6 ms·

GLP-1 therapy increases visceral adipose tissue metabolic activity

105 points by gumby 2y ago

hiddencost 2y ago
This will definitely give us one of the largest sample sizes in medical history.
Hnrobert42 2y ago
If you stop taking it, and the weight returns, does it return as visceral fat?
- orwin 2y ago
  If weight return, yes. Usually, at least with men, visceral fat storage is 'filled' first, then it goes to the closest storage available (abdominal, thighs, boobs, then face. If it reach your face, you're at least medically obese).
  - Leynos 2y ago
    So cryolypolisis after the weight is lost?
    - Leynos 2y ago
      Nevermind. Just saw another comment pointing out that this is unrelated. My mistake.
  - glp1guide 2y ago
    TIL, thanks for this insight -- where did you find this rule of thumb?
    - orwin 2y ago
      I don't remember. I was obese and started having some joint issues and visage fat, so i bought a scale, calculated my BMI, found roughly 34, then tried and failed my first attempt at calories limitations. Then I really prepared for a true diet, spend months informing myself, got used to hunger by fasting for 5 days, and got my weight under control. It's during that time that I learned about that. It might have been on a HAES forum before they went crazy (circa 2017 it was mostly support (and a dating site tbh), and a view of 'if you don't have health issues, do not hurt yourself trying to loose weight'. Now, from a more external POV, it seems it changed toward 'it's okay even if your health struggle')
  - paulpauper 2y ago
    many people of Asian or Indian ancestry store a lot of face in the face though
whitten 2y ago
So basically some drugs encourage the metabolism of people who need a CPAP to lose weight, possibly tied to brown adipose tissue. It works in mice and probably works in humans but was not the main focus of the study so they didn't have a good control group to be able to prove it.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  A potential human study control problem is obesity most often exacerbates OSA.
sk11001 2y ago
I don't think the title of the post is accurate, at least not based on the link. > Here, we present data from a proof-of-concept study on 30 individuals with obstructive sleep apnea and obesity who were randomized to a GLP-1 therapy-based weight loss regimen, continuous positive airway pressure, or a combination of both for 24 weeks. They compared weight loss medication to a sleep apnea treatment and the weight loss medication group lost fat... which happens when your appetite is suppressed and you eat less - you lose some muscle and some fat, some of the fat you lose is visceral, some isn't.
- pizza 2y ago
  They note that their discovery relating VAT activity increase to weight loss wasn't the original focus of their study, so they hadn't prepared an additional weight loss control group - I think they leave open both appetite suppression and metabolism increase as possible factors - "individuals with lower VAT metabolic activity may benefit most from the dual impact of GLP-1 on reduction of energy intake and increased metabolic activity"
avree 2y ago
Is this why folks on ozempic often have a specific "look" in their face? Or is that just a side effect of semaglutide?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- loeg 2y ago
  It's just weight loss.
  - anakaine 2y ago
    As someone on Ozempic, and who has been through a few periods of weightless before - I'm not convinced it is just weightless. The three other people whom I know that are either on, or have used it, have all had experience with dry head and facial skin. It's not a long bow to draw to wonder if the drying is related to skin moisture and elasticity. I've found a good vitamin a boosting skoncare regime and general face moisturiser application goes some way to noticeably reducing the flakiness and dryness.
  - 01100011 2y ago
    Seems like it. When I was skinny(not a rapid weight loss, it took years), I looked very different. I look a lot more friendly when I'm fatter. My skinny face was a bit.. harsh.
- silisili 2y ago
  I'm not sure if it's true or not, but read an article just last week that Ozempic seemed to remove most/all elasticity from skin in their face. That's a bit concerning, but unfortunately, I didn't research further to see how true that is. If it is, it would certainly explain a 'look.'
  - SmellTheGlove 2y ago
    I think it’s because you lose your buccal fat. I only notice it on people who are already fairly thin and taking Ozempic.
roschdal 2y ago
Fat and happy.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago
  And unhealthy.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
The act of losing weight necessitates reduction of the mass of triglyceride stored in fat cells, so this sounds like a "duh", but whether it accelerates it through activating beneficial pathways is another matter. (E.g., how similar is a GLP-1 agonist to say diet alone or diet+exercise?) There are many GLP-1 agonists approved now. Some are approved for type-2 diabetes as one trade name, and may also be approved under another trade name at a higher dosage. For example, Lixisenatide came off-patent for diabetes in 2020 but it doesn't have an obesity formulation in the US. The various GLP-1 agonists have slightly different risk profiles of causing pancreatitis and/or thyroid cancers. I don't know though maybe the freezing method (cryolipolysis) could potentially be useful for some people, but it's probably still too soon to characterize its long-term risks and other benefits. Also, CagriSema (cagrilintide (long-acting amylin analogue) & semaglutide) is promising for obesity.
