IF YOU TAKE a GLP-1 agonist like Ozempic or Zepbound, you may see adjustments to your waistline and your blood sugar inside weeks. What may be much less apparent is how the drug is affecting your mind. Research suggests these in style weight-loss medicines can affect all the pieces from each day conduct to danger of age-related reminiscence loss, and neuroscientists are working additional time to find precisely how these medication have an effect on the mind.
“It is a sizzling matter,” says Kevin Williams, Ph.D., a neuroscientist on the University of Texas Medical Branch. “If you may perceive how these medication are accessing the mind and the place they’re performing, then doubtlessly that would information future drug improvement to have the ability to higher goal these areas.”
But how, precisely, can they have an effect on your mind? Experts reply your prime questions:
Do GLP-1s Reduce Food Noise?
FOOD NOISE ISN’T a grumbling in your abdomen if you’re hungry. It occurs if you really feel like your life revolves round meals.
“Some examples that folks cite should not with the ability to focus throughout a gathering since you’re fascinated about the pizza that will likely be served someday throughout the assembly, or going to an occasion with your mates and family members and never with the ability to consider one thing else aside from the meals,” says Daisuke Hayashi, M.S., a Ph.D. candidate and vitamin researcher at Penn State University.
We all react to environmental cues that inform us it’s time to eat, just like the scent of fries wafting by way of the air. These cues stimulate your mind’s mesolimbic reward pathway. You crave meals, search it, and really feel pleasure consuming it. However, some persons are further reactive to meals cues.
“It’s like your mind is doing the entire issues that it has developed to do, however at a a lot increased degree,” says Hayashi. “This is probably going to assist clarify why some persons are extra inclined than others to growing weight problems, binge consuming dysfunction, and maladaptive consuming behaviors.”
When folks take GLP-1s, they typically report that their meals noise goes away. For some, it’s an a-ha second as a result of they notice for the primary time how intrusive the meals noise was once. GLP-1s might help by slowing down gastric emptying and growing your launch of the hormone insulin that can assist you really feel full longer. Research additionally suggests these medication would possibly act on GLP-1 receptors in your mind to scale back cravings.
If you suppose you battle with meals noise, inform your healthcare supplier and ask for a referral to a registered dietitian.
“It’s actually vital that sufferers are properly educated by a dietitian after they make these adjustments to their life-style,” says Hayashi. “Just altering how they reply to meals cues with out offering the suitable help for life-style change can backfire.”
Do GLP-1s Slow Down Brain Aging?
EVIDENCE IS STACKING up that GLP-1 agonists would possibly assist your mind keep sharp as you age. New analysis within the journal International Immunopharmacology confirmed that overweight folks handled with a GLP-1 agonist had a 37 p.c decrease danger of Alzheimer’s illness, a 41 p.c decrease danger of Lewy physique dementia, and a 56 p.c decrease danger of vascular dementia than folks in comparable well being who didn’t take these medicines. People who took semaglutide (Ozempic) additionally had a 43 p.c decrease danger of Parkinson’s illness.
In a latest examine within the New England Journal of Medicine, the GLP-1 lixisenatide (Adlyxin) slowed the development of early Parkinson’s Disease.
“Prognosticating Parkinson’s isn’t doable, and a few folks go on to have a devastating course,” says Roger S. McIntyre, M.D., FRCPC, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology on the University of Toronto. “If you’ve gotten a therapy that’s modest in its capability to acutely have an effect on signs however can actually meaningfully alter the long-term course, that is a win.”
Ozempic and its cousins began as sort 2 diabetes medication, and so they assist your physique use insulin to manage blood sugar. They may additionally enhance insulin signaling in your mind’s grey matter, defending the mind cells you employ for considering, says Michal Schnaider Beeri, Ph.D., director of the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Research Center at Rutgers University. “Insulin is crucial to mind operate,” says Beeri.
In addition, GLP-1s would possibly help the blood vessels that deliver vitamins and oxygen to your mind. “These medication work in our vasculature,” says Stefan Trapp, Ph.D., professor of autonomic neuroscience and metabolic illness at University College London. “They would possibly enhance the blood stream to our mind, and that will be a approach of defending the mind and decreasing cell dying.”
Do GLP-1s Help You Recover From Addiction?
