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Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

medicalxpress.com

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Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#61

Post by sweezyjeezy »

criddell wrote: post #43
sweezyjeezy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did specify "molecule". Certainly not every pharmaceutical occurs naturally, and other materials such as Teflon don't either.

We're part of nature and so everything we do is occurring there. Is the real distinction things that wouldn't exist without human intervention? So, like Teflon and plumcots wouldn't be natural but water and plutonium are. Things that aren't naturally occurring would be supernatural, no?

Now we're arguing semantics. "Naturally occuring" in English means not synthetically produced / found naturally in the environment outside of human influences.

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#62

Post by Lanolderen »

llamaimperative wrote: post #11
chpatrick wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone but it's not something you can just give people directly. Instead you give them artificial things like semaglutide that work on the same receptors.

GLP-1 is a class of drugs (or molecules). The first known GLP-1 was pretty much just a synthesized version of a naturally occurring compound from the Gila Monster’s venom. Semaglutide is like a 2nd generation GLP-1 and there are 3rd generation ones in development right now

Gila Monster is a pretty cool name for a lizard

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#63

Post by malfist »

stavros wrote: post #58
pajamasam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this article, it's a side effect of Ozempic itself. The article goes on to say that the newly discovered molecule can side-step the side-effect and metnioned that "obese mice treated with daily injections of BRP for 14 days lost an average of 3 grams—due almost entirely to fat loss..."

We don't know yet whether the muscle loss is caused by the drug itself or due to the weight loss, there are some studies but I haven't seen any conclusion yet one way or the other. Anecdotally, a friend of mine was on a diet and exercise regime, then at some point he switched to Mounjaro to reduce cravings, while keeping the same diet and exercise regime (he's a data geek so he documented things pretty well), and his…

Also sample size of one, but with the weight loss from semaglutide, I've gotten back in the gym and I can now lift more weight than I ever have. It feels fantastic (both the weight loss and being strong)

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#64

Post by wincy »

lores wrote: post #50
aitchnyu wrote: post #24

Is the muscle loss a side effect of the drug or of the weight loss?

The drug does not directly affect muscle mass (unless you are already very lean), but heavy people are doing resistance training against their own body weight all the time, so they are strong in the absolute, even if not relatively. Weigh less and your muscles have it easier, so weaken, unless you keep them strong with exercise.

I’m not sure that’s exactly what’s happening with GLP-1 drugs. I lost 40 pounds very quickly on them and hurt my hip then my shoulder then my wrist. Felt like I was constantly getting muscle strains and random injuries.

I started drinking a protein shake once a day and the random mysterious injuries stopped.

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#65

Post by amanaplanacanal »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #30
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is not really a charitable take. For one, nearly everything medical needs certain purity and concentration so you need specialized equipment. For two, even if a chemical is easy to produce by industrial standards, you still need to run trials to prove that it's both safe and actually does what you hope it does.

I wonder what the distinction here is between supplement and pharmaceutical. Could they have chosen to bring it to market as a supplement?

I expect it has to be injected. Can you sell injectable supplements?

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#66

Post by wincy »

chpatrick wrote: post #9
boxed wrote: post #5

Isn't the molecule in Ozempic naturally occurring too?

As far as I know GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone but it's not something you can just give people directly. Instead you give them artificial things like semaglutide that work on the same receptors.

You can but if I recall based on a book I read [0], you’d need to take a pill something like three or four times a day as your body naturally clears GLP-1 very quickly. The chemical has been known since the 90s, the Ozempic breakthrough was binding/mixing it with some chemical of Gila monster venom which makes your body take much longer to break down the chemical (days instead of hours).

[0] Magic Pill by Johann Hari

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#68

Post by Willingham »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #37
chasd00 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t everything naturally occurring? It all originates from earth, where else would it come from?

They did specify "molecule". Certainly not every pharmaceutical occurs naturally, and other materials such as Teflon don't either.

This makes since, but I do like the idea presented before you, that humans are natural, and our evolution is natural, therefor the things that we make are natural too. But then where do you draw the line? If an alien drops a new element on earth, would this then be not ‘natural’? Or is it impossible for anything to not be natural?

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#69

Post by bitwize »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #56
VagabundoP wrote: post #10

They mention AI used to weed out molecules but don't mention how it was used. I'd be interested in know did they use pre-trained models or train one from the ground up.

I would expect some custom training was needed in order to address this highly specialized use case. There are 2 primary uses cases emerging where LLMs are proving advantageous. 1) Summarization --- where the results can be nebulous and it don't really much matter. For example, casual web search. 2) Research based on trial and error where the nebulous results will be subjected to thorough verification --- i.e. this c…

I don't think it's a matter of firing up an LLM and saying "Hey LLM, please find me a molecule that acts on human GLP-1 receptors but does not have the negative side effects of semaglutide." And it's all like "Certainly! Here are some candidate GLP-1 agonists that blah blah blah..."

It's probably more like AlphaFold -- a statistical model of molecular structure and action, not a language model.

Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects

#70

Post by Aurornis »

jleyank wrote: post #36

Remember, weight loss is a side effect of the Ozempic family of drugs. It was intended as a type 2 diabetes drug and it’s quite successful in that area. Once alternate applications are revealed, drug design gets involved to develop alternatives. Medchemists and marketeers are clever…

> weight loss is a side effect of the Ozempic family of drugs. It was intended as a type 2 diabetes drug and it’s quite successful in that area.

You can’t call it a side effect simply because the drug was first studied for a different condition.

Weight loss is a primary effect of the drug and it’s the indication it was approved for after extensive research.

Many drugs are first discovered while looking for some other effect.

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