- nradov 2y ago
  I think cryolipolysis can only reduce subcutaneous fat, not visceral fat.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    There's really no good mechanical way to preferentially kill adipose visceral cells to prevent them from storing excess energy in the first place. It's mostly a cosmetic procedure to reduce subcutaneous adipose population with fewer risks than mechanical surgery, but I bet it has very slight benefits but not enough to equal clinical management of obesity. Maybe in the future there will be a temporary immunotherapy target to get the immune system to attack adipose cells but then terminate/unlearn before it gets too carried away.
    - carlmr 2y ago
      >Maybe in the future there will be a temporary immunotherapy target to get the immune system to attack adipose cells but then terminate/unlearn before it gets too carried away. Unlearning is usually not a thing for our immune system. I don't think this would even be the most promising target. Imagine being able to reverse autoimmune disorders.
tedunangst 2y ago
What does the body do with all the extra energy?
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  It gets burnt off as normal? Ozempic and co make the users feel less hungry so they eat less. A kilo of fat is about 7000 kcal, humans at rest use about 2000-2500 kcal a day, if there is a deficit of 500 kcal a day they lose two kilos of fat a month (on paper); total weight loss may be higher due to reduced fluid contents. (disclaimer: armchair logic)
  - ath92 2y ago
    So do you start sweating because of excess heat? Do you suddenly feel more energetic?
  - toxik 2y ago
    The average Western man burns less than 2000 kcal/day, I would say optimistically 1500 kcal/day for the people around me, most of them don't exercise much. The problem with your computation is that the body is not stupid, when you stop eating, it stops burning. I don't know the exact numbers, but it is absolutely not linear like that.
- nradov 2y ago
  GLP-1 agonists seem to slightly increase resting heart rate, which might indicate a similar increase in basal metabolic rate.
deafpolygon 2y ago
Generally speaking, is Ozempic safe?
- lovethevoid 2y ago
  For the reasons the FDA and EMA approved it, for diabetes, yes.
  - carlmr 2y ago
    I mean the question is rather what's the alternative. Diabetes - even well managed - already shortens your expected lifespan considerably by more than ten years. So the safety profile has a different baseline risk. If you're morbidly obese, and don't yet have diabetes, it's still so likely that you will develop it, and a host of other issues, that it's probably still better to lose weight with ozempic. Morbidly obese people also have an extremely shortened lifespan. If you're only a little overweight and you're trying to get a lean physique. That's where you should really think if taking a risk is worth it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tjohns 2y ago
    The FDA has approved this class of drugs for weight loss as well. Wegovy is the version that was FDA approved for weight loss, it's the same drug as Ozempic but at a different dose. Source: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-new-drug-treatment-chronic-weight-management-first-2014 https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... For what it's worth, it's also one of the only classes of weight loss drugs the FAA has felt was safe enough to approve for pilots to use. (The only other one being metformin, which has a much more modest effect.) They tend to be very picky about the safety profile of drugs that are used by aviators. This is a big deal for folks in aviation, because until now there has been no other options available other than lifestyle modification - which is always preferable when it works, but statistically has an abysmal success rate.
    - 2y ago
reissbaker 2y ago
This is quite important news as visceral fat is actually the most dangerous kind of fat: even in lean adults, those with higher amounts of visceral fat are much more at risk for metabolic disorders and insulin resistance [1]. And you often can't tell if you have visceral fat by looking, since it's deep under your belly muscles, and a seemingly-skinny person can have unhealthy amounts of visceral fat. [2] If Ozempic is specifically increasing the metabolic rate of visceral fat beyond simply making caloric restriction easy (which it also does), that implies a pretty broad range of health improvements beyond just simple weight loss — especially since previous treatments were unable to target visceral fat preferentially to subcutaneous fat, despite visceral fat being more dangerous. [3] 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419497/ 2: https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-is-visceral-fat https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-is-visceral-fat 3: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148928/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148928/
