Health
Ozempic and Wegovy could lead to muscle loss, experts say, but prevention is possible
Ozempic and Wegovy could help you shed unwanted pounds and keep obesity-related disease at bay — but you could lose some muscle in the process, some experts warn.
Rapid weight loss can result in a condition called sarcopenia, defined as “the gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and function,” according to Healthline — but there are steps you can take to reduce the risk while still maintaining a healthy weight.
Semaglutide medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy cause weight loss through a combination of mechanisms, including delayed gastric emptying and the GLP1 hormones that signal the stomach to feel full, noted Andrew Y. Sun, M.D., a board-certified urologist and chief medical advisor for Marius Pharmaceuticals in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas.
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“Both of these result in a caloric restriction that causes weight loss,” he told Fox News Digital.
When people shed pounds, it results in a combination of both fat loss and muscle loss.
“In the clinical studies for drugs in the GLP1 class, the data indicated that 40% to 50% of the weight loss comes from lean muscle mass instead of fat,” Sun said. “When you lose muscle mass, your resting metabolic rate, or the rate the body burns calories, also declines.”
Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurologist and longevity expert, shared strategies for preserving muscle mass while taking weight-loss medications. “Our muscle is our resilience,” he said. (Dr. Brett Osborn)
While all patients are susceptible to the loss in muscle mass, women tend to lose more than men, noted Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurologist, longevity expert and bodybuilder.
“One of the primary factors has to do with circulating testosterone levels,” he told Fox News Digital.
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“Women have lower levels naturally and have lesser muscle mass at base level. In a caloric deficit, testosterone levels further decrease, and there is potential for significant muscle loss (sarcopenia). This similarly occurs in the aged population.”
‘More susceptible to falls’
The health effects of losing muscle can be more dangerous for certain patients than others, Sun noted.
“When you lose muscle or when you have insufficient amounts of muscle tissue, you are more susceptible to falls and fractures,” he warned.
Preventing muscle loss starts with heightened surveillance from both the patient and the physician, a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“It makes recovery from illness and injury more difficult and, in general, leads to frailty and a more sedentary lifestyle that can, in extreme cases, increase the likelihood of death.”
Older patients are particularly at risk, he said, but all adults start losing muscle mass as a natural part of the aging process.
“This begins as early as your 30s and 40s, picking up significantly as adults approach 65,” Sun said. “Some suggest that adults may lose up to 8% of muscle mass each decade.”
“When you lose muscle or when you have insufficient amounts of muscle tissue, you are more susceptible to falls and fractures.”
Then, “when you take a semaglutide drug like Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro, you’re significantly increasing this muscle loss — and that can be concerning if you’re an at-risk patient.”
Osborn emphasized the importance of muscle as a protector from disease.
“Our muscle is our resilience,” he said. “In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, muscle tissue serves as a protein depot from which antibodies form, allowing us to fend off pathogens.”
One way to stimulate appetite is through strength training, which also helps to temper muscle loss. “Muscle is critical to your health,” said one physician. (iStock)
Muscle also acts as a “glucose filter,” he noted, which helps to regulate blood sugar and reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
“The less muscle you have, the more susceptible you are to these diseases — so, muscle is critical to your health.”
‘Pay close attention’
People can take certain steps to counter the risk of semaglutide-related muscle loss, experts agree.
“It starts with heightened surveillance from both the patient and the physician,” Osborn told Fox News Digital.
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He recommends that physicians conduct regular body measurements of patients and adjust the medication dosage if benchmarks are not being met.
“Patients need to pay close attention to their waistlines and their muscle mass relative to their total body weight,” said Osborn. “A male’s body weight ideally should be comprised of 50% muscle and a female’s should be 45%.”
Achieving that ratio will help stave off age-related diseases such as coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s, the doctor said.
In some cases, doctors may prescribe hormone therapy to support an individual’s muscle mass. (Rory Doyle for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“It will also protect you from frailty and the associated lack of mobility that place you at a high fall risk, which is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in people over the age of 50,” he said.
It’s also critical that every patient attempts to meet their prescribed daily calories, Osborn said.
“The less muscle you have, the more susceptible you are to diseases — so, muscle is critical to your health.”
“In my clinic, we shoot for a caloric intake equal to one’s sedentary basal metabolic rate, or BMR,” he said. “We allow the medication to create a slight caloric deficit to assist in weight loss, but we do not recommend that patients starve themselves, as is often seen in the media.”
One way to stimulate appetite is through strength training, Osborn noted, which also helps to temper muscle loss.
Sun agreed that patients on semaglutide therapy should adopt strength and resistance training — combined with a high-protein diet — to offset the effects of muscle loss.
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In some cases, Osborn also prescribes hormone replacement therapy to support an individual’s muscle mass.
“Using this protocol, we can maintain muscle despite Ozempic usage while driving fat loss, which is a double bonus — and truly the best of both worlds,” he said.
“In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, muscle tissue serves as a protein depot from which antibodies form, allowing us to fend off pathogens,” a doctor said. (iStock)
Looking ahead, Sun said he hopes that the next generation of weight-loss drugs will be more focused on balanced body composition rather than fat loss.
“Until then, there are circumstances where muscle loss should prompt conversations between the physician and patient about lifestyle changes and concomitant use of other drugs like testosterone to maintain muscle mass,” he added.
Fox News Digital reached out to Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy, requesting comment on the medication’s potential to increase muscle loss.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.
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People who quit smoking may reduce their risk of developing dementia later in life, according to new research.
A team of researchers at a university in China analyzed data from more than 32,000 adults over a 25-year period and found that former smokers had a lower risk of dementia compared to people who continued smoking.
The findings were published in the journal Neurology.
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During the study period, researchers documented 5,868 cases of dementia.
