra) due to safety concerns, and many major researchers in gut health/function didn’t believe that a nutraceutical could work as an effective gut targeted appetite suppressant. I was just a first year post-doctoral scientist, and the experts were saying it wouldn’t work. Did I give up? No. I asked the question, why don’t they think it will work. That question led to 10 years of research, several clinical trials and an answer that was not so black and white. Turns out that gut targeted appetite suppressant can work, it is simply hard to make one that does.

Accountability: I know that my work will contribute to the broader knowledge base for people to improve their health and wellbeing. I ensure that my work is of high integrity, and I want to ensure that that information is used appropriately.

A few years ago, I was lecturing on nutraceuticals for sports performance, and was discussing a class of compounds called ecdysteroids — a novel muscle building supplement. Now these can be highly effective, but most of the research had been done on supplements that only had a fraction of the amount of ecdysteroids that they claimed. I knew this, but I did not cover it in my lecture. At the end of the lecture, one of the students asked me where you can get them from, so I gave him the details of a supplier that guarantees that their supplements are pure. The student tried to take the amount of ecdysteroids he thought was used in the research, but it was actually 20 times more. He suffered several side effects — nothing too severe or permanent — but it was a big wake up call for me that you need to be careful with the information you provide, especially when it involves a biologically active supplement.

Impact: I’m always thinking about how my research will have an impact for consumers.

I have close friends and family that have struggled with eating disorders and weight loss and understand how challenging it can be to adopt a healthy lifestyle. One of my good friends has been overweight his whole life and was trying to lose weight for his wedding. It wasn’t for him; he was doing it for his soon to be wife. While he was highly motivated and had tried various different approaches, he hadn’t achieved any significant weight loss. Then one day I got a call from him saying he had tried Calocurb’s product and his hunger was gone. This allowed him to stick to his diet and gave him confidence that he would make his goal wedding weight. This was personally really rewarding to hear and it was an important reminder that as scientists need to understand that every consumer will have different expectations and motivations.

**Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fields of health, obesity, or weight loss? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?**

My claim to fame is the development of Amarasate™ — a plant based, gut targeted nutraceutical that triggers your body to release appetite suppressing hormones. In other words, a nutraceutical that actually works.

This work started with a NZ$20M New Zealand government funded research programme called Lifestyle Foods for Appetite Control. I was the lead researcher of the Bitter Brake part of the project. This work was based around the idea that bitterness in the gut could trigger the release of appetite suppressing gut hormones, and was inspired by the historical use of bitter foods to suppress appetite. Two years before we started the project, a paper had been published that tried to suppress hunger with gut bitterness but failed to show an effect. So, I asked myself the question — why did it fail? Well, that work assumed that your gut and your tongue sense bitterness the same way and that what is bitter on the tongue is bitter to your gut. I decided we needed to pull this apart and really understand the gut bitter sensing system with a series of studies. The first study was a hospital-based study where 28 volunteers gave gut biopsies from all along their gut and we looked at bitter taste “buds” (receptors). What we found was that the gut could not detect every bitter food that the tongue could, and that there was a lot of variation between people. Assumption disproved.

Next it was into the lab, for a big pharma style high throughput screening. Using a gut cell that contains appetite suppressing gut hormones, 1000 different plant extracts, compounds and pharmaceuticals were tested to see if they could stimulate these cells to release their hormones. Almost none did, turns out that even if these gut cells can detect bitterness, they will only respond if it is exceedingly bitter. Assumption disproved again. The only plant extract that worked well, and was suitable for clinical testing, was a hop extract from a specific cultivar of New Zealand-grown hops. From this we developed an ingredient called Amarasate™.

Now the fun part — human trials. Now that I understood how the gut sensed bitterness and how to make these gut cells respond, we could test the bitter brake theory in people. In this research we were able to show that Amarasate reduced how much food people would eat by about 18% and stimulate the release of three appetite suppressing gut hormones, CCK, PYY and GLP-1, the latter being the natural version of the therapeutic GLP-1s being used in several weight loss drugs.

Amarasate was licensed exclusively to Calocurb. They have since continued to undertake further research to demonstrate Amarasate would reduce hunger, food cravings and rebound eating in a model diet system.

**Do you have any financial affiliations or conflicts of interest related to weight loss drugs that readers should be aware of?**

That is an important question. I work for Plant & Food Research which is a New Zealand government research institute. While my institution receives a share of the commercial benefits from Calocurb’s sales, I am not incentivised or rewarded directly for any of this, beyond my salary. I value not having any personal conflict of interest when it comes to scientific credibility and public education around the Amarasate product. And let’s be honest, you don’t become a scientist for the money, you do it to make a difference and drive change.

**When should a person consider using weight loss drugs to lose weight?**

The use of weight loss drugs should not be a first port of call. Improving one’s diet, exploring different diet strategies (e.g. fasting, or low fat, or low carb) and incorporating exercise should be looked at as the first step. Products like Amarasate can be useful to help people manage their appetite.

When people have exhausted these options is when they should seek medical advice from their doctor about whether weight loss drugs are appropriate.