- acchow 2y ago
  Is visceral fat causal of those other health issues? Or coincident?
  - espoal 2y ago
    Intermediate causal step. A bad diet (high glycemic diet) will increase insuline response, whose efficacy will be down regulated through several mechanisms, including accumulation of fat around our internal organs, which in turn further increase insuline resistance.
  - lambdaba 2y ago
    When mitochondria don't function properly, organs can't efficiently metabolize energy, which can contribute to fat accumulation, including around the organs.
- refurb 2y ago
  Indeed. Take a country like Singapore where obesity rates are low (11%) but type 2 diabetes rates are high (9%). Compare that with the US with much higher obesity rates (40%+) but only slightly higher type 2 diabetes rates (11%). Plenty of skinny fat older men in Singapore. Slightly overweight but it’s all visceral fat.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
notepad0x90 2y ago
Can we talk about the elephant in the room for a second? tens of millions of people are taking this, and they'd need to keep taking this medication for the effects of the drug to remain. If there is a legitimate hormonal imbalance or genetic defect, I get it. But short of that, are there not only two root causes left? Which in my opinion would be: 1) Poor diet, which includes poor quality in food supply 2) Poor choices being made, or made for people. This includes car-centric cities, sedentary lifestyle and similar well known ailments of modern life. The root cause isn't being solved, only the adverse effects are temporarily inhibited so long as people continue to afford dependency on the pharmaceutical industry. How can any medical professional support this? It is already so hard to trust American medicine; doctors having intimate financial relationships with pharma is already a public secret. This certainly doesn't help. They already ruined generations by blaming weight gain on fats instead of sugar because of these corrupt relationships with pharma and other corporate types. I don't doubt the efficacy of the medicine, but the disease is not fatness, it is the reason we get fat that needs to be solved. Rarely do shortcuts result in long term solutions. Why is this different? How do I know this won't expose us to higher cancer risks, new types of diseases like nutrition absorption disorders or becoming over dependent on these medicines and developing malnutrition? I just don't get the lack of skepticism.
- toxik 2y ago
  If an individual's environment causes them to self-harm by stabbing themselves with a knife, you take away the knife before (if) you look at the root cause. The body wants to maintain whatever weight it usually has, if you can keep that weight lower using drugs, there is absolutely a way to stop using the drug and keep the weight loss. You need lifestyle changes, of course, and that is something these GLP-1 agonists do for you. They make you not want to eat.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 2y ago
    This. We have however many millennia of natural selection influencing our genetic characteristics, and that's been shoehorned into a very different lifestyle over the past few hundred years. Ideally, we could allow everyone enough time off enough exercise, rest, and so on, to emulate what has shaped us for the first however many millennia, but we haven't. Using a medication to compensate for that seems reasonable, provided we've accurately estimated it's negatives, etc...
glp1guide 2y ago
Another bullet point in the list of benefits for GLP1 RAs -- it's amazing all the areas that it seems to touch. I've been on the lookout personally for more negative side effects (it's almost suspicious how little there are, though it varies by person to person), but also excited to hear of benefits. Some of the benefits recently led 23andMe to get into GLP1s: https://glp1.guide/content/23andme-gets-into-glp1/ https://glp1.guide/content/23andme-gets-into-glp1/ They even a paper on some possible benefits with Alzheimers, though I think the research is in it's infancy. I think the plastic story is a bit more compelling though.
- UI_at_80x24 2y ago
  >I've been on the lookout personally for more negative side effects I've got a rare one for you. "Realistic dreams" It wouldn't matter the content of the dreams, (they weren't all bad); but every night my dreams were so vivid that I wouldn't be rested in the morning.
  - mrmuagi 2y ago
    I'm able to get dreams by just take melatonin, like vivid ones.
  - glp1guide 2y ago
    A bit late here, but vivid dreaming... that's absolutely a new thing I haven't seen before. Interesting, this reminds me of the effects of coming off of THC, I wonder if there's some relation.
morgengold 2y ago
It's great if GPT-1 meds increase the burn of visceral fat. But can we really say that from that study? It could very well be just the effect of the caloric deficit per se (that follows the hunger supression and delayed gastric emptying due to GLP-1). A caloric deficit leads to a loss of visceral fat. It wouldn't suprise me, if we see the same VAT activity if we had a control group with the same caloric deficit. Only then we could calculate the direct effect of GLP-1 to the VAT acitivity.