Participants who quit smoking during the study had a significantly lower risk of developing dementia than current smokers. Their risk was similar to people who had quit smoking before the study began and those who had never smoked.
New research suggests that quitting smoking may lower the chance of developing dementia later in life. (iStock)
The researchers also found that dementia risk continued to decline the longer a person remained smoke-free, approaching that of never-smokers after about seven years.
The benefits appeared strongest among people who gained little or no weight after quitting.
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“Our findings suggest that quitting smoking may support long-term brain health, but they also highlight that what happens after quitting matters,” lead researcher Hui Chen said in a statement.
The reduction in dementia risk was most pronounced among people who experienced little or no weight gain after they stopped smoking. (iStock)
Zaid Fadul, a Harvard-trained physician and chief medical officer of Bespoke Concierge MD who was not involved in the research, said the findings add to growing evidence that quitting smoking can help protect long-term brain health.
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“The key takeaway is that the brain appears to benefit from smoking cessation at virtually any stage,” Fadul told Fox News Digital.
“Smoking contributes to chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and damage to blood vessels that supply the brain, all of which are associated with cognitive decline and dementia risk.”
Fadul said the findings should encourage smokers who may feel it is too late to quit.
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“Importantly, it is rarely ‘too late’ to quit,” he said.
“While earlier cessation offers the greatest benefit, the body and brain begin recovering soon after smoking stops.”
Experts say it is almost never too late to quit smoking, as the body and brain start to recover soon after a person stops, although quitting earlier provides the greatest health benefits. (iStock)
Improvements in circulation, reduced inflammation and better cardiovascular health can help preserve cognitive function later in life, according to Fadul.
“Every year without tobacco is a step toward lowering future dementia risk and improving overall health,” he said.
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While the findings were encouraging, the study does have limitations.
Researchers identified an association between quitting smoking and a lower risk of dementia, but the study was not designed to prove that ending smoking directly prevents the condition.
Other health, lifestyle and environmental factors may have also influenced participants’ outcomes.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for further comment.
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Adult patients experienced significant relief from pain and anxiety after just five minutes of in-person prayer, as found in a randomized controlled trial.
The study, led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, compared the effects of direct prayer to the effects of listening to music, revealing that prayer provided greater and more sustained relief for both symptoms.
“Prayer is powerful and beneficial on many levels,” Jesse Bradley, pastor of Grace Community Church in Washington, told Fox News Digital.
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According to statistics cited in the study, prayer is the most used form of complementary medicine in the United States, relied on by 43% of Americans.
The researchers focused on a practice known as proximal intercessory prayer (PIP), which is defined as in-person, face-to-face prayer directed toward another individual’s well-being.
The researchers tracked changes in the participants’ self-reported pain and anxiety levels at multiple intervals: immediately after the five-minute session, at two weeks and at six weeks. (iStock)
The research team recruited 180 adult patients from a family medicine waiting room, according to a press release. All participants had previously reported experiencing moderate to severe pain, anxiety or both.
Following their standard medical appointments, the patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the prayer group, in which participants received five minutes of in-person Christian prayer delivered by a trained volunteer, and the music group, where they spent five minutes listening to music.
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The researchers then tracked changes in the participants’ self-reported pain and anxiety levels at multiple intervals: immediately after the five-minute session, at two weeks and at six weeks.
“It was very well-received,” Katherine Jacobson, MD, assistant professor of family and community medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told Fox News Digital. She noted that 97% of participants said they were “neutral or supportive” when asked about having this kind of prayer available as part of their medical visits.
An expert described the transformative power of prayer through “healing and comfort,” and shared that he himself once went through a long, painful recovery process. (iStock)
The study, which was published in The Annals of Family Medicine, revealed that while patients in both groups showed improvements, those in the prayer group reported substantially greater relief.
Bradley, who was not involved in the study, described the transformative power of prayer through “healing and comfort,” and shared that he himself once went through a long, painful recovery process.
“Daily prayer was essential in my healing journey,” he shared.
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For pain reduction, the individuals who received in-person prayer experienced greater drops in pain intensity immediately following the session. This superior level of relief remained evident during the two-week follow-up compared to the music group, the researchers found.
For anxiety reduction, the benefits of prayer were even longer-lasting. The prayer recipients reported significantly greater reductions in anxiety immediately after the session, and these positive effects remained statistically significant at both the two-week and six-week checkpoints.
The prayer recipients reported significantly greater reductions in anxiety immediately after the session, and these positive effects remained statistically significant at both the two-week and six-week checkpoints. (iStock)
“We expected that patients who expected prayer to work would benefit more, but that wasn’t what we found,” Jacobson said.
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“Religious affiliation, religious intensity and expectancy of healing did not predict who improved,” he went on. “Benefits appeared across a wide range of patients, including those not of the Christian faith and those who did not expect the intervention to help them.”
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The study had some limitations, the researchers acknowledged, primarily that it could not prove that prayer itself caused the improvements.
The team also noted that patients receiving prayer had human contact, while the music control group did not. The eye contact and gentle laying of hands from the prayer volunteers may have had an impact, as that type of contact is known to reduce pain.
The researchers suggested that PIP could serve as a low-cost, non-pharmacologic and effective complement to standard medical care. (iStock)
The authors hope to conduct future studies with a control group that receives interpersonal contact but no prayer.
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“For physicians and health systems, the study supports continuing to ask patients about spiritual care preferences as part of whole-person care, and considering whether trained Christian volunteer prayer practitioners could be integrated into outpatient settings for interested patients,” Jacobson said.
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The researchers suggest that PIP could serve as a low-cost, non-pharmacologic and effective complement to standard medical care.
Rather than replacing traditional treatments, the authors indicate that this type of brief, faith-based intervention could be integrated into primary care settings to help manage pain and anxiety.
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