Clinical trial in Ireland challenges beliefs about Ozempic and similar new obesity treatments

New study published today in the Journal of the Obesity Society found GLP‐1 therapy does more than ‘simply make you eat less’

2024-08-22

(Press-News.org) A study carried out in St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) Dublin challenges the belief that weight loss medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy or Monjaro work just by promoting satiety and making you eat less.

The randomized controlled trial with 30 patients was led by Professor Donal O’Shea, SVUH and UCD School of Medicine, and examined the family of medications based on the hormone Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

The findings published today in the Journal of the Obesity Society shows that there is a strong relationship between the increase in metabolic activity caused by once daily treatment with GLP-1 and the amount of weight lost. Furthermore, people with low metabolic activity before starting treatment benefited the most from it.

Professor Donal O’Shea said: “This study challenges the main narrative about these newer treatments which is that they simply make you eat less, and that any action on energy burn is minimal. The strength of the association is surprising given the relatively small numbers studied and suggests this increase in metabolic activity is a significant contributor to how these drugs work.

“Safe medical treatment for obesity is still in its infancy and we need to understand fully how the treatment works. Understanding how these agents increase energy burn should be an important part of future research. I hope the companies involved in the development of these treatments will examine this area in more detail because these are very expensive studies to carry out and we are very grateful to the Health Research Board and University College Dublin for supporting it.”

“It always seemed oversimplistic to me that these new treatments were just making people eat less. So this study finding is an exciting step forward in our understanding of how these new medicines for obesity work. The findings also provide science to support the fact that the treatment of obesity is not simply to eat less and move more – that’s the prevention piece – treatment is more complex than that.”

The 30 patients had specialised imaging of the fat within their abdomen using a PET-CT scanner, with scans carried out before and after six months of treatment with GLP-1.

The study ‘GLP‐1 therapy increases visceral adipose tissue metabolic activity: lessons from a randomized controlled trial in obstructive sleep apnea,’ was co-authored by Professor Silke Ryan, SVUH, funded by the Health Research Board and supported by University College Dublin.

DOI:10.1002/oby.24126

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Mouse study: Proteins do the damage in fetal abdominal inflammation

2024-08-22

Inflammation of the abdominal cavity in human fetuses resulting from a perforation of their intestine is likely to be caused by proteins contained in the fetal stool. This is the result of a Kobe University study that establishes a new mouse model allowing research and drug development for a condition that is otherwise difficult to approach. The fetus’s stool, called the “meconium,” is sterile but nevertheless causes inflammation of the abdominal cavity when it leaks out of the intestine after a perforation. Called “meconium peritonitis,” this is a life-threatening condition for the baby with a mortality rate of 10%-15% in humans, and neither a cause ...

Let me take a look: AI could boost diagnostic imaging results

2024-08-22

In radiology, diagnostic imaging requires specialized knowledge to interpret the findings associated with a wide variety of diseases. Fortunately, in recent years, generative AI models, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), have shown potential as diagnostic tools in the medical field, but their accuracy must be evaluated for optimal use in the future. Therefore, Dr. Daisuke Horiuchi and Associate Professor Daiju Ueda of Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Medicine led a research team that compared the diagnostic accuracy of ChatGPT and radiologists. They used 106 musculoskeletal radiology cases with patient medical history, images, ...

Prof Carl Kocher explores how you can stretch your mind to grasp quantum entanglement

2024-08-22

My new article, ‘Quantum Entanglement of Optical Photons: The First Experiment, 1964-67’, is intended to convey the spirit of a small research project that reaches into uncharted territory. The article breaks with tradition, as it offers a first-person account of the strategy and challenges for the experiment, as well as an interpretation of the final result and its significance. In this guest editorial, I will introduce the subject and also attempt to illuminate the question ‘What is a paradox?’ Let’s begin with the gyroscope that I bought when I was eight, from a store ...

Unveiling the secret of blood regeneration: New insights into stress responses in hematopoietic stem cells (HSC)

2024-08-22

Kumamoto University researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery that sheds light on how the HMGA2 gene—an essential transcriptional activator involved in chromatin modification—regulates stress responses in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), thereby enhancing blood cell production recovery. Exposure to infections or treatments such as chemotherapy often leads to a rapid decline in blood cells, including red blood cells and platelets. HSCs, which reside in the bone marrow that can develop into various types of blood cells, are crucial for recovering from these stress-induced blood disorders. Under stressd ...

MCG physicians working to help prevent vision loss associated with space travel

2024-08-22

Physicians at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University are working with Polaris Dawn, the first of the Polaris Program’s three human spaceflight missions, to better understand the eye changes many astronauts experience during spaceflight that can leave them with a wide range of symptoms once they return to Earth — from a new need for glasses to significant loss of vision. The Polaris Program is a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes on Earth. More than 70% of astronauts experience a phenomenon ...

Adaptive-k: A simple and effective method for robust training in label noisy datasets

2024-08-22

Training deep learning models on large datasets is essential for their success; however, these datasets often contain label noise, which can significantly decrease the classification performance on test datasets. To address this issue, a research team consisting of Enes Dedeoglu, H. Toprak Kesgin, and Prof. Dr. M. Fatih Amasyali from Yildiz Technical University developed a groundbreaking method called Adaptive-k, which improves the optimization process and yields better results in the presence of label noise. Their research was published on 15 August 2024 in ...

Developing innovative new display technologies! Create ultrahigh-definition screens efficiently!

2024-08-22

□ A team led by Professor Ji-woong Yang of DGIST’s (President Kun-woo Lee) Department of Energy Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Moon-kee Choi of UNIST's Department of New Materials and Dr. Taeg-hwan Hyun of the IBS Nanoparticle Research Center, has developed a double-layer dry transfer printing technology that simultaneously transfers light-emitting and electron-transferring layers onto a substrate. This technology is expected to provide a more life-like view in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), greatly enhancing the immersive experience. □ ...

Physicist Hollen honored as Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigator

2024-08-22

Shawna Hollen, associate professor of physics, has been named to The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s 2024 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. The prestigious honor, which is accompanied by $1.25 million in funding over the next five years, will advance understanding of the link between charge density waves and quantum dots, two physical phenomena that could lead to improvements in quantum computing. “The ideas that I put forward [in my proposal] haven’t been demonstrated. It’s not something that anyone else ...

How do the characteristics of historic urban landscapes influence public sentiments, and what implications do these findings have for urban planning and development strategies?

2024-08-22

In 2011, UNESCO issued The UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (“The Recommendation” hereafter), introducing the concept of “historic urban landscape” (HUL). HUL is defined as “the urban context and its geographical setting taking into consideration the historical layering of cultural and natural values and attributes”. It is noteworthy that ancient towns or historic cities, as an important subclass of HUL, have garnered increasing attention. In recent years, public perception and emotional experience of physical environments have become ...

Low-cost flexible metasurfaces to increase the efficiency of optoelectronic devices

2024-08-22

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional counterparts of metamaterials, which are the artificial materials that possess unusual characteristics. With a variety of fascinatingly innovative and diverse uses, these specially-prepared surfaces with engineered patterns can modify the propagation of electromagnetic waves across the entire spectrum of wavelengths. Though the journey of metamaterials began with metal-dielectric systems, the metasurfaces have gone all-dielectric, and are crucial in applications relating to optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and light emitting diodes (LED) to improve their efficiency through a mere surface effect. Student researchers led ...