**What are common examples of effective weight loss medications?**

The weight loss medications that everyone is talking about are the GLP-1 based therapeutics, the most common of these being semaglutide (Wegovy®). These medications are highly effective for weight loss with initial studies showing approximately a 17% weight loss over the 68-week treatment.

Tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound™ for weight loss, is a combination GLP-1, GIP agonists (both are gut hormones that have a role in blood glucose and appetite regulation) and has shown even greater potential for weight loss with potentially reduced side effects, that has recently been approved by the FDA for weight loss treatment.

These types of drugs, that mimic endogenous (natural) gut hormones, are somewhat of a game changer when it comes to weight loss. They are often significantly more effective than older generations of weight loss drugs with up to twice the average weight loss being achieved.

It’s important to note, that these types of drugs have well known to have significant side effects, with some studies showing greater than 2/3 of people suffering from GI side effects such as nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting, constipation and stomach pain, and there are also reports of more serious side effects such as gastroparesis — a condition where your stomach won’t empty.

**How do weight loss drugs compare to other methods of weight loss in terms of effectiveness and safety?**

This one is a question for each individual to have with their doctor. In general, the current GLP-1 based weight loss therapeutics are effective for most people; however, they tend to have poorer safety profiles in terms of gastrointestinal side-effects and are relatively new in the market as weight loss treatments.

A key concern with pharmaceutical interventions is around how sustainable they are. Are people willing to take them long-term? Will their weight rebound if they come off the drug? We know from “follow up” studies that when people stop taking weight loss medication there is a strong tendency to regain most of the weight that was lost. This suggests that long term treatment is required, and there is still some uncertainty about what the ramifications of very long-term use might be.

**Are there certain populations or groups of individuals for whom weight loss drugs are particularly beneficial?**

For people that have exhausted other approaches will benefit most. Building a healthy diet and exercise habits are key and if a weight loss medication can help you do this, then you will benefit greatly.

**How do these medications created for alternative health conditions (like diabetes) work for weight loss?**

That’s a great question. These drugs are essentially synthetic versions of gut hormones that have been modified so that they can be long lasting when injected.

The endogenous (natural) version of these hormones, primarily GLP-1, is released every time you have a meal and has a series of effects on the body that help you respond to the food you have eaten. One of these effects is to stimulate the release of insulin thereby reducing blood glucose — this is why these drugs are effective for diabetes. Now, GLP-1 does so much more than just control insulin, it affects the gastrointestinal tract as well as the direct regulation of appetite — both of these help with its role in weight loss. In the GI tract, GLP-1 delays gastric emptying, keeping food in your stomach for longer and thereby enhancing that feeling of fullness you get after eating. GLP-1 also has direct effects on appetite centres in the brain, reducing hunger and reducing food intake.

This all seems great, but if you dive into the details, it isn’t all roses. In the body your natural GLP-1 has approximately 2-minute half-life, what this means is that it breaks down quickly and is only present when it is being actively released — say after a meal. These medications are essentially stabilised forms of GLP-1 that are long acting with a half-life of up to a week. So even though these drugs are mimicking a natural hormone, they do not mimic the natural cycles of this hormone in the body. When you use them, your GLP-1 activity is high in the morning, high at lunchtime, high in the evening and high all night when you are asleep — a time when you would normally have almost no GLP-1 activity.

Fortunately, there is a way to increase your endogenous release of GLP-1 and potentially have some of the benefits of these drugs, while maintaining natural patterns of release. During my research, I discovered a specific cultivar of New Zealand hops (Amarasate) that when given before a meal led to an approximately doubling of GLP-1 release post meal and extended that release by several hours. Essentially boosting and extending your natural GLP-1 release. And not just by a small amount like most supplements can do, this was a biologically important change that would be expected to lead to behavioural change. As a scientist, it is hugely exciting to have discovered a nutraceutical that can help people with their weight loss journey.

**Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 considerations one should take into account before commencing weight loss through medicine?”?**

**1 .***Weight loss interventions are for life.*

No matter how you decide to achieve your weight loss goal, you need to stick on some form of weight loss intervention for life. Now this sounds overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be. There are a lot of different interventions that people can mix and match to find a solution that works. If we think about diet and exercise, when your diet and exercise are poor — you gain weight, when they are good — you lose weight. So, you have to stay on your diet and exercise programme for life, if you don’t most people will gain weight back. If you choose to take a weight loss medication, you will lose weight while on it, but when you stop, there is a high chance that you will gain that weight back. Here is a [link](https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.14725) to study that tracks what happens to weight when people go off weight loss medication. To my mind the key here is to find a solution that works for you. Personally, if I was going to be on something for life, I would prioritise lifestyle change first, then consider a supplement, and leave the weight loss drug a final option.

**2 .**Weight loss is hard**—**interventions help, but there is no magic bullet.

Diet fails, people regain weight after being on weight loss medication, maintaining weight loss is hard. Typically, people manage to initially lose weight, then their weight plateaus and after about 5 years 80% of that weight is regained. This data comes from a meta-analysis of 29 US-based, long-term weight loss studies ([link](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523063748?via%3Dihub)), so it is a very robust finding. The lack of long-term success is one of the reasons why I got into this field of research. People need tools to help keep them on a healthy diet and achieve their weight loss goals. Right now, we have some potent weight loss medications, but when used I believe they need to be combined with behavioural change and post treatment adjunct therapy, such as Amarasate.