105 points by gumby 2y ago

hiddencost 2y ago

This will definitely give us one of the largest sample sizes in medical history.

Hnrobert42 2y ago

If you stop taking it, and the weight returns, does it return as visceral fat?

orwin 2y ago
If weight return, yes. Usually, at least with men, visceral fat storage is 'filled' first, then it goes to the closest storage available (abdominal, thighs, boobs, then face. If it reach your face, you're at least medically obese).
- Leynos 2y ago
  So cryolypolisis after the weight is lost?
  - Leynos 2y ago
    Nevermind. Just saw another comment pointing out that this is unrelated. My mistake.
- glp1guide 2y ago
  TIL, thanks for this insight -- where did you find this rule of thumb?
  - orwin 2y ago
    I don't remember. I was obese and started having some joint issues and visage fat, so i bought a scale, calculated my BMI, found roughly 34, then tried and failed my first attempt at calories limitations. Then I really prepared for a true diet, spend months informing myself, got used to hunger by fasting for 5 days, and got my weight under control. It's during that time that I learned about that. It might have been on a HAES forum before they went crazy (circa 2017 it was mostly support (and a dating site tbh), and a view of 'if you don't have health issues, do not hurt yourself trying to loose weight'. Now, from a more external POV, it seems it changed toward 'it's okay even if your health struggle')
- paulpauper 2y ago
  many people of Asian or Indian ancestry store a lot of face in the face though

whitten 2y ago

So basically some drugs encourage the metabolism of people who need a CPAP to lose weight, possibly tied to brown adipose tissue. It works in mice and probably works in humans but was not the main focus of the study so they didn't have a good control group to be able to prove it.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
A potential human study control problem is obesity most often exacerbates OSA.

sk11001 2y ago

I don't think the title of the post is accurate, at least not based on the link. > Here, we present data from a proof-of-concept study on 30 individuals with obstructive sleep apnea and obesity who were randomized to a GLP-1 therapy-based weight loss regimen, continuous positive airway pressure, or a combination of both for 24 weeks. They compared weight loss medication to a sleep apnea treatment and the weight loss medication group lost fat... which happens when your appetite is suppressed and you eat less - you lose some muscle and some fat, some of the fat you lose is visceral, some isn't.

pizza 2y ago
They note that their discovery relating VAT activity increase to weight loss wasn't the original focus of their study, so they hadn't prepared an additional weight loss control group - I think they leave open both appetite suppression and metabolism increase as possible factors - "individuals with lower VAT metabolic activity may benefit most from the dual impact of GLP-1 on reduction of energy intake and increased metabolic activity"

avree 2y ago

Is this why folks on ozempic often have a specific "look" in their face? Or is that just a side effect of semaglutide?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
loeg 2y ago
It's just weight loss.
- anakaine 2y ago
  As someone on Ozempic, and who has been through a few periods of weightless before - I'm not convinced it is just weightless. The three other people whom I know that are either on, or have used it, have all had experience with dry head and facial skin. It's not a long bow to draw to wonder if the drying is related to skin moisture and elasticity. I've found a good vitamin a boosting skoncare regime and general face moisturiser application goes some way to noticeably reducing the flakiness and dryness.
- 01100011 2y ago
  Seems like it. When I was skinny(not a rapid weight loss, it took years), I looked very different. I look a lot more friendly when I'm fatter. My skinny face was a bit.. harsh.
silisili 2y ago
I'm not sure if it's true or not, but read an article just last week that Ozempic seemed to remove most/all elasticity from skin in their face. That's a bit concerning, but unfortunately, I didn't research further to see how true that is. If it is, it would certainly explain a 'look.'
- SmellTheGlove 2y ago
  I think it’s because you lose your buccal fat. I only notice it on people who are already fairly thin and taking Ozempic.

roschdal 2y ago

Fat and happy.

bufferoverflow 2y ago
And unhealthy.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

