Boosting this molecule could help retain muscle while losing fat
About one in eight adults in the US has tried or currently uses a GLP-1 medication, and 40 percent of users cite weight loss as their main goal. But weight loss doesn’t discriminate between fat and muscle. Patients using GLP-1 drugs can experience rapid and substantial muscle loss, accounting for as much as 40 percent of their total weight loss. So how can we lose weight without also losing critical muscle? Professor Ronald Evans, postdoctoral researcher Hunter Wang, and colleagues discovered that a protein called BCL6 is key to maintaining healthy muscle mass. The experiments showed that fasting led to lower BCL6 levels and reduced muscle mass and strength in mice, but increasing BCL6 successfully reversed these losses. The researchers suggest that pairing GLP-1 medications with a BCL6-boosting drug may help counteract unwanted muscle loss. Similar therapies could also be used to treat other populations prone to muscle loss, such as older adults and patients with systemic diseases like sepsis or cancer.
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