Are fat-loss shots a ticking timebomb? Doctors warn Ozempic & Wegovy are shrinking patients’ muscles
Ozempic and Wegovy shrink patients’ muscles at an ‘alarming rate’ and could increase their risk of health problems later in life, a famous doctor warned.
Dr. Peter Attia, a physician based in Austin, Texas, warned that the drugs weren’t a “magic bullet” for weight loss — despite taking Hollywood by storm.
He said they caused equal muscle-to-fat loss in patients, which he said made them metabolically “fatter” because they then had a higher fat-to-muscle percentage.
It comes after other doctors expressed similar fears to DailyMail.com last month, where they warned of the rapid muscle loss that puts patients at risk of rapid weight gain once they are off the drugs.
Ozempic causes muscle loss and may actually make patients fatter, a leading doctor argues because it gives them a higher body-fat-to-muscle percentage
The famous doctor, pictured above, issued the warning on his podcast The Drive and through his Instagram account (shown above)
Pictured above is 41-year-old Khalin Grant from Florida, who lost 75 pounds in seven months while receiving weekly injections of Wegovy. She says she fits into smaller dress sizes now than she did when she was in college. Wegovy and Ozempic are similar in that they both use the same drug, semaglutide, but at different doses. Wegovy is available in slightly higher doses
Speaking on his podcast, The Drive, Dr. Attia said patients undergoing the treatment also lost lean muscle, which could worsen their health in the long run.
He added in an earlier video posted on Instagram, “Almost without exception, every patient we’ve given this drug loses muscle mass. And they’ve lost muscle mass at a rate that worries me.’
He continued, “It’s not unusual that if you weigh 280 pounds and you go to 180 pounds, you lose some muscle and some fat.
“But let’s be clear, if you lost 10 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds of fat to go from 200 to 180 pounds, would that be OK?”
“Well, only if you had more than 50 percent body fat to begin with. Otherwise you lose a disproportionate amount of muscle to fat.’
He added, “In fact, you’ve gotten fatter as you’ve lost weight.”
A higher fat-to-muscle ratio puts a person at increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and a number of other health complications.
This is because the fat — visceral fat that wraps around organs — produces more dangerous proteins that inflame body tissues and organs and begin to constrict blood vessels.
Ozempic and Wegovy — which are given as weekly injections for $1,000 a month — work by mimicking a hunger hormone in the body to trick people into thinking they’re full.
This suppresses calorie intake without making anyone hungry, leading to weight loss. But doctors say patients tend to lose more muscle than fat while on the drug because they don’t get enough protein.
Dr. Attia explained that his clinic now gives patients a muscle and body fat scan.
Those taking Wegovy should also eat a high protein diet and do resistance exercises regularly.
These help maintain muscle cells and ensure that most of the weight loss in patients taking Wegovy comes from the fat in their body.
He added, “Once we’ve exhausted all dietary options and we’re going to consider taking Ozempic, you should have a [Body muscle to body fat] scan first and you should have really clear guidelines as to what is happening.
“We work closely with patients on these drugs to make sure their protein intake doesn’t change.
“So, if you weigh 200 pounds and your goal weight is 180 pounds, you’re still consuming 200 grams of protein a day and you’re going to train just as heavily as before and if you do, yes, you could actually lose a disproportionate amount of fat.” .’
Prolonged shedding of muscles puts you at greater risk of weakness and reduced mobility, which can increase the risk of falls and fractures.
It now also means that the body burns fewer calories per day because muscle is metabolically more expensive than fat.
This means that if a Wegovy user goes back to their original diet, they are likely to gain weight again and gain more weight than they originally did.
This may have happened with TikToker and plus-size model Remi Bader, who revealed that she gained “double” the weight she lost after coming off Ozempic.
Dr. Attia also expressed concern about the number of non-obese people who signed up to take the medication.
He said in the video, “Maybe more disturbing to me are the people who contact me who honestly aren’t overweight but say, ‘I really want to lose 10 pounds to look good on my vacation, I should do this gotta take it, right?”.
More than five million prescriptions were written last year for four weight-loss drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, healthcare company Komodo reports, three times more than in the previous year.
The drugs are only approved for people with type 2 diabetes, but data shows that a quarter of prescriptions by 2022 were off-label for people without the condition.
These were most common in Texas, followed by Florida, California, New York, and Georgia.
But amid its rising popularity, more and more doctors are emerging from the woodwork to warn of potential side effects.
Pictured above is patient Ana McKenna before and after taking Wegovy. She said she lost one to two pounds a week while on the drug
Dr. Florence Comite, an endocrinologist in New York City, previously warned DailyMail.com that people who take the drug “definitely” lose muscle mass.
“You’re not eating enough, you’re not getting enough protein, you’re feeling nauseous, so you’re eating comfort food like mashed potatoes or rice, but not enough protein,” she told this website last month.
“What we see here downtown is usually more muscle loss than fat loss [in patients].
‘At least 50 percent of our patients suffer from muscle loss.’
She explained that the balance was usually about 60 percent muscle loss versus 40 percent fat loss in patients in their 40s and 50s, regardless of whether they were obese or overweight.
She cautioned that this was due to patients consuming too little protein while taking the drug, which led to increased muscle loss.
Many patients also need to do more resistance training, she said, such as lifting weights or using strength-training machines that can protect their muscles.
Older patients also have lower levels of the hormone testosterone, which is related to the maintenance of muscle in the body.
Dr. Attia runs the Early Medical clinic in Austin, Texas. He has many celebrity clients, including Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman and award-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Novo Nordisk has been contacted for comment.
In response to DailyMail.com’s previous story about the drug causing muscle loss, they said, “In clinical trials for Wegovy (semaglutide), we have not specifically studied the impact of the drug on muscle mass.”
“However, in a substudy of 140 patients with a BMI of 40 or less… analyzes suggested that treatment with Wegovy was associated with a reduction in both fat and lean body mass.
‘Although lean body mass (including muscle mass) decreased in absolute terms, the proportion of lean body mass to total body mass increased.’