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Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

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Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#391

Post by cthalupa »

thisislife2 wrote: post #388
crazygringo wrote: post #281

I'm always so baffled by warnings about losing muscle when losing weight. Of course you do! If your body is tens of pounds lighter, then you don't need the extra muscle to lug it around. This paper is about reduction in heart muscle, and of course your heart doesn't need to be as strong because there's less blood to pump and less tissue to fuel. When you gain weight, you also increase the muscles needed to carry that…

> When you gain weight, you also increase the muscles needed to carry that weight around. I can't figure out how relevant that is. From what I've seen of obese people they always struggle with limited mobility, which often only improves with physiotherapy (or other forms of exercises). Sumo wrestlers are huge but can move faster than an equivalent obese person because (I assume) they have stronger muscles due to thei…

Well, based on my DEXA scan from before I started on tirzepatide, if I had dropped to 20% BF with my starting LBM, I would have been in close to the best shape of my life. I certainly have a lot of extra muscle in my legs from carrying my fat ass around.

> Does more muscle mass indicate stronger muscles?

Yes. Strength for specific movements involves CNS adaptation, but if you look at the top tier of powerlifters, ranking them within a weight category by MRI muscle mass would produce basically identical results to their actual rankings.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#392

Post by Etheryte »

ben7799 wrote: post #357
Etheryte wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very thoroughly studied phenomenon. The hearts of obese people are generally more muscular as you say, but not in a good way, so I wouldn't compare this to training. In overweight people, the heart walls get thicker and the volume of blood that the heart pushes out with each stroke is decreased as a result. This means their heart needs to beat faster to reach the right throughput and their heart is under co…

I think doctors can figure out real quick which version of heart enlargement you have. The athletes heart is going to beat at 1/2-1/3 the rate at rest compared to the obesity-enlarged heart and a stress test is going to show the athletes upper heart rate limits are much much higher.

This is pretty much exactly what I said?

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#393

Post by Kirby64 »

greentxt wrote: post #299
5636553454654 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Carbs are harder to control for many people, and less forgiving. A side effect of keto is decreased appetite. A side effect of carbs is overeating.

Adherence may be a concern for lots of types of carbs, but that doesn't change the conclusion that keto (i.e., very little to no carbs) is worse for muscle retention when keeping caloric content equal. Also, as others have pointed out, not all carbs lead to overeating necessarily. Likewise, not all keto diets are going to lead to decreased appetite.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#394

Post by watwut »

cactca wrote: post #335
lee wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "...explains this rate of muscle decline is significantly higher than what is typically observed with calorie-reduced diets or normal aging and could lead to a host of long-term health issues..." The warning isn't that you're losing muscle during weight-loss with these drugs. It's that the ratio of muscle vs fat loss is much greater with the drugs compared to traditional weight loss methods. It's be…

Can you provide a single high quality (randomized) study demonstrating GLP1 therapeutics are 'incredibly detrimental to [your] longevity and quality of life'? Consider the type of confounding that occurs in studies of people losing a lot of lean mass: cachexia, restriction to bed, famine. Traditional weight loss methods have not shown the magnitude of survival benefits wrt cardiovascular disease, joint pain, diabetic…

Exercise is a public health intervention that actually works in improving health. It may not work to create actual weight loss, but it does improve things like blood pressure regardless.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#395

Post by Kirby64 »

unshavedyak wrote: post #348
MrMcCall wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrestled in high school and college, my friend. If you don't eat and work out a lot, you will lose weight, guaranteed. It's the nature of the human body; it's thermodynamics and biochemistry and hard as hell as we get older, especially when poor. But sure, it's not effective but only because people have a hard time fending off our cravings. It requires breaking our cycles and learning how to eat better and eat less…

> I wrestled in high school and college, my friend. If you don't eat and work out a lot, you will lose weight, guaranteed. It's the nature of the human body; it's thermodynamics and biochemistry and hard as hell as we get older, especially when poor. No one is questioning CICO. The part being questioned is why it's more difficult for others. For example, my wife and I share an almost identical diet and activity level…

> The part being questioned is why it's more difficult for others. For example, my wife and I share an almost identical diet and activity level, yet i struggle to keep weight on and she struggles to keep weight off and with similar lifestyles. CICO works of course, but not only do our bodies innately do different things with the calories that they process but we simply experience that world differently.

If you and your wife eat the same diet in the same quantities, it's no surprise she would have a propensity to gain weight and you wouldn't unless she's substanially larger (i.e., taller and/or heavier) than you. Women in general just burn fewer calories for similar sized vs. men. That said, this is ALL population averages. Everyone knows someone who seems to be able to eat literally anything and never gain weight... it likely is just as simple as their metabolism is such that they burn more calories than the average person. Population variation will always lead to some people with outliers both in high expenditure and low expenditure.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#396

Post by Kirby64 »

cthalupa wrote: post #191
Kirby64 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the average overweight person? I disagree. The average obese person does little to no resistance training, eats very little protein, and wants to lose weight fast so they're not paying for expensive GLP1 drugs for a long period of time. You're asking folks to make three separate changes: start exercising, change their diet to add protein, and use GLP1s to reduce food amount. And reducing food amount already goes…