The act of losing weight necessitates reduction of the mass of triglyceride stored in fat cells, so this sounds like a "duh", but whether it accelerates it through activating beneficial pathways is another matter. (E.g., how similar is a GLP-1 agonist to say diet alone or diet+exercise?) There are many GLP-1 agonists approved now. Some are approved for type-2 diabetes as one trade name, and may also be approved under another trade name at a higher dosage. For example, Lixisenatide came off-patent for diabetes in 2020 but it doesn't have an obesity formulation in the US. The various GLP-1 agonists have slightly different risk profiles of causing pancreatitis and/or thyroid cancers. I don't know though maybe the freezing method (cryolipolysis) could potentially be useful for some people, but it's probably still too soon to characterize its long-term risks and other benefits. Also, CagriSema (cagrilintide (long-acting amylin analogue) & semaglutide) is promising for obesity.

nradov 2y ago
I think cryolipolysis can only reduce subcutaneous fat, not visceral fat.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  There's really no good mechanical way to preferentially kill adipose visceral cells to prevent them from storing excess energy in the first place. It's mostly a cosmetic procedure to reduce subcutaneous adipose population with fewer risks than mechanical surgery, but I bet it has very slight benefits but not enough to equal clinical management of obesity. Maybe in the future there will be a temporary immunotherapy target to get the immune system to attack adipose cells but then terminate/unlearn before it gets too carried away.
  - carlmr 2y ago
    >Maybe in the future there will be a temporary immunotherapy target to get the immune system to attack adipose cells but then terminate/unlearn before it gets too carried away. Unlearning is usually not a thing for our immune system. I don't think this would even be the most promising target. Imagine being able to reverse autoimmune disorders.

tedunangst 2y ago

What does the body do with all the extra energy?

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
It gets burnt off as normal? Ozempic and co make the users feel less hungry so they eat less. A kilo of fat is about 7000 kcal, humans at rest use about 2000-2500 kcal a day, if there is a deficit of 500 kcal a day they lose two kilos of fat a month (on paper); total weight loss may be higher due to reduced fluid contents. (disclaimer: armchair logic)
- ath92 2y ago
  So do you start sweating because of excess heat? Do you suddenly feel more energetic?
- toxik 2y ago
  The average Western man burns less than 2000 kcal/day, I would say optimistically 1500 kcal/day for the people around me, most of them don't exercise much. The problem with your computation is that the body is not stupid, when you stop eating, it stops burning. I don't know the exact numbers, but it is absolutely not linear like that.
nradov 2y ago
GLP-1 agonists seem to slightly increase resting heart rate, which might indicate a similar increase in basal metabolic rate.

deafpolygon 2y ago

Generally speaking, is Ozempic safe?

lovethevoid 2y ago
For the reasons the FDA and EMA approved it, for diabetes, yes.
- carlmr 2y ago
  I mean the question is rather what's the alternative. Diabetes - even well managed - already shortens your expected lifespan considerably by more than ten years. So the safety profile has a different baseline risk. If you're morbidly obese, and don't yet have diabetes, it's still so likely that you will develop it, and a host of other issues, that it's probably still better to lose weight with ozempic. Morbidly obese people also have an extremely shortened lifespan. If you're only a little overweight and you're trying to get a lean physique. That's where you should really think if taking a risk is worth it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tjohns 2y ago
  The FDA has approved this class of drugs for weight loss as well. Wegovy is the version that was FDA approved for weight loss, it's the same drug as Ozempic but at a different dose. Source: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-new-drug-treatment-chronic-weight-management-first-2014 https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... For what it's worth, it's also one of the only classes of weight loss drugs the FAA has felt was safe enough to approve for pilots to use. (The only other one being metformin, which has a much more modest effect.) They tend to be very picky about the safety profile of drugs that are used by aviators. This is a big deal for folks in aviation, because until now there has been no other options available other than lifestyle modification - which is always preferable when it works, but statistically has an abysmal success rate.
  - 2y ago

reissbaker 2y ago

This is quite important news as visceral fat is actually the most dangerous kind of fat: even in lean adults, those with higher amounts of visceral fat are much more at risk for metabolic disorders and insulin resistance [1]. And you often can't tell if you have visceral fat by looking, since it's deep under your belly muscles, and a seemingly-skinny person can have unhealthy amounts of visceral fat. [2] If Ozempic is specifically increasing the metabolic rate of visceral fat beyond simply making caloric restriction easy (which it also does), that implies a pretty broad range of health improvements beyond just simple weight loss — especially since previous treatments were unable to target visceral fat preferentially to subcutaneous fat, despite visceral fat being more dangerous. [3] 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419497/ 2: https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-is-visceral-fat https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-is-visceral-fat 3: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148928/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148928/

