\n<\/p>\n
FALSE<\/strong> \u201cGLP-1 medications mimic Glucagon-like peptide-1 \u2013 one of the hormones involved in appetite regulation. It doesn\u2019t completely suppress hunger, but it is powerful,\u201d says Dr Federica Amati, nutrition lead at Imperial College School of Medicine and author of The Appetite Reset. \u201cThe medicine is about 1,000 times stronger than what we naturally produce from our gut,\u201d she explains. As food passes through the gut, cells called L-cells sense the nutrients, which sparks the production of the GLP-1 hormone. Without the drugs, these bursts of GLP-1 production last a few minutes. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit like a sparkler. In comparison, the drugs are like a bonfire that roars for a week,\u201d says Amati. Because the GLP-1 hormone stays in your body for longer if you are on the drugs, you feel fuller faster and your appetite gets suppressed, but you will eventually get hungry.<\/p>\n TRUE<\/strong> \u201cNausea, constipation, diarrhoea, bloating and vomiting are well-recognised side-effects,\u201d says Dr Adrian Brown, associate professor and specialist dietitian at University College London. \u201cThey tend to occur during dose escalation, and most symptoms improve over time.\u201d Eating smaller meals, staying hydrated and limiting fatty foods can help.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the best ways to prevent these side-effects is to prepare your gut, liver and pancreas before you start taking the medications,\u201d says Amati. \u201cIf you go into treatment with existing reflux or constipation, it\u2019s only going to get worse.\u201d She advises eating more plants and gradually upping your fibre intake. Once taking the drugs, never push past the point of fullness. \u201cThe gastric emptying is so slow that you need to stop straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n PARTLY TRUE<\/strong> The drugs themselves don\u2019t make you want to drink less, but people can experience this as a side-effect. This is partly because we get a\u00a0lot of water from food, especially fruits and vegetables. \u201cThese drugs massively reduce the amount that you eat \u2013 up to 40% reduction in calories,\u201d says Amati. You may also drink less if you\u2019re experiencing nausea, constipation or reflux. \u201cIt\u2019s important that you do drink, because dehydration is one of the key reasons why reflux and constipation may be worse,\u201d she says. As\u00a0well as drinking water, she recommends having hydrating foods and smoothies, especially on the day you take the drugs (typically, the injections are used once a week, while the pills are taken daily), when you can have the most appetite suppression.<\/p>\n TRUE<\/strong> Taking GLP-1 medication can \u201csubstantially reduce food intake, and that creates the potential for nutrient deficiencies if the quality of a person\u2019s diet is poor,\u201d says Brown, who has researched this area. He found that some people on these drugs may not get enough vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, calcium and protein.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your diet was relatively healthy to begin with, that\u2019s fine because you\u2019re just eating less. But this is not true for many people,\u201d says Giles Yeo, professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and an obesity expert. \u201cFor those whose diets were not great to begin with, there\u2019s a\u00a0danger of going into malnutrition. You can\u2019t just inject yourself and hope for the best. You have to think about your diet and exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n PARTLY TRUE<\/strong> \u201cObesity is a chronic, relapsing, progressive condition. When medications for obesity are stopped, a person\u2019s body will attempt to regain the weight,\u201d says Brown. \u201cStudies have shown that people can regain about 60% of the weight lost following stopping the medication.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, one study from the University of Oxford found that people who stop taking GLP-1 medication will return to their original weight within two years. \u201cFor a lot of people, these are likely to be long-term or for ever drugs,\u201d says Yeo. \u201cYour appetite is only suppressed when you\u2019re on them. If you stop, your hormonal levels will go back to what they were. You\u2019ll feel as hungry as before, which means the weight will come back.\u201d<\/p>\n While the idea of taking medication for ever might sound scary, Yeo points out that many people take medication for high blood pressure and statins, used for lowering cholesterol, for life. \u201cI think the same is going to be true for these drugs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n TRUE<\/strong> \u201cWhenever people lose weight, they don\u2019t just lose fat, they also lose muscle. The key point is whether we can minimise it,\u201d says Brown. \u201cCurrent evidence suggests that up to 40% of the weight lost with GLP-1 medicine may come from lean\u00a0mass [bone, muscle and connective tissue] rather than\u00a0fat alone.\u201d<\/p>\n This is why it\u2019s important to prioritise protein-rich foods and resistance training when taking GLP-1s. \u201cIt\u2019s not negotiable \u2013 you have to do it if you want to preserve lean mass,\u201d says Amati. \u201cIf you have excess fat mass and you engage in resistance training, you will lose fat first because that\u2019s the stored energy source.\u201d She recommends resistance training three times a week, including high-quality protein in every meal, and eating that first.<\/p>\n <\/span> Illustration: Matt Chase\/The Guardian<\/p>\n TRUE <\/strong>\u201cThese drugs don\u2019t work for everybody \u2013 they\u2019re not a magic bullet,\u201d says Amati. \u201cThe data shows that 5-20% of people lose less than 5% of their body weight, so they\u2019re classed as non-responders. If\u00a0you\u2019re someone who doesn\u2019t have a very sensitive GLP-1 receptor, GLP-1 medications won\u2019t have the desired effect.\u201d While we don\u2019t yet know why this is, Yeo says that it\u2019s only a matter of time before we do.<\/p>\n FALSE<\/strong> GLP-1 drugs were originally developed for people with type 2 diabetes. Now, they\u2019re also licensed for people with obesity, or people who are\u00a0overweight and have weight-related health problems. Despite this, many people are using GLP-1s for aesthetic reasons because they\u2019ve become\u00a0so easily accessible.<\/p>\n \u201cI see a lot of people accessing them to lose weight before a wedding or a holiday,\u201d says Amati. \u201cThese drugs are not designed for that.\u201d People taking GLP-1s in this way could end up with a\u00a0worse\u00a0body composition, she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s much\u00a0easier to regain fat than muscle, so you could\u00a0find yourself with increased fat mass compared to before you started. Losing lean mass\u00a0is\u00a0not helpful for longevity.