What I Read This Week...
Drug companies race to fix muscle mass loss caused by Ozempic, doctors discover a new cause for women's autoimmune conditions, and Adam Neumann tries to buy back WeWork
Listen to Our Discussion About AI Hardware
Caught My Eye…
Drug companies, nutrition startups and gyms are racing to offer solutions to muscle mass loss caused by weight-loss drugs like Ozempic. While GLP-1s, the current class of weight-loss drugs offered by companies like Novo Nordisk, can help patients rapidly lose weight and steer off cravings, much of this weight loss is often in the form of lean muscle mass which risks accelerating frailty in older patients. While drug companies are trying to develop solutions to this issue, doctors are recommending two simple fixes: eat more protein and lift weights.
Scientists have been trying to understand why women are more susceptible to autoimmune conditions, a type of disease where your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body. According to a recent study, this may be due to a special set of molecules that act on the extra X chromosome that only women carry. These molecules can sometime confuse the immune system, which may explain why women are more susceptible to autoimmune conditions like lupus and multiple sclerosis. If correct, this could pave the way for a new set of treatments that work specifically on these molecules instead of the current cohort of drugs which blunt the entire immune system.
Adam Neumann, co-founder and CEO of bankrupt real-estate company WeWork, is in preliminary discussions with hedge fund Third Point to buy back the company out of bankruptcy. WeWork, the office-sharing company once valued at $47Bn, filed for bankruptcy in November last year as the company’s debt-fueled growth in real-estate assets came up against a collapse in demand for office space.
Other Reading…
Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI (WSJ)
The Vladimir Putin Interview (Tucker Carlson)
Can Solar Power and Battery Tech Save the World From Climate Change? (The Ringer)
Plan For Europe's Huge New Particle Collider Takes Shape (Barrons)
White House Touts $11 Billion US Semiconductor R&D Program (Reuters)
Can AI Unlock the Secrets of the Ancient World? (Bloomberg)
On X…
I'm not sure drugs will fix this. I only studied this briefly while at Noom, but the hypotheses I heard from the scientific community were that the muscle loss is not from the drug itself, but just from the nutritional profile of eating habits caused by appetite suppression.
No known drug other than an anabolic steroid is going to reduce muscle loss if someone is not lifting weights and eating sufficient high-quality protein.
If you do any calorie restriction, with or without these drugs, and don't eat enough protein or do resistance training, you're going to lose mostly muscle mass.
This is why someone experiencing disordered eating such as bulimia or anorexia does not have the same body composition at low weights as someone who works out and eats protein-rich diets.
Protein-rich foods like meat or beans, and even some fatty foods can feel unappetizing or too filling when you feel full. On the other hand, because of the changes to the digestive tract, protein-rich palatable foods such as dairy or protein shakes can cause discomfort and are not tolerated well by many people using these drugs.
So, like most people, you don't exercise with resistance training regularly, you no longer have an appetite for anything other than highly palatable and usually "light" or "liquid" foods, and are losing weight at a pace faster than most bodies should for maximum muscle conservation.
Friedberg shared that point on the pod a couple weeks ago, that a lot of the weight you lose on Ozempic/ wegovy is from your lean muscle mass.
Personally think the who point of getting on any GLP1 should be for obese people to help develop healthy eating patterns and habits before weaning off of it. Otherwise you’re just opening the door for muscle related frailty and fall risks in later life. This shouldn’t be a drug for “healthy people” to lose weight. Nothing is a panacea