CHICAGO — Mice like to run. However not after they’re taking semaglutide, the diabetes and weight-loss drug bought as Ozempic and Wegovy. Whereas on the drug, mice ran much less on a wheel in a cage, a brand new examine reveals.
The outcomes, offered October 7 on the annual assembly of the Society for Neuroscience, are preliminary. Nonetheless, the surprising discovering raises questions on whether or not such more and more common medication, which mimic a hormone referred to as GLP-1, is perhaps tinkering with individuals’s motivation to train (SN: 8/29/23).
The brand new outcomes match with what’s identified about these medication’ talents to alter mind habits, says neuroscientist Karolina Skibicka of Penn State College and the College of Gothenburg in Sweden. “I feel it’s actually vital,” she says of the brand new discovering on train. “I’ve spent most of my profession these medication. However I nonetheless suppose we don’t know all the pieces.”
Mice with unfettered entry to a wheel will use it extensively, operating a whopping 10 kilometers a day, says Ralph DiLeone, a neuroscientist at Yale College. “In case you take a look at how a lot they’re operating, it’s simply nuts,” he says.
However mice given semaglutide for seven days ran considerably much less than their ordinary mileage, DiLeone and colleagues discovered. These mice — each women and men — diminished their common each day distance by about 38 %. When the mice went off semaglutide, their operating distance snapped again to regular.
As anticipated, the mice on semaglutide misplaced weight. However mice on restricted diets that misplaced about the identical quantity of weight with out the drug didn’t change their operating habits, the researchers discovered. That implies weight reduction isn’t inflicting the brand new sedentary habits.
As a substitute, this diminished operating mirrored an absence of motivation, additional experiments urged. Researchers educated the mice to unlock their operating wheel by poking their noses right into a slot, working for his or her exercise, primarily. Mice would often be keen to poke a number of occasions to unlock their operating wheel. However mice on semaglutide poked much less, suggesting that they had been much less desirous to unlock their wheel.
It’s too quickly to say whether or not the mice’s altered operating habits really relate to the extra sophisticated train selections that individuals make. If these medication do make individuals much less motivated to train, Skibicka says, docs would possibly want to alter how they discuss with sufferers about these medication, “saying, ‘Hey, you would possibly really feel such as you don’t wish to train. However it’s actually vital that you simply do.’”
GLP-1 medication assist individuals drop some pounds, however a part of that weight is muscle, Skibicka says. “In case you add diminished train to this, now that’s an issue,” she says. “Muscle mass is vital for well being. Being lean with out muscle mass is just not a wholesome state both.”
However it may very well be that the mice’s operating is extra like a compulsion. “It’s attainable that the mice are additionally exercising compulsively,” DiLeone says, and that semaglutide could cut back this urge. That matches with different outcomes that recommend the drug could ease addictions, maybe by affecting the mind’s reward programs (SN: 8/30/23). Some individuals taking semaglutide have reported much less need for meals, alcohol and nicotine.
It’s difficult to know whether or not these outcomes apply to individuals, says train physiologist Glenn Gaesser of Arizona State College in Phoenix. He isn’t conscious of any proof that individuals train much less whereas on these medication. “That mentioned, fatigue, low vitality and nausea are reported unwanted side effects,” and people signs may sap individuals’s motivation to be lively.
“Bodily exercise and health have a better influence on life span and well being span than weight reduction,” Gaesser says. He’s involved that individuals who view train solely as a weight-loss technique “is perhaps much less inclined to be bodily lively after taking one of many new GLP-1 medication by pondering, ‘Why train since I can drop some pounds with a drug?’ That might be an enormous mistake.”
