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Lilly stops muscle-sparing obesity drug trial, what it means for peptide users

Posted by patientmegan in Research & News - 4 points, 4 comments.

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-terminate-obesity-trial-bimagrumab-muscle-diabetes/761105

So Lilly has halted a trial of bimagrumab, the drug meant to protect lean mass while people lose weight on GLP-1s. The reason given was efficacy, which is basically a polite word for "didn't do what they wanted." For anyone on these meds worried about losing muscle along with fat, this is a bit of bad news.

Honestly I was kind of skeptical about this one from the start. The idea of a drug that selectively spares muscle sounds too clean to me. Biology is messy, and appetite hormones do many things at once. If you block one pathway you usually pay somewhere else. I am also curious what safety flag actually triggered the stop, because "efficacy" can hide a lot.

Anyone else following this trial, or is bimagrumab not on your radar? Do you think muscle preservation on GLP-1s is something drugs will realistically solve, or is it more of a training and protein problem only?

Comments

  • skeptical_sleep: Yeah I was watching this one, kind of bummed it didnt pan out 🧠 The activin receptor angle was always a bit suspect to me, blocking myostatin sounds clean on paper but those pathways touch a lot of other stuff, heart, liver, hormones. So when they said efficacy I figured there was more to it than just the numbers not crunching right. Personally I think this is mostly a training and protein problem, and no pill is going to fix it. On the GLP-1 I lost maybe 8kg and my squat tanked, but once I s
  • patientmegan: Yeah the activin pathway thing was my worry also, you can't just poke one part of it without something else going off. The squat tanking is real, I saw similar on mine, around the 6 week mark I think my deadlift just felt flat and I was eating what I thought was enough but probably wasn't. 6 per kilo seems to be the number most people land on no? Did you track yours with bloodwork at all or just going by feel?
  • theo_s: Tbh lean mass on glp1s is basically a "did you eat and lift" problem in disguise. Pills wont fix a skipped lunch. Also your cut off at "the lean mass stuff s" is killing me, finish the sentence man.
  • patientmegan: Haha, sorry for that cutoff. My internet is acting up today only. I meant that the lean mass stuff is usually ignored until people see the scale drop too fast. I basically agree with you. I am thinking that protein and gym is the only real way. But for people who cannot lift heavy, it feels like a gap. Do you think protein alone is enough, or is some kind of peptide actually needed for those who cannot train?

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.