CHICAGO — Mice like to run. However not once 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 standard medicine, 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 medicine’ skills to alter mind habits, says neuroscientist Karolina Skibicka of Penn State College and the College of Gothenburg in Sweden. “I believe it’s actually vital,” she says of the brand new discovering on train. “I’ve spent most of my profession taking a look at these medicine. 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. “If you happen to have a look at how a lot they’re operating, it’s simply nuts,” he says.

However mice given semaglutide for seven days ran considerably lower than their regular mileage, DiLeone and colleagues discovered. These mice — each men and women — decreased their common each day distance by about 38 p.c. 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 an alternative, this decreased operating mirrored an absence of motivation, additional experiments instructed. Researchers skilled the mice to unlock their operating wheel by poking their noses right into a slot, working for his or her exercise, basically. Mice would normally be prepared to poke a number of instances to unlock their operating wheel. However mice on semaglutide poked much less, suggesting that they have 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 choices that folks make. If these medicine do make individuals much less motivated to train, Skibicka says, medical doctors would possibly want to alter how they speak with sufferers about these medicine, “saying, ‘Hey, you would possibly really feel such as you don’t need to train. Nevertheless it’s actually vital that you simply do.’”

GLP-1 medicine assist individuals drop extra pounds, however a part of that weight is muscle, Skibicka says. “If you happen to add decreased train to this, now that’s an issue,” she says. “Muscle mass is vital for well being. Being lean with out muscle mass will not be a wholesome state both.”

Nevertheless 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 want 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’s not conscious of any proof that folks train much less whereas on these medicine. “That mentioned, fatigue, low power and nausea are reported negative effects,” and people signs might sap individuals’s motivation to be energetic.

“Bodily exercise and health have a higher affect 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 energetic after taking one of many new GLP-1 medicine by considering, ‘Why train since I can drop extra pounds with a drug?’  That will be a giant mistake.”