Ozempic and Mounjaro
A lot has and will be written about the injectable near magical peptides that are bringing about profound
weight loss. These peptides go under brand names Ozempic, Weegovy and Mounjaro and the first two brands
may be known by their diabetic-clinic name ‘ semaglutide’.
Such peptides (including the simplest, insulin which is natural but also the first to be lab synthesised) are involved in complex hormone-like signaling pathways affecting the way the body handles the glucose levels in the blood and its passage into cells.
The synthetic peptides known as Ozempic/Weegovy and Montjaro when injected subcutaneously bring about weight loss. Sometimes this weight loss is a mixture of muscle and fat reduction, sometimes it is mostly fat. Muscle loss (known as sarcopenia) is undesirable but is also common in sedentary workers when dieting conventionally, especially with extreme calorie-restricted diets.
Fat loss without sarcopenia is a real achievement; the holy grail of dieters. Barring extreme carnivorous diets combined with extended endurance exercise and/or liposuction, fat, especially subcutaneous ( as opposed to intra-abdominal fat) fat is notoriously hard to shed.
There is only one metabolic pathway to burn fat, and that is called beta-oxidation. Beta-oxidation involves
fatty acids being fully oxidised by mitochondriato carbon dioxide and water and thereby releasing energy in the form of ATP.
Actually, mitochondria don't directly metabolise or ‘eat’ sugar or fat, they ‘eat’ acetyl molecules. Acetyl molecules contain two carbon atoms as well as oxygen and hydrogen and are speedily delivered to mitochondria normally from the metabolism of glucose inside the cell.. If glucose is unavailable or energy demand is very high then acetyl can be obtained from fatty acids in a process called beta oxidation.
In a nut-shell ‘fat-jabs’ seem to enhance beta-oxidation and starve the mitochondria of sugar-derived acetyl. Hence, fat is burned. If, unfortunately, some muscle cells, laid fallow for many years as a result of a sedentary lifestyle, experience the sudden loss of glucose it is likely they will be killed off by the mitochondria in a process called cellular apoptosis.
Once the injections stop there is nothing to prevent the move back to ‘normal’ sugar metabolism via glycolysis and consequently the replenishment of fat reserves in the now empty ( but still there and alive) fat cells contained within shrivelled adipose tissue.
In conclusion, although I am sure that at the whole organism level there will be a plethora of exotic side effects it looks like these jabs are basically a ‘good fat burning thing’. They may well be performance enhancing in endurance sports in which case they will be banned by WADA.
How you make a pill version though to get a peptide into the blood stream via the digestive system will be a trick I will be amazed to see …fat membrane droplets? Nasal spray?
