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

ualberta.ca

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

#71
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 kee…

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…

Increasing exercise also goes against reducing food amount, because it makes you hungrier.

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The rather obvious problem is that these GLP1 agonists don't improve your diet My understanding from initial anecdotes is this is actually literally wrong. Which was surprising to me, too. But people on GLPs tend to prefer more nutritious food (high protein and high fiber). I'm not sure if this has been studied directly in clinical trials yet but I know that food manufacturers have been reorienting their products t…

I’ve heard that anecdote from HN users many times but based on my meatspace social group of (mostly) California yuppies, that effect is vastly overstated. Even some of the diabetics I know on Ozempic have started using it as an excuse for a shittier diet. Now my sample size is barely ten people on Ozempic/Wegovy so take it with a grain of salt and what not, but I’m skeptical.

I bet there’s a large group of people - possibly over represented on HN and other online communities - that just need a little nudge to suppress their cravings and eat healthier, but that’s far from universal. For a lot of people, they wouldn’t even know where to start to eat healthier except choosing a salad over a burger at the takeout menu. Even with drugs masking cravings, many people just haven’t had good health or culinary education.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 kee…

Intuitively, if you can lift a modest bench press (not novice, maybe beginner-intermediate) and you keep training and you consume a few fewer calories (not starve) why would you lose your strength.

Because the body does not make it easy to keep the same muscle with less fat.

For most people, it just doesn't really matter, because their strength is so far below their peak capability it won't be hard to cut some weight while maintaining strength. The closer you get to the edge of capabilities, though, the more it will matter.

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

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kee…

Bodybuilders I know seem to have a a very difficult time keeping their muscle gains while on a cut, I don’t know why someone who is not in a gym 5+ days a week and on an extremely optimized heavy protein diet measured down to the gram would expect otherwise.

Is it possible to go very slow and keep most of your lean muscle mass? Sure. Is it practical? I have my doubts.

Part of the effectiveness of these drugs - for me at least - is that results are rapid and that is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Diets that had me losing 1lb/week were simply too boring and unmotivating for me to keep up beyond a few months. A few days of vacation “cheating” and you wipe out a month or more of incredibly difficult to achieve loss. Restricting yourself mentally in what you eat every day adds up to exhaustion over time.

Some folks can manage to lose very slowly while also adhering to a strict calorie deficit of a few hundred per day, while also being consistent with resistance training. I’d say the evidence shows that these folks are in the small minority.

I will say more evidence is needed for this drug class - especially where the harm reduction principle may be a bit iffy outside of obese folks. However it was life changing to me in the way it let me change my eating habits to very healthy protein and veggies as my primary calorie intake, as well as made going to the gym on a strict schedule motivating enough to actually come out at the end with a better bodyfat to lean muscle ratio than where I started.

These gains have continued since I hit my goal weight - and now I’m starting to become one of those folks who the BMI no longer applies to in a good way. I do wish there was a good way to test heart muscle mass like there is lean body mass with a DEXA scan as I’m curious if my increased regular workout heartrates translates into building back any heart muscle mass like it did other lean muscle. Certainly a concern to keep an eye out for!

I’m curious as you are if folks who are slow responders and live active lifestyles see the same muscle loss the hyper responders do. For reference I lost over 100lbs in just under 9mo. I absolutely lost considerable muscle mass, but have since put it back on and then some.

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

bringing it down is not even half the battle, it's what happens next is the more interesting part

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

#77
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 kee…

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 protein things as the "energy dense" part of a meal - the problem with a lot of carbohydrates is they're not very filling.

The biggest problem with exercise is it's an awful way to lose weight - you don't burn that many calories, it makes you hungrier, and then your body optimizes to burn even less calories as you do it.

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

#78
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…

This is true. I just lost 30 pounds over 3 months and 17% was muscle. I thought I was eating a lot of protein, but I’ve upped it today.

I did an InBody scan the day I started (8/21) and just happened to have done my second one this morning.

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

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rather obvious problem is that these GLP1 agonists don't improve your diet My understanding from initial anecdotes is this is actually literally wrong. Which was surprising to me, too. But people on GLPs tend to prefer more nutritious food (high protein and high fiber). I'm not sure if this has been studied directly in clinical trials yet but I know that food manufacturers have been reorienting their products t…

I’ve heard that anecdote from HN users many times but based on my meatspace social group of (mostly) California yuppies, that effect is vastly overstated. Even some of the diabetics I know on Ozempic have started using it as an excuse for a shittier diet. Now my sample size is barely ten people on Ozempic/Wegovy so take it with a grain of salt and what not, but I’m skeptical. I bet there’s a large group of people - p…

Odd Lots (Bloomberg finance podcast) had an episode back in June or something interviewing a food design consultant, and their focus groups came back very strongly in favor of healthier meal compositions. Agreed though, it's hard to know things :) Hopefully some real studies on this will be done soon.

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

#80
I wish discussions would focus on all source mortality instead of single stat x. If the all source mortality data comes back favorably you could read the interpretation of this data 100% opposite: regular calorie restricting diets fail to reduce heart size... Point being, without all source mortality data to back up that this is a bad thing it is a very hard stat to care about.
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