I hate to beat a dead horse, but somebody’s got to do it. Advertisements in corporate state media certainly aren’t going to expose its dark downside.
I’ve probably done half a dozen stories on the “miracle” weight loss drug semaglutide, marketed as Wegozy and Ozempic in the United States, which was once indicated exclusively for the treatment of diabetes but became a highly fashionable weight loss solution on the basis of a dubious study published in the New England Journal of Medicine a couple of years ago.
I have previously documented the long and growing list of potential long-term side effects of semaglutide, which include surgery complications, rebound weight gain (which effectively means that it must be taken for a lifetime to sustain weight loss results), thyroid issues, acute kidney injury, and many more.
Related: Lawsuits Coming for ‘Miracle’ Weight Loss Drugmakers
There’s a new one to add to the list, and it’s of particular concern to seniors taking it: sarcopenia, the medical term for clinically significant, age-related muscle loss.
Via Insider (emphasis added):
The popular new weight-loss medication semaglutide is helping people shed weight — but it can also cause a major loss of muscle mass, according to a doctor.
Semaglutide has been described as a “game changer” for treating obesity and was FDA-approved for weight loss in 2021 under the brand name Wegovy. It’s also available as Ozempic, which is the same medication, but sold to treat type 2 diabetes (although doctors can and do prescribe it for weight loss as well).
Semaglutide works by mimicking a natural hormone in the body that helps regulate blood sugar, digestion, and hunger.
But the FDA, and success stories of semaglutide, doesn’t account for patients who are also losing lean muscle, which could worsen their health long-term, Dr. Peter Attia said in a recent clip of his podcast “The Drive.”
Attia said body composition, or the ratio of muscle to fat, is a more helpful measure of weight loss results (and subsequent health improvements) than purely the number of pounds lost.
Attia also noted a trend of people without type 2 diabetes or a high body fat percentage who want to use the medication for small amounts of aesthetic weight loss.
“Perhaps more disturbing to me is the people who are reaching out to me who are frankly not overweight remotely but are saying ‘I really want to lose 10 pounds to look good on my vacation, I should be taking this, right?'” he said.
Attia said in an earlier post that his patients who have used semaglutide lost weight effectively, but not all of it was body fat.
“They’ve lost muscle mass at a rate that alarms me,” he said.”
“A recent meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials also indicated that semaglutide was associated with both weight loss and [fat-free mass] decrease, prompting the need to understand drug‐specific effects on sarcopenic parameters,” per The Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.
Sarcopenia is a serious health condition that places those affected at risk of a cornucopia of adverse health outcomes.
Via Metabolism:
Sarcopenia is associated with a high risk of a wide range of adverse health outcomes, including poor overall and disease-progression free survival rate, postoperative complications, and longer hospitalization in patients with different medical situations as well as falls and fracture, metabolic disorders, cognitive impairment, and mortality in general populations.
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