acchow 2y ago
Is visceral fat causal of those other health issues? Or coincident?
- espoal 2y ago
  Intermediate causal step. A bad diet (high glycemic diet) will increase insuline response, whose efficacy will be down regulated through several mechanisms, including accumulation of fat around our internal organs, which in turn further increase insuline resistance.
- lambdaba 2y ago
  When mitochondria don't function properly, organs can't efficiently metabolize energy, which can contribute to fat accumulation, including around the organs.
refurb 2y ago
Indeed. Take a country like Singapore where obesity rates are low (11%) but type 2 diabetes rates are high (9%). Compare that with the US with much higher obesity rates (40%+) but only slightly higher type 2 diabetes rates (11%). Plenty of skinny fat older men in Singapore. Slightly overweight but it’s all visceral fat.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

notepad0x90 2y ago

Can we talk about the elephant in the room for a second? tens of millions of people are taking this, and they'd need to keep taking this medication for the effects of the drug to remain. If there is a legitimate hormonal imbalance or genetic defect, I get it. But short of that, are there not only two root causes left? Which in my opinion would be: 1) Poor diet, which includes poor quality in food supply 2) Poor choices being made, or made for people. This includes car-centric cities, sedentary lifestyle and similar well known ailments of modern life. The root cause isn't being solved, only the adverse effects are temporarily inhibited so long as people continue to afford dependency on the pharmaceutical industry. How can any medical professional support this? It is already so hard to trust American medicine; doctors having intimate financial relationships with pharma is already a public secret. This certainly doesn't help. They already ruined generations by blaming weight gain on fats instead of sugar because of these corrupt relationships with pharma and other corporate types. I don't doubt the efficacy of the medicine, but the disease is not fatness, it is the reason we get fat that needs to be solved. Rarely do shortcuts result in long term solutions. Why is this different? How do I know this won't expose us to higher cancer risks, new types of diseases like nutrition absorption disorders or becoming over dependent on these medicines and developing malnutrition? I just don't get the lack of skepticism.

toxik 2y ago
If an individual's environment causes them to self-harm by stabbing themselves with a knife, you take away the knife before (if) you look at the root cause. The body wants to maintain whatever weight it usually has, if you can keep that weight lower using drugs, there is absolutely a way to stop using the drug and keep the weight loss. You need lifestyle changes, of course, and that is something these GLP-1 agonists do for you. They make you not want to eat.
- omgwtfbyobbq 2y ago
  This. We have however many millennia of natural selection influencing our genetic characteristics, and that's been shoehorned into a very different lifestyle over the past few hundred years. Ideally, we could allow everyone enough time off enough exercise, rest, and so on, to emulate what has shaped us for the first however many millennia, but we haven't. Using a medication to compensate for that seems reasonable, provided we've accurately estimated it's negatives, etc...

glp1guide 2y ago

Another bullet point in the list of benefits for GLP1 RAs -- it's amazing all the areas that it seems to touch. I've been on the lookout personally for more negative side effects (it's almost suspicious how little there are, though it varies by person to person), but also excited to hear of benefits. Some of the benefits recently led 23andMe to get into GLP1s: https://glp1.guide/content/23andme-gets-into-glp1/ https://glp1.guide/content/23andme-gets-into-glp1/ They even a paper on some possible benefits with Alzheimers, though I think the research is in it's infancy. I think the plastic story is a bit more compelling though.

UI_at_80x24 2y ago
>I've been on the lookout personally for more negative side effects I've got a rare one for you. "Realistic dreams" It wouldn't matter the content of the dreams, (they weren't all bad); but every night my dreams were so vivid that I wouldn't be rested in the morning.
- mrmuagi 2y ago
  I'm able to get dreams by just take melatonin, like vivid ones.
- glp1guide 2y ago
  A bit late here, but vivid dreaming... that's absolutely a new thing I haven't seen before. Interesting, this reminds me of the effects of coming off of THC, I wonder if there's some relation.

morgengold 2y ago

It's great if GPT-1 meds increase the burn of visceral fat. But can we really say that from that study? It could very well be just the effect of the caloric deficit per se (that follows the hunger supression and delayed gastric emptying due to GLP-1). A caloric deficit leads to a loss of visceral fat. It wouldn't suprise me, if we see the same VAT activity if we had a control group with the same caloric deficit. Only then we could calculate the direct effect of GLP-1 to the VAT acitivity.