**3 .**Diets can be confusing — I think it’s more important to focus on what you exclude from your diet?

Probably the main question I get asked by people is — what diet should I try to follow? They ask this question because they are confused by the many different diet options that are around. There is low fat, low carb, Mediterranean, fixed macronutrient and the list goes on. Often these diets tell you to eat completely different foods and vilify one macronutrient (think carbs are bad or fat is bad). This is all to do with how we think about diets, if we look at what these diets tell you to eat, they are all completely different, but if you look at the actual foods you can’t eat, well they are pretty much the same. On all of these diets you can’t have chips, fries, chocolate, cake, ice cream and biscuits. All the foods that are calorie dense and that you tend to binge on are not allowed. It’s not so much what you are eating, it’s what you are not eating when it comes to weight loss. Also, the key is to stick to the diet, no matter what that diet is. Here is a [link](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/200094) to a paper that compares different diet types and it highlights that it is sticking to the diet that is key.

**4 .**There are non-drug options — products like Amarasate can help.

Our research has shown that Amarasate, a natural nutraceutical, can decrease appetite (link), craving and food intake (link). Now if you think that a diet is more as avoiding certain foods, then reducing appetite and food craving is key to diet success. If you are not craving your trigger foods, if you don’t constantly have thoughts of food in your head, then you are empowered to make the healthy food choices that you want to. That’s what drives dietary success and helps people meet their health goals.

**5 .**You are not alone in this journey. Building a supportive environment with your family or friends can be a really important factor to help people make and sustain long-term lifestyle changes.

Being overweight is a natural response to the environment we live in. High calorie foods that trigger you to overeat are everywhere. When it comes to lifestyle change, you need supportive friends and family that will help keep you on track and not put you in a situation that makes it hard for you to make a healthy food choice. As a first step on your weight loss journey, it can be very useful to see if you can get friends and family on board, ask them if they want to take part and if they can be supportive with the food and lifestyle choices you need to make. From studies we know that friends and family are vitally important in encouraging both healthy diets and increasing exercise levels, we also know that social undermining is a major factor in weight regain ([link](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20814)).

Get your friends and family on board!

**Are there any common myths or misconceptions about weight loss drugs that you’d like to address?**

While this new class of pharmaceuticals act on a hormonal pathway within your body, they are not a natural product or solution. They do not follow the natural pattern of hormone release, and we are still learning what this means for longer term effects of their use.

**Can you help articulate why it is important to upgrade one’s lifestyle in conjunction with medicated weight loss?**

Obesity is now widely recognised as a chronic disease state, what that means in more simple terms is that it is lifelong and requires lifelong treatment. Now let us look at two situations: Firstly, a person that goes on a weight loss medication, the treatment works but they do not address any lifestyle changes. What the data tells us will typically happen is that this person will lose a significant amount of weight while on the medication and likely maintain that weight loss so long as they keep taking it. So, what happens when they stop? Much of the weight goes back on. This is not only stressful for the person, but if they lost a significant amount of muscle mass while taking the medication, then they can actually be in a worse situation than before they started, being at the same weight, but having a reduced metabolism and more fat. Not ideal at all.

The second example is when someone uses the weight loss medication to assist with dietary change, then transitions off while maintaining the lifestyle changes they adopted during the treatment period. These lifestyle changes, may not only help with maintaining muscle mass during the initial weight loss, but they can also help to prevent post medication weight regain. This is in my opinion a much better option, but I’m not going to sugar coat it… it’s not easy to do.

**Beyond medication, what supplementary treatments or therapies do you recommend in conjunction with weight loss drugs for the best results?**

When it comes to combining medications and supplements, I am not a huge fan. Medications are potent and have gone through significant clinical testing to assess their efficacy and safety. Supplements and nutraceuticals can potentially alter how your body reacts to the medication, can cause either increased or decreased efficacy and change side effect profiles. The interactions of supplements with weight loss drugs almost never undergo detailed testing.

**How do you see the future of medicated weight loss evolving with advances in science and medicine?**

Weight loss is complicated and not everyone over eats and gains weight for the same reason. I see a future where there are more bespoke treatments addressing different aspects related to weight loss — hunger, emotional eating, addictive behaviour etc.

**What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?**

[www.amarasate.co.nz](http://www.amarasate.co.nz)

**This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.**

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A*bout The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher and founder and CEO of*[Rebellious Intl](https://angelova.mykajabi.com/)*. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at*[angelova@rebellious-intl.com](mailto:angelova@rebellious-intl.com)*. To schedule a free consultation, click*[here](https://www.rebellious-studio.com/contact)*.*

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Source: https://authoritymag.co/articles/dr-edward-walker-of-calocurb-the-principle-of-challenging-scientific-consensus-to-unlock-natural (Authority Magazine, Wellness). Interviewee answers are first-person statements of the guest. Index of all pages: https://authoritymag.co/llms.txt