Article 'We have no freaking clue' what weight-loss drugs do to the brain, warns Cambridge...

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https://www.sciencefocus.com/wellbeing/w...tal-health

EXCERPT: The University of Copenhagen psychiatrist discovered that, given free access to all the local rum they could guzzle, monkeys on the weight-loss drug drank significantly less than those given a placebo. Ozempic put a stopper in their drinking habits.

Why? The short answer is we don’t know, exactly. But we do know that, like the monkeys, some people on weight-loss jabs report drinking less.

Users of semaglutide (the general name for Ozempic and similar medications) say they also smoke or vape less. And they report having fewer nagging thoughts about food – otherwise known as ‘food noise’. But some users claim they’ve been left feeling flat, joyless or just a bit ‘meh’ on GLP-1s, a feeling that’s been labelled ‘anhedonia’. This figures if, as scientists suspect, they curb addiction.

At the same time, evidence is building for possible benefits to a broad range of psychiatric and neurological problems, from depression to dementia. While some of this sounds positive, there’s still so much we don’t know. For a start, semaglutide and other drugs classed as GLP-1s are only really tested in people with diabetes or obesity.

Would they be as safe and effective in those with mental health issues? How exactly do they work? And, crucially, how might they change our moods – and even our personalities?

The race is on to find the answers. And with so many already on the jabs – an estimated ten million in the US alone – there’s a lot of people’s mental health at stake... (MORE - details)

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Considering food is our primary physiological desire, suppressing that desire likely does reduce our desire mechanism in general... which may include libido and general motivation, the latter having bad consequences for muscle mass while losing weight.

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The side effect of GLP-1s nobody is talking about
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-b...medication

EXCERPTS:In a similar way, GLP-1s might not just delay your medicine from reaching your bloodstream, they may also weaken its impact when it first arrives. Indeed, a 2024 paper found that GLP-1 treatment affected both the timing and peak concentration of a range of medications in the blood – including blood thinners (specifically warfarin), statins and certain contraceptive pills.

And that’s not all. Common side effects of weight-loss drugs, such as vomiting and diarrhoea, can disrupt your medication too. “If you’re vomiting the drugs back out, then you don’t know how much of that drug is being absorbed,” says Cork. “Diarrhoea can also be challenging. If something is moving too fast through your system to be absorbed, then again that reduces the amount of drug that travels into the blood.”

These side effects aren’t rare. Nausea and vomiting affect nearly a quarter of GLP-1 drug users, and diarrhoea nearly a third.

Scientists understand how GLP-1s might disrupt the absorption of your medicines, but they’re less clear on exactly what the consequences might be. For instance, the 2024 study found that GLP-1 treatment changed how and when medicine travelled into the bloodstream. But, when it came to how much drug eventually arrived, and how effective it ended up being, the scientists didn’t find a clinically significant difference.

[...] When it comes to contraceptives, for instance, Yeo explains: “The hormone needs to be delivered at the right place, at the right time – crucially – to have the maximum effect.”

That doesn’t mean the pill will stop working entirely, but it might become a less reliable barrier against pregnancy. “In other words, you’re not going to suddenly become pregnant, but if millions of people are taking it, and millions of women are on oral contraception, you’re going to get a lot of unexpected babies,” says Yeo.

[...] Plus, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the pill can fail while women are on GLP-1s, leading to so-called ‘Ozempic babies’. [...] He also mentions that levodopa – a drug used for Parkinson’s disease to stop tremors – seems to be affected, “because it requires very quick absorption from the stomach”.

All of this evidence is still quite uncertain – and beyond these three medications, scientists don’t know exactly how GLP-1s might interfere with other drugs. But, in the absence of clarity, Yeo and Cork say the best thing you can do is tell your doctor if you start taking GLP-1s.

Yeo says: “It’s interesting – this is one of the few drugs that people hide. There are many people who are slightly ashamed that they’re taking it and end up hiding it from their doctor. But I think hiding it from your doctor is a bad idea. Tell your doctor so that you can mitigate against this. That’s the message.” (MORE - missing details)