“I’M SEEING THIS clinically, anecdotally, and I’m glad that now we have some research on this as properly, that individuals who have an alcohol dependancy or drug dependancy have a discount in each of these each time they begin taking these medicines,” says Layla Abushamat, MD, MPH, an endocrinologist at Baylor College of Medicine.
GLP-1s may provide help to reduce alcohol intake, give up smoking or vaping, and even lower the chance of opioid overdose, analysis suggests.
One clarification is that these medicines would possibly assist to normalize overactive reward circuits in your mind to make vices much less engaging, in line with a examine overview printed in Physiology and Behavior. Reward circuits that launch the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine play a giant function in meals craving, and “they’re activated and overactivated throughout dependancy as properly,” says Trapp.
If you battle with dependancy together with weight problems or sort 2 diabetes, inform your physician to allow them to take into account how a GLP-1 would possibly match into your therapy combine.
Do GLP-1s Boost Your Mental Health?
MAYBE. IN A a latest examine overview, researchers in Italy concluded that GLP-1s would possibly cut back despair signs and suicidal ideas. However, some customers have additionally reported will increase in despair, nervousness, and suicidal ideas.
“The results of GLP-1 receptor agonists on despair are controversial,” says examine creator Maria Letizia Petroni, MD, MPhil, affiliate professor in dietetics and scientific vitamin on the University of Bologna.
Here are some the explanation why the medication would possibly provide help to really feel happier. GLP-1 agonists would possibly make neurons—nerve cells within the mind—extra resilient. “In the mind of an grownup dwelling with despair, one thing has gone awry with the plasticity and the safety of the neuronal inhabitants,” says McIntyre.
A review of six studies discovered that folks with sort 2 diabetes who had been handled with GLP-1 agonists lowered depressive signs greater than folks on different remedies. By reducing blood sugar, the medication would possibly shield tiny blood vessels within the mind from hurt, the researchers say.
Another potential profit is that by taking a GLP-1, you would possibly be capable of counter the weight-gain-inducing results of different medicines you’re taking for psychological well being. “Very typically our medicines, sadly, in psychiatry, trigger numerous weight achieve,” says McIntyre.
The flip aspect is that not everybody provides these medication a glowing overview on the subject of psychological well being. One recent study of experiences from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System database discovered that lower than 5 p.c of complaints about GLP-1s had been associated to psychiatric signs, however GLP-1s had been extra probably than different medicines to be linked to nervousness, stress, consuming problems, worry of injection, insomnia, binge consuming, worry of consuming, and self-induced vomiting. It’s unclear whether or not the medication contributed to those issues or whether or not these unwanted side effects had been linked with a preexisting psychiatric dysfunction, the researchers say.
So, what must you count on?
“In the overwhelming majority of sufferers an enchancment of psychological signs is predicted following weight reduction obtained with behavioral therapy related to GLP-1 receptor agonists,” says Petroni. “Nevertheless, in some cases a worsening of depressive signs could happen as a consequence of weight reduction (properly documented in collection of bariatric surgical procedure sufferers) and/or as a doable aspect impact of GLP-1 receptor agonist remedy.”
Before taking these medication, make certain your healthcare supplier is aware of about any psychological well being diagnoses or considerations you’ve gotten and any medicines you’re taking. Ask for referrals for intensive behavioral therapy, like group remedy, alongside along with your GLP-1 agonist.
And should you discover any new signs associated to your mind (or another physique half), inform the physician who prescribed your treatment.
Do GLP-1s Give You Brain Fog?
MAYBE YOU’VE NOTICED that some Reddit customers say Ozempic causes mind fog and fatigue. While “mind fog” isn’t a medical time period, a recent study in Frontiers in Pharmacology discovered that malaise—a basic unwell feeling—and fatigue rank among the many prime 13 complaints about semaglutide on the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System database. Fatigue was the fourth commonest symptom shared on affected person boards.
Fatigue typically accompanies weight reduction, says Gary A. Sforzo, Ph.D., FACSM, professor emeritus, School of Health Sciences and Human Performance at Ithaca College. The causes aren’t completely clear, however one clarification might be that as you soak up fewer energy and cut back your blood sugar, your vitality ranges would possibly dip, too. After all, blood sugar is a crucial gasoline supply to your mind and physique. As a end result, you would possibly really feel fatigue, adopted by some mind fog.
When you’re taking these medicines, you’ll eat lower than standard, however don’t skimp on water. “Dehydration will compound these issues, so staying properly hydrated could mitigate the issues,” he says.