I'm someone that used to be fit and lifted regularly. Got busy, got lazy, got fat. Tried multiple times to get not-fat after getting fat, and found it to be too difficult for me, despite it not being something I struggled with for many years earlier on in adulthood. Getting on tirzepatide made it trivially easy for me to get back to a better diet, start exercising, etc. I do have to force myself to have an extra prot…

I think you're trivalizing the ease at monitoring your diet for someone who has never done this before. 'Macros' as a concept is foreign to probably 90%+ of the population I suspect. Unless you go extremely strict on calorie/macro counting, it will just be hard to know exactly how much you're taking in. It basically becomes another hobby for at least a few months until it becomes somewhat natural to do.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#397

Post by pogue »

cthalupa wrote: post #389
heroiccocoa wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are non-steroidal OTC supplements that are specifically anti-catabolic instead of anabolic like HMB[1], a metabolite of the amino acid leucine, and also widely used in the fitness community. Personally I have no idea which is preferable though, or whether anti-catabolism is something actually positive, as we know the importance of autophagy of senescent cells for longevity. Most of the literature I read suggest…

Most data on HMB shows that it is effective in preserving muscle mass in people with cancer cachexia or the eldery, results are generally not great for those without specific diseases or of younger age. I'm still taking it because it's cheap and I figure I might as well, but anavar is likely significantly more effective.

Yes, HMB is another compound that would be potentially very beneficial during catabolic times such as extreme weight loss. The typical dosage would be 3g/day.

Examine has done excellent write ups on all the research related to it, which can be found below. They recently paywalled the bulk of it, but it's still on the wayback.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240310004421/https://examine.c...

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#398

Post by Kirby64 »

XorNot wrote: post #77
Kirby64 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the average overweight person? I disagree. The average obese person does little to no resistance training, eats very little protein, and wants to lose weight fast so they're not paying for expensive GLP1 drugs for a long period of time. You're asking folks to make three separate changes: start exercising, change their diet to add protein, and use GLP1s to reduce food amount. And reducing food amount already goes…

I mean when I needed to lose weight (15kg, 85kg -> 70kg) I started with calorie restriction, and as a result of that actually looked at what I was eating and realized I was incredibly low on protein, and then from that added some daily light exercise partly just to avoid getting bored and wanting food. So this isn't really 3 separate unrelated changes. Also at least in my experience, people tend to regard high protei…

> So this isn't really 3 separate unrelated changes. Also at least in my experience, people tend to regard high protein things as the "energy dense" part of a meal - the problem with a lot of carbohydrates is they're not very filling.

Who are these people? I suspect a lot of people who are overweight/obese and taking GLP1 drugs have very little to no concept of proteins role in their body composition. Essentially all a GLP1 drug does is modulate down your hunger (and you get full faster). That does not give you any of the tools or skills to create a diet or exercise plan. Both of those require intentional planning, research, skills, and time. They're definitely 3 separate things.

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#399

Post by pogue »

notesinthefield wrote: post #373
pogue wrote: post #361

It would seem wise to potentially add a low dosed anabolic androgenic steroid like Anavar (Oxandrolone) [1] during a course of Ozempic. This would help keep skeletal muscle in tact during a calorie deficient period. A low dose wouldn't be expected to cause much, if any, side effects. But it's something that would be best put through rigorous studies. But bodybuilders have been using tricks like these for decades (obv…

I have done exactly this. I stack semaglutide with ~ 1 ml testosterone and .35 ml of anavar weekly. I’ve transitioned out of regularly competing in powerlifting to running and yoga everyday. 47lbs down in 5 months and havent felt this good since college.

Can you tell if you're retaining muscle with that combination? Is this a doctor prescribed protocol or a DIY stack?

Re: Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells

#400

Post by unshavedyak »

Kirby64 wrote: post #395
unshavedyak wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wrestled in high school and college, my friend. If you don't eat and work out a lot, you will lose weight, guaranteed. It's the nature of the human body; it's thermodynamics and biochemistry and hard as hell as we get older, especially when poor. No one is questioning CICO. The part being questioned is why it's more difficult for others. For example, my wife and I share an almost identical diet and activity level…

> The part being questioned is why it's more difficult for others. For example, my wife and I share an almost identical diet and activity level, yet i struggle to keep weight on and she struggles to keep weight off and with similar lifestyles. CICO works of course, but not only do our bodies innately do different things with the calories that they process but we simply experience that world differently. If you and yo…

> it likely is just as simple as their metabolism is such that they burn more calories than the average person. Population variation will always lead to some people with outliers both in high expenditure and low expenditure.

That's the point though. I'm saying that we burn calories at different rates. We burn fat at different rates. We have different rates of addiction, cravings, etc.

Just saying CICO is the same boring and borderline inaccurate language that has led to nearly zero change in the population at large. may as well just tell them to use physics correctly to lose the weight, because it's the same effective language.

To even determine CICO is fraught with difficulty and inaccuracy in both CI and CO. You can hand make everything, weigh every ingredient, and even then you struggle to determine how much you're CO. At best you'll have an estimated CO but then what do you do when your weight isn't changing? you have to start adjusting the math because clearly you're not burning as much as you think you are.

This is made much, much worse with the fact that we don't actually burn that many calories with exercise. And even with what is burned, the rate of burn changes drastically based on your current weight and how long you've been losing weight.

The fact is, the point is, CICO ignores all the real challenges and thereby all the real problems people need to understand and face.

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