Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medicalxpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 394 posts

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

#371

Post by cthalupa »

pajamasam wrote: post #52
aitchnyu wrote: post #24

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

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 know that rapid weight loss causes muscle loss at a higher rate than slower weight loss in general.

GLP-1s might enhance this effect somewhat, but there is nothing definitive.

Adequate protein intake + resistance training can fully counteract it, however. I've even added significant lean body mass while losing fat while on GLP-1s.

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

#372

Post by sn9 »

crazygringo wrote: post #313
sn9 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot reduction of fat is a myth.

OK? Nobody's talking about that?

>You lose fat in your arms and your shoulders don't need to be quite as strong.

This is literally describing spot reduction of fat.

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

#373

Post by sn9 »

cthalupa wrote: post #369
sn9 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 t…

Ok how do you "intervene" with muscle? Do you surgically transplant it?

It's a thing that exists. Genetic differences are not interventions. Those are also simply things that exist.

An intervention is a change in treatment or behavior that induces a change with effects we want.

Differences between individuals are not interventions.

The intervention of interest is building muscle through strength training.

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

#374

Post by sn9 »

crazygringo wrote: post #306
sn9 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is absurd. The goal for anyone obese is to lose as much fat as sustainably possible. For any given rate of weight loss, losing a higher proportion of body fat is always better. This notion of "balanced" healthy muscle is one you've made up that no one else thinks of. I've been on fitness forums for well over a decade and have literally never seen a single case of this.

> The goal for anyone obese is to lose as much fat as sustainably possible. Correct. > For any given rate of weight loss, losing a higher proportion of body fat is always better. That is in direct contradiction to your previous sentence. No, losing the higher absolute amount of body fat is better. While being sustainable healthy. > I've been on fitness forums for well over a decade and have literally never seen a sin…

> That is in direct contradiction to your previous sentence. No, losing the higher absolute amount of body fat is better. While being sustainable healthy.

This isn't in any way a contradiction if you're mathematically literate. If the highest rate of weight loss is some rate R, and losing weight without preserving muscle has you losing 0.5R muscle and 0.5R fat, losing R fat and 0 muscle is literally going to lose you more fat at the same rate. This is middle school math, and is literally what anyone who knows what they're talking about suggests, and is validated in the research.

> You may be on the wrong forums then. Most forums don't think all your days should be leg days.

Oh good more shit you've made up. No where did I suggest this. If you're going to engage in bad faith, go away.

Any well-rounded strength program will preserve muscle mass in a cut. You only need to work every muscle twice per week. No leg emphasis needed.

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

#375

Post by abirch »

thayne wrote: post #185

Since it is naturally occurring, it isn't patentable. Which means it is less likely that companies will develop a commercial product from it. Why pay to get FDA approval, if you don't get a government granted monopoly on it afterwards? This is one problem with using patents as the mechanism to incentivise development of medicine.

I'm late to the party and this is not my forte so I'd differ to many people, but if you patent the natural compound for a disease you can do that. In addition to that patenting it for certain formulations. A case in point is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_fumarate Tecfidera (the drug name for the drug used for MS made Biogen Idec billions of dollars.

The history from wikipedia

The first medical use of fumaric acid was described in 1959 by Walter Schweckendiek, a German chemist, and was a topical formulation for psoriasis. The Swiss company Fumapharm eventually brought Fumaderm, an oral formulation of dimethyl fumarate (along with some monoesters) to market for psoriasis in Germany in 1994.

Based on the efficacy and safety of this formulation, and evidence that dimethyl fumarate was the main active component, an oral formulation of dimethyl fumarate was developed by Almirall. This oral formulation, under the brand name Skilarence, was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in June 2017, for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adults.

Initial clinical research on the use of dimethyl fumarate for the treatment of multiple sclerosis was conducted by Fumapharm in collaboration with Biogen Idec; Fumapharm was subsequently acquired by Biogen Idec in 2006. Aditech Pharma in Sweden had also been researching oral formulations of dimethyl fumarate for MS and in 2010, the Danish company Forward Pharma acquired Aditech's patents.

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

#376

Post by cthalupa »

sn9 wrote: post #373
cthalupa wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Ok how do you "intervene" with muscle? Do you surgically transplant it? It's a thing that exists. Genetic differences are not interventions. Those are also simply things that exist. An intervention is a change in treatment or behavior that induces a change with effects we want. Differences between individuals are not interventions. The intervention of interest is building muscle through strength training.

There's a significant number of posts in this larger thread saying that it is basically just the benefits of exercise that is providing the positive health outcome and not just having the muscle, and I interpreted intervention in a broader manner based on that context.

My point is simply that muscle in and of itself has positive benefits, even if you didn't need to do another healthy activity to maintain or gain it.

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

#377

Post by Retric »

cthalupa wrote: post #365
Retric wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

What’s relevant is subjective. I’ll agree it’s far from as important as obesity, but the point is some of this adaptation is good.

As to loss of muscle mass from rapid weight loss, that’s very true but slightly overstated as regaining muscle can occur ~10x as fast as it takes to grow it in the first place. Someone without a significant calorie deficit barring nutritional deficiency or other impediment will regain whatever muscle mass is required for their lifestyle quite quickly. However, people don’t train with weighted vests as among other things it targets the wrong muscle groups.

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

#378

Post by cthalupa »

Retric wrote: post #377
cthalupa wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

What’s relevant is subjective. I’ll agree it’s far from as important as obesity, but the point is some of this adaptation is good. As to loss of muscle mass from rapid weight loss, that’s very true but slightly overstated as regaining muscle can occur ~10x as fast as it takes to grow it in the first place. Someone without a significant calorie deficit barring nutritional deficiency or other impediment will regain wha…

>muscle mass is required for their lifestyle

The problem here is that the overwhelming majority of people that need GLP-1s have lifestyles that are not conducive to health and have less muscle mass than would be healthy to begin with.

Which is what has me so confounded by this claims - these people already have less muscle than they should for optimal health. Losing any is a significant issue. And without lifestyle intervention, they're not going to regain any of that lost muscle.

GLP-1 drugs are phenomenal and a huge win for health outcomes. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be telling people the truth about their downsides and what they need to do to counteract them.

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

#380

Post by Retric »

cthalupa wrote: post #378
Retric wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s relevant is subjective. I’ll agree it’s far from as important as obesity, but the point is some of this adaptation is good. As to loss of muscle mass from rapid weight loss, that’s very true but slightly overstated as regaining muscle can occur ~10x as fast as it takes to grow it in the first place. Someone without a significant calorie deficit barring nutritional deficiency or other impediment will regain wha…

>muscle mass is required for their lifestyle The problem here is that the overwhelming majority of people that need GLP-1s have lifestyles that are not conducive to health and have less muscle mass than would be healthy to begin with. Which is what has me so confounded by this claims - these people already have less muscle than they should for optimal health. Losing any is a significant issue. And without lifestyle i…

Let’s ignore GLP-1, and assume an individual slowly dieted to that exact same weight. What’s going to happen over the following year(s) is their lifestyle causes identical muscle loss.

In that context is this a long term downside of GLP-1 or their lifestyle?

Treating lean muscle mass as an inherent good makes sense when it’s adapted to a person’s current lifestyle. It doesn’t make sense when it’s a temporary situation.

Post reply on HN