Ozempic, an FDA-approved treatment for type 2 diabetes, blew up when people began using it as a weight loss drug. Since then, various medical studies have found that the key ingredient, semaglutide, has helped people suffering from kidney health, heart health, drug addiction and Alzheimer’s disease.
But new research is showing some negative side effects of the drug, including muscle loss.
An international team published a study in The Lancet medical journal this month with preliminary results that show slightly higher rates of non-fat tissue loss compared to weight loss from means other than prescription drugs.
Although there is some concern, the researchers do not suggest those who take Ozempic completely stop it.
“These highly effective medications should be used strategically,” the study said. “This strategy can be accomplished with concurrent nutrition and exercise interventions.”
Dr. Dave Montgomery, NewsNation’s medical contributor and a board-certified cardiologist, said he’s not sounding the alarm.
“This report is just about something that we see across the board with weight loss,” Montgomery said Friday on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”
“When there are large amounts of weight loss over a short period of time, we not only see fat loss, we also see muscle loss, so that’s a physiologic principle,” he added.
Montgomery also noted that studies like this will refine the patient pool. People who are dependent on bone muscle mass, such as post-menopausal women, may not benefit as much.
“If this turns out, when they research it, to be a problem with losing too much muscle, which makes strong bone, then we’ll have to say maybe we shouldn’t give it to every post-menopausal woman,” he said as one example.
Muscle loss can be improved with strength and endurance training and increased protein in one’s diet.
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