Researchers at Yale say they have uncovered an unexpected brain mechanism that may help explain why Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications can produce lasting weight loss. The findings were reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, according to ScienceDaily.
For years, scientists believed these drugs mainly worked by reducing the activity of agouti-related peptide, or AgRP, neurons, which are known to drive hunger. But the Yale team found that during semaglutide treatment, those neurons were not shut down. Instead, they appeared to be activated.
Using mice, the researchers tracked weight, food intake, metabolism and energy use while giving semaglutide. They also used genetic methods to remove or silence AgRP neurons. In mice that lacked those neurons, GLP-1 drugs were no longer able to maintain weight loss.
The study suggests that when GLP-1 treatment creates a calorie deficit, the brain may respond by increasing AgRP neuron activity, and those neurons may help coordinate fat loss. The researchers say the work could help guide the development of more effective obesity treatments, though they note the experiments were done in mice and need further study in humans.
