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Jul 28

Scientists Just Made A Major Genetic Discovery That Could Lead To The Next Ozempic – Women’s Health

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Now, research highlights a discovery that could pave the way for a new class of weight loss medicationsand its linked to how your body responds to exercise. Heres what the study discovered, plus what it could mean for the future of drugs like Ozempic.

Meet the expert: Mir Ali, MD, a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California.

The study, which was published in June in the journal Molecular Metabolism, analyzed mouse and human models to explore how the protein PGC-1 impacts exercise and its effects on the body. In case you're not familiar with it (and why would you be?), PGC-1 is a protein that is involved in several processes in the body, including thermogenesis. Thermogenesis works to help your body efficiently consume energy in your muscles.

When you work out, more PGC-1 is expressed in your muscles and more energy is burned. But people who lose weight slowly when they do regular physical activity may be missing variants of PGC-1 that regulate the bodys metabolism and response to short-term exercise.

By targeting this protein, scientists think they can essentially help to rev up your metabolism. The researchers concluded in the study that increasing how much PGC-1 is expressed is pivotal for burning more energy and essential for regulating metabolism.

At this point, its hard to say. The scientists just discovered that it could be helpful to target this protein for weight loss, but the details and kinks of this havent been worked out just yet.

But it's possible that people who already burn fat efficiently with the help of exercise wouldnt be helped by a medication that targets PGC-1, says Mir Ali, MD, a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. Still, it's super early on in the process, making it tough to determine for sure.

Its not clear at this point. Again, this is in very early stages and theres a lot that still needs to be explored. However, there is a chance that this could lead to a new class of weight loss drugs, giving people with overweight and obesity more options, Ali says.

Right now, Ali sees this as a potential additional tool to help with weight loss versus the only tool someone would use.

The majority of weight loss is because of diet, he says. Exercise has a number of benefits, including enhanced weight loss, and it can improve cardiovascular health.

If theres a medication that could enhance how well you burn fat through exercise, that would be an additional tool to use, Ali says. But, he adds, were a long way from that.

Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Mens Health, Womens Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a masters degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.

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Scientists Just Made A Major Genetic Discovery That Could Lead To The Next Ozempic - Women's Health

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