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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

#41
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

The next line of the article after that 40% quote: > Carla Prado, a nutrition researcher in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and lead author on the commentary, 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 — including decreased immunity, increased risk…

I'm pretty skeptical of the "this rate of muscle decline is significantly higher than what is typically observed with calorie-reduced diets" claim. I suspect we're comparing apples to oranges rather than doing like-for-like comparisons at equivalent calories.

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

#42
It's my understanding that if you have hypertension, your heart muscle grows thicker as a consequence of working harder against your blood pressure, which reduces the flow capacity of your heart.

So if you have hypertension, this might actually be a "good" side-effect?

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

#43
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

The next line of the article after that 40% quote: > Carla Prado, a nutrition researcher in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and lead author on the commentary, 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 — including decreased immunity, increased risk…

Yeah, my four donuts per day fill me up just fine or an extra large milkshake and a burger and I’m done for the day with food is definitely happening for some people. Let’s wait and see these drugs might prove to be very beneficial and more testing definitely needed.

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

#44
post #5

As a coder, I'm realising more and more that the human body isn't so different from a computer. When you try to fix something without having complete understanding of all the relevant parts of the system, you will invariably introduce new issues. With a machine as complex as the human body, it seems inevitable that the field of medicine would be a game of whac-a-mole. Finding solutions which don't create new problems…

Add on that there is no complete understanding of this system with all the Unknown Unknowns etc and you can see why we should test this stuff better before letting hims.com just disperse it across the american populace

Yes 100%. That's why I never understood the rollout of MRNA vaccines during COVID. It's like pushing a massive code change straight to production during peak traffic and without the normal phased rollout. I totally understand where conspiracy theorists are coming from. That didn't seem right.

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

#45
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

god... 133kg down to 88kg, that's like a dream to me. Years of trying to get under 100 by 'traditional' calorie restriction diet & exercise.

One of my friends has tried many fad diets, etc. and he finally just went and paid cash for a GLP-1 and he's lost a lot of weight and is feeling much better. If I were in that situation, I would just do the same.

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

#46
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

See the actual research article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452302X2... This study on mice was suggested by a previous publication: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8... where it had been noticed that in humans "the muscle loss with these medications (as indicated by decreases in fat-free mass [FFM]) ranges from 25% to 39% of the total weight lost over 36–72 weeks",…

> Studies suggest muscle loss with these medications (as indicated by decreases in fat-free mass [FFM]) ranges from 25% to 39% of the total weight lost over 36–72 weeks. This substantial muscle loss can be largely attributed to the magnitude of weight loss, rather than by an independent effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists, although this hypothesis must be tested. By comparison, non-pharmacological caloric restriction studies with smaller magnitudes of weight loss result in 10–30% FFM losses

Emphasis my own. In short: no evidence this is anything other than due to rapid weight-loss.

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

#49
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

I don't have it at hand [edit: [0]] but there are a number of studies showing exercice had more health impact than weight loss (you can combine both of course, but just losing weight has less benefits)

As you point out, losing muscle is common in a diet, and the researchers are well aware of it. Their point was that this aspect is not pushed enough and is drowned by the losing weight part.

From the paper:

> Dismissing the importance of muscle loss can create a disconnect between patients' increased awareness of muscle and the role it plays in health, and clinicians who downplay these concerns, affecting adherence to and the development of optimised treatment plans.

[0] https://journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/Fulltext/2019/08000/Effec...

For the "Fitness Versus Fatness" part for instance

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

#50
post #13

> emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle That's the sort of headlines that smells like bullshit to me. My understand of those drugs is that they don't actually make you lose weight, they just cut your appetite so you can follow a diet to lose weight without hunger hammering at the door. So to start with, if that's the case, all they are…

The next line of the article after that 40% quote: > Carla Prado, a nutrition researcher in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and lead author on the commentary, 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 — including decreased immunity, increased risk…

>Losing weight without losing muscle mass is very hard.

I was with you up to here. In my experience it's easy to maintain a huge proportion of your lean tissue during a weight loss diet: Do some resistance training, get some protein, and don't lose weight too quickly.

There's no need to go to the extreme of a PSMF - which will still have you lose a bunch of muscle on account of being too big a deficit. If you can keep your calories reasonable while on a GLP1 agonist, there doesn't seem to be any reason you'll lose an exaggerated amount of muscle.

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