Many people are turning to a weight-loss drug called semaglutide, hoping it can help them slim down and improve their health.
It’s often used to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes and is known for helping people lose a lot of weight.
But a new study has revealed a surprising risk: it might also make you lose muscle, not just fat.
The drug semaglutide works by copying the effect of a natural hormone in your body that controls hunger.
This hormone makes you feel full faster and slows down how quickly food moves through your stomach. Because of this, people tend to eat less and lose weight. However, this kind of weight loss isn’t just from losing fat—it can include losing muscle too.
Muscle is very important for your health. It helps control your blood sugar, keeps your bones strong, and supports your daily movement and balance.
If you lose too much muscle, you could become weak, have trouble staying active, or develop problems with your bones or metabolism. This can be especially dangerous for older adults.
In this new study, researchers followed 40 people who had obesity over three months. Some of them took semaglutide, while others followed a healthy lifestyle and diet plan instead. Both groups lost weight, but those using semaglutide lost more.
The downside? Around 40% of the weight they lost came from lean mass, including muscle.
This shows that losing muscle during weight loss is common, no matter how the weight is lost. But the study also found something more worrying. Women, older adults, and people who didn’t eat enough protein lost more muscle when taking semaglutide.
And for those who lost more muscle, their blood sugar levels didn’t improve as much as expected. This is a big deal because many people take semaglutide to help manage diabetes, not just lose weight.
The lead researcher, Dr. Melanie Haines from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said this finding is important. It means that losing muscle might reduce the health benefits of the drug.
To prevent this, she suggested that people taking semaglutide should eat more protein. Protein helps build and protect muscle, and getting enough of it might help you lose more fat and less muscle.
More research is needed to find the best ways to protect muscle while using weight-loss drugs like semaglutide. Future studies will likely look at different diets and exercise plans that can help. This will be especially important for women and older people, who seem to be more at risk of losing too much muscle.
For now, if you’re using semaglutide or thinking about it, talk to your doctor about how to protect your muscles. Eating more protein and staying active could make a big difference.
If you care about obesity, please read studies about Scientists find new key cause of obesity and findings of Double whammy: diabetes drug also knocks out obesity.
For more about weight loss, please read studies about Scientists find secrets to long-term weight loss success and findings of Weight loss surgery linked to this mental disease.
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