I did see a few studies about muscle shrinking in general when I looked for this one. They all were fairly small, though and not that long ago. Hopefully scientists are developing/working on larger, more conclusive studies. But those take time, unfortunately.
One study of 106 people found that muscle loss stabilized after 12 months, but it was very clear how small the study was and which participants dropped out because they had to go off the drugs.
Scientists seem to be avoiding making strong statements about this for usual scientist reasons - they want to see larger better studies. As a layperson, however, I’m definitely keeping it in the back of my mind and if a doctor recs the drug years from now, I’ll be looking up what conclusion they came to.
As I understand it, a recurring issue is that patients do not often change the underlying causes for their obesity, which is poor diet and a lack of physical activity. They lose weight, but it’s as a result of decreased appetite and the nausea they get when they binge, but once they start losing weight they see no reason (or lack any motivation) to do any weight training or cardio.
Not saying that’s the case, obviously, but muscle loss when you go on a deficit is expected.
I did see a few studies about muscle shrinking in general when I looked for this one. They all were fairly small, though and not that long ago. Hopefully scientists are developing/working on larger, more conclusive studies. But those take time, unfortunately.
One study of 106 people found that muscle loss stabilized after 12 months, but it was very clear how small the study was and which participants dropped out because they had to go off the drugs.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12673431/
Scientists seem to be avoiding making strong statements about this for usual scientist reasons - they want to see larger better studies. As a layperson, however, I’m definitely keeping it in the back of my mind and if a doctor recs the drug years from now, I’ll be looking up what conclusion they came to.
As I understand it, a recurring issue is that patients do not often change the underlying causes for their obesity, which is poor diet and a lack of physical activity. They lose weight, but it’s as a result of decreased appetite and the nausea they get when they binge, but once they start losing weight they see no reason (or lack any motivation) to do any weight training or cardio.
Not saying that’s the case, obviously, but muscle loss when you go on a deficit is expected.
Thanks for the link. I will be doing some more reading today. Also the last part about not jumping the gun makes sense.