I read the article, didn't see what foods contain that molecule.
Humans produce it naturally.
Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
361–370 of 394 posts
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm trying to think of a funny way to cite Clark's Law, but failing...
Regexes occasionally get called "black magic", and there is is an inverse of Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I think you meant “any sufficiently commoditized magic is indistinguishable from technology”, or “any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.”
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#363Is the muscle loss a side effect of the drug or of the weight loss?
It's nearly always a side effect of weight loss, and it's a good thing. It's confusing how people act like it's bad. If you're obese, your legs are enormously strong with crazy amounts of muscle. Have you ever seen someone obese do leg presses at the gym? They can handle tons of weight. When you lose weight, you don't need all that extra muscle . If you're carrying around 180 lbs instead of 300 lbs on your frame, all…
This is silly. I'm a big proponent of GLP-1s (and on one!) but we can and do see people on these reaching sarcopenic levels of lean body mass. The overwhelming majority of people on these drugs should absolutely be doing everything they can to preserve their muscle mass.
(The overwhelming majority of people losing weight in general should be doing everything they can to preserve their muscle mass.)
Having slightly larger quads/hamstrings/calves than the average person doesn't mean they have an optimal amount of muscle mass in their legs to begin with, much less on the rest of their body.
Leg presses are also an absolutely terrible exercise to measure strength and by proxy muscle mass. The angle reduces the weight - generally only 71% - and they are one of the most "cheated" exercises in existence, with people doing what could charitably be called half reps (and is often more like quarter reps.)
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
> then they have "too much muscle" as typically needed for their body mass It's a leap to suggest that it's "good" to lose this muscle mass. If you're obese then it's good to lose fat. It's even better to do so while maintaining muscle mass.
Yeah that's obviously better. They really meant it's "not bad" rather than "good". When people read "muscle loss" they think "oh it's going to make me weak and feeble".
The problem is it is bad. People aren't just losing a proportional amount of muscle to fat mass to keep a good ratio - rapid weight loss is more catabolic towards lean body mass than it is with slower weight loss.
And most obese people are below optimal levels of total lean body mass overall even before this - their leg muscles being larger than an untrained person of the same height and an average weight does not mean that their leg muscles are of optimal size, much less the rest of their body.
Sarcopenia is a real risk for any obese person who is rapidly losing weight and GLP-1s are no exception.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the point. Mine is that an ordinary untrained person will see health benefits and a statistically longer life from more muscle. An overweight person would have more muscle than their non-overweight counterparts (mostly localized to the legs, not upper body), and that is the one and only positive of being overweight. Willfully throwing that away will harm your health, full stop. The muscle loss problem wi…
There’s negative cardiovascular effects from excess muscle just as with excess fat. Normally that’s offset by the health effects of the exercise required to gain and maintain them as well as the lack of medical conditions that prevent exercise etc. But a fat person losing weight should inherently lose muscle mass long term assuming no changes to lifestyle.
This is one of those statements that is technically true but not particularly relevant. Obese people are almost never at a level of lean body mass that they would overall be at a good amount of muscle even for a healthy total weight, and rapid weight loss has consistently been shown in studies to reduce more lean body mass than slower weight loss.
Getting to the same level of additional weight from muscles as there is from fat is also incredibly difficult. The average 5'8 person not utilizing AAS would take years of dedicated training, dialed in diet and recovery, etc., to get to 200lb at 15% bodyfat. People get there much faster and much easier putting on fat.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is absurd. Muscle mass is a huge predictor of mortality and anyone who isn't actively strength training and maintaining higher levels of muscle would see a health benefit by doing so. The idea that an overweight person has "too much muscle" is nonsense. The side affect of muscle loss from these glp-1 agonist drugs is a serious downside that everyone should be aware of and try to mitigate if they choose to take t…
Yea what you're replying to is just pure fat-logic that isn't really backed by science. You will lose muscle from calorie restriction - that isn't really in doubt by anyone. However, when cutting weight, you can do a routine that maintains/builds muscle as you cut, to reduce the effect. A body with more lean muscle mass will be able to keep weight off for longer - this has been known, settled, and accepted in weight…
The idea that people on GLP-1s shouldn't be trying to preserve (or indeed build) as much muscle mass as they can is absurd. It is more important than ever to perform resistance training and make sure you are getting adequate protein.
But this isn't anything special about GLP-1s - the same is true for any sort of rapid weight loss approach, be it diet, GLP-1, lap band, whatever.
And we see improved cardiovascular outcomes independent of weight loss for people on GLP-1 drugs in widespread clinical trials, vs. one mechanistic in vitro study showing loss of heart muscle cells.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason you want to keep all your muscle on a cut is because that means a higher proportion of the weight that you do lose will be fat tissue. This is the strictly superior outcome.
If you're "cutting" as part of bulking and cutting, then obviously. But if you're going from obese to healthy, then your goal isn't to retain all your leg muscle, that's absurd. Your goal is to get to a healthy weight with overall balanced healthy muscle -- not disproportionately large legs. Nothing is "strictly superior". What is best depends on what your goals are. Bodybuilding and not being obese any more involve…
If we didn't see tons of people reaching their "target weight" on GLP-1 drugs while having unhealthily low levels of lean body mass, you might have a point.
But that is what we do see. I'd argue that they're still in a better place than they were before, and we know that muscle that has been lost recently grows back very quickly when exposed to stimulus and adequate protein and rest, so I absolutely am a full believer in GLP-1 medications.
But if everyone on GLP-1 meds were keeping up with their protein and resistance training, even leg day, there would be very very few that had huge legs. That one portion of their body might be, on average, more muscular than a totally untrained individual, but it's not like being fat is the equivalent of a low bf% bodybuilder when it comes to lower body muscle mass. A formerly 300lb person dropping down to 180 with average genetics is almost certainly going to have smaller legs than someone who has been lifting for a year at the same height/weight.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you also need a bigger heart when you gain weight and not need as big of one at less weight? Liposuction and amputations can also result in muscle loss in the heart from it having less work to do.
You don't want to have too much hypertrophy in the heart for sure. My understanding though is that it's very hard (almost impossible?) for it to be a problem without exogenous hormones, or some other condition that allows you to accrue an abnormal amount of muscle mass (e.g. myostatin defficiency). Edit: I mean someone with a healthy fat percentage body composition. Of course having to pump blood to a 300lb-140kg bod…
Yeah, LVH is the big deal there in both cases.
Telmisartan, an ARB generally used for BP management, can actually reverse LVH to a significant degree over time, though. Popular for bodybuilders on large quantities of AAS for that reason.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly my point! you have a chain of 3 associations right there. One is nearly tautological and another has backwards causality. Correlation =/= causation. Something being a good a good predicative indicator does not mean it is an effective intervention.
"Muscle" isn't an intervention. "Building muscle" is an intervention and has extremely well-documented mechanisms that have a causal role in improving health.
Muscle actually is an intervention for one of the biggest risk factors in metabolic syndrome - insulin resistance.
Muscles use glycogen. They use more glycogen when you're doing the sort of thing that builds muscle, so of course it's even better there, but someone who just genetically puts on more muscle at the same level of activity as someone who puts on less will still use more blood sugar for their muscles, and thus be less likely to increase their insulin resistance.
Re: Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is likely just from losing weight rapidly in general. We see it with people losing weight from a variety of other sources, too. It's possible GLP-1s might enhance the effect in some way, but it's already a significant enough issue in general that adequate protein intake + some resistance training is important regardless.