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n PARTLY TRUE<\/strong> When it comes to how GLP-1s impact anxiety and depression, Michael Browning, professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, says, \u201cThe evidence that they\u2019re beneficial is pretty thin, and some studies are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n Things are more promising for addiction, particularly with alcohol, where there have been some randomised controlled trials. One of these showed that taking semaglutide (the GLP-1 agonist in Wegovy and Ozempic) reduced the number of heavy drinking days for participants. For other addictions, such as nicotine and other drugs, more\u00a0research is needed. \u201cThere\u2019s work in animals that suggests they might reduce nicotine dependence, but the evidence is not there in humans,\u201d says Browning.<\/p>\n MORE RESEARCH NEEDED<\/strong> Is \u201cOzempic breath\u201d a\u00a0thing? \u201cThere is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but not any epidemiological studies,\u201d says Dr Praveen Sharma, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham\u2019s School of Dentistry.<\/p>\n While there\u2019s no hard evidence yet, it could be side-effects like vomiting and dehydration that lead to a\u00a0dry mouth, he says. Saliva \u201ckeeps the mouth hydrated and the bacteria level low\u201d, so having a dry mouth can mean \u201cyou get a proliferation of bacteria, which can result in bad breath\u201d.<\/p>\n As for burps? Dr\u00a0Lindsey Ann Edwards, senior lecturer in microbiology at King\u2019s College London, says that by slowing gastric emptying, GLP-1 medication can \u201ccause food to remain in the stomach and upper gastrointestinal tract for longer,\u00a0creating more opportunity for the gut microbiome to ferment partially digested food. This\u00a0microbial fermentation can generate gases which may contribute to unpleasant-smelling or\u00a0\u201csulphur\u201d burps.<\/p>\n TRUE<\/strong> Your body goes through a stress response when you take GLP-1 drugs, says consultant dermatologist Dr Angela Tewari. \u201cThat puts stress on the hair, and you can experience telogen effluvium, which is stress response hair loss. It puts your hair into a shedding phase,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The good news is that this kind of hair loss is reversible. As your body gets used to the medication, this side-effect will ease off, although the pace at which your hair grows back will vary. \u201cIt can be an inch a month for some people. Generally, how fast your hair grows is a genetic thing,\u201d says Tewari, who recommends taking the lowest possible dose of GLP-1s and eating food rich in protein, zinc, iron and vitamin C to encourage a healthy scalp.<\/p>\n TRUE<\/strong> You may take GLP-1s to change your body, but\u00a0what do the drugs do to your face? Under your skin, you have a \u201csupport system\u201d, explains Tewari. \u201cThere\u2019s your collagen, and under that you have a fat layer and a muscle layer. That all makes the skin look plumper.\u201d When you lose the fat layer quickly, the top layer of your skin is still expanded, as it has stretched over time to support the other layers. This means your skin will sag as there is less support underneath, so it can look wrinkled and dull. To counter this, many people end up spending money on injectables, says Tewari. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t jump into any procedures straight away. Allow your body to settle into its new look before you do anything,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n MORE RESEARCH NEEDED<\/strong> As more people take GLP-1s, researchers are looking at the benefits beyond weight loss. One study found that people on GLP-1s were 30% less likely to develop breast cancer. Another found that patients with breast, lung, bowel or liver cancer who took them were up to 50% less likely to have their cancer spread.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s challenging is disentangling the direct impact of these drugs and the secondary impact of losing weight,\u201d says Dr Simon Cork, associate professor of physiology at Anglia Ruskin University\u2019s School of Medicine. \u201cObesity increases your risk of at\u00a0least 13 types of cancer. By reducing your weight, the likelihood of you developing cancer will also be\u00a0reduced.\u201d<\/p>\n Cork has researched GLP-1s and cardiovascular disease, and found that \u201cthe risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with obesity taking GLP-1 was reduced by about 14%\u201d. More research is needed, but if there are \u201cweight-independent effects of these drugs\u201d, Cork says the difficulty will be in trying to separate those benefits from weight loss, as\u00a0some patients won\u2019t need to lose weight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They suppress your appetite so you never feel\u00a0hungry FALSE \u201cGLP-1 medications mimic Glucagon-like peptide-1 \u2013 one of the hormones involved in appetite regulation. It doesn\u2019t completely suppress hunger, but it is powerful,\u201d says Dr Federica Amati, nutrition lead at Imperial College School of Medicine and author of The Appetite Reset. \u201cThe medicine is about 1,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[7418,3575,7915,1475,337,988,9299,516,13177,891,2192],"class_list":{"0":"post-52219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-breath","9":"tag-hair","10":"tag-hype","11":"tag-jabs","12":"tag-life","13":"tag-loss","14":"tag-ozempic","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-sorting","17":"tag-style","18":"tag-weight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}They can cause gastrointestinal issues<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They make you forget to drink water<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They can make you deficient in nutrients<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Once you come off them you gain weight again<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They make you lose muscle and you need to eat more protein while taking them<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Not everyone responds to them in the same\u00a0way<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Anyone <\/strong>should use them<\/strong> to lose weight<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They could <\/strong>improve your mental <\/strong>health<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They cause bad breath and smelly burps<\/strong><\/h2>\n
They can make your hair fall out<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Your face <\/strong>may get saggy and gaunt<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Weight loss isn\u2019t the only health benefit<\/strong><\/h2>\n