Ozempic Shreds Bones? How a Small Research Turned Right into a Huge Well being Fantasy

Each drug comes with its trade-offs, together with blockbuster weight reduction drugs like semaglutide (the lively ingredient in Ozempic) and different GLP-1s. To listen to the web inform it, although, GLP-1s are mainly rotting customers from the within out.

Myths and misconceptions about GLP-1 medicine have grown rampant on social media as of late. The medicine are supposedly doing all the pieces from losing away bones to destroying folks’s sense of pleasure. These myths aren’t flatly flawed, although—they’re a distraction from the nuanced conversations we needs to be having about these necessary however removed from miraculous therapies.

No, Ozempic will not be shredding bones

The newest iteration of GLP-1 misinformation revolves round bones.

Individuals are claiming on social media that the medicine can generally “shred” bone, based mostly on a misreading of an actual, if preliminary, research. The analysis, introduced final month on the annual assembly of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, found that GLP-1 use was related to increased charges of osteoporosis (bone weakening) and osteomalacia (bone softening).

Leaving apart that this research hasn’t but gone by way of the everyday peer evaluate course of, there’s some essential context right here. For starters, absolutely the charges of osteoporosis and osteomalacia had been low, even within the GLP-1 group (4.1% and a pair of%, respectively). And different analysis has suggested that the rise in these dangers comes from the burden folks lose whereas taking a GLP-1, relatively than the drug immediately.

Even the research researchers themselves don’t name for folks to desert their GLP-1s. As an alternative, they argue that docs ought to monitor the bone well being of customers at increased threat of those problems, since there are simple issues you are able to do to forestall them proactively, like taking extra vitamin D and calcium or power coaching. Curiously sufficient, a separate research introduced on the identical convention discovered that GLP-1 use may scale back the chance of post-operative unwanted effects in folks present process widespread orthopedic surgical procedures.

Oh, and the viral picture hooked up to this newest little bit of fearmongering (seen above)? No thought the place it’s really from, but it surely has squat to do with the research.

Different kinds of misfortune blamed on GLP-1s are based mostly on much more flimsy proof. As Gizmodo has covered before, as an illustration, there’s subsequent to little knowledge supporting that these medicine are sapping folks’s muscular tissues. Folks will lose some lean physique mass when shedding weight, irrespective of the way it’s accomplished. And as with our bones, you’ll be able to take steps to mitigate potential muscle loss for those who’re actually nervous about it, equivalent to growing your protein consumption.

Different zombie GLP-1 myths linger regardless of most related analysis having refuted it.

It’s true, as an illustration, that some well being companies had been nervous about Wegovy growing folks’s suicide ideation quickly after it hit the market in 2021. Nevertheless, these companies investigated the matter extra extensively and finally found no connection. A research published simply this month discovered that semaglutide use was really related to a decrease threat of worsening despair, anxiousness, and substance use problems.

Dangers and advantages

To be clear, this isn’t me saying GLP-1s are all reward and no threat.

These medicine very generally trigger disagreeable gastrointestinal unwanted effects, although you’ll be able to take steps to mitigate them. And whereas scientists are consistently discovering new potential well being advantages of GLP-1s, they’re discovering new doable dangers, too.

A number of research have proven that GLP-1s can improve the percentages of sure eye circumstances, as an illustration. Whereas the general threat of those eye points appears to be very rare, it’s nonetheless very important to learn about that threat so docs and sufferers can stop or deal with them appropriately. And this won’t be the final disagreeable shock we study GLP-1s, if historical past is any instructor.

There isn’t actually a free lunch in drugs. Most something that may positively change the physique can generally backfire in methods we do and don’t anticipate. Even my common jogs have sometimes resulted in me spraining my ankle or coming dwelling with scrapes and bruises from an unintentional fall.

A drug works when its advantages outweigh the dangers on common for the individuals who most want it. To date, that has confirmed abundantly true for these taking GLP-1 remedy to deal with their sort 2 diabetes, weight problems, and perhaps sometime, their substance use dysfunction or different type of habit.

It’s at all times necessary to grasp the advantages and dangers of any medical remedy and for folks (ideally with the assistance of their docs) to determine for themselves whether or not the previous deserves taking over the latter. That’s more durable to do when the web is rife with misinformation about probably the most well-known medicine this facet of Viagra. In order annoying as it’s to see timeless memes about Ozempic sucking away folks’s skeletons or whatnot, it stays worthwhile to debunk them.