Metabolic & Weight
20 stories
Orforglipron Reaches Deep Into the Brain's Reward Circuit and Turns the Dopamine Down
In mice engineered with human GLP-1 receptors, the new oral pills reached the central amygdala, a deep reward hub, and thinned the dopamine payoff of eating for pleasure. The government's addiction institute is already watching.
Metabolic & WeightThe GLP-1s That Barely Move the Scale Don't Cause Hair Loss, and That's the Clue Everyone Missed
Women on semaglutide shed hair at about twice the rate of men, and the weakest GLP-1s show almost no signal, which points the cause away from the follicle and straight at how fast the weight comes off.
Metabolic & WeightA Gut Microbe Was Feeding Ammonia to Sick Livers. A Michigan Peptide Cut Off the Supply in Monkeys.
The compound reversed severe fatty liver in monkeys by starving one ammonia-making gut bacterium. It also comes from a company its lead inventor founded, and no human has taken it for this.
Metabolic & WeightThe Mice Ate More and Got Leaner. The Switch Was One Amino Acid, Turned Down.
USC mice on a low-protein, methionine-tuned diet ate as many calories as the junk-food group and still lost fat, while their own bodies pumped out more GLP-1. The scientist behind it also owns the company selling longevity diets.
Metabolic & WeightBoth Groups Lost the Same Seven Kilos. Only the Calorie Counters Had to White-Knuckle It.
In an 18-month Adelaide trial, fasting and daily calorie-cutting stripped off the same seven kilos, but for the counters part of that loss ran on constant conscious restraint the fasters' scores never showed.
Metabolic & WeightFor Forty Years He Said the Standard Cholesterol Target Was Wrong. A Computer Finally Agreed.
A Northwestern model projects that the little-used apoB test would prevent more heart attacks and strokes than the LDL number your doctor chases. And non-HDL, a number already printed free on your standard lab report, beat LDL too. No trial has tested any of it on a patient.
Metabolic & WeightOld Muscle Forgets How to Clean Itself. A Gene Called DEAF1 Is Why, and Exercise Silences It.
In aging muscle one gene keeps the growth pathway jammed on and the cleanup crew locked out. Exercise suppresses it in flies and mice, no pill required.
Metabolic & WeightThe Kratom Crackdown Its Biggest Trade Defenders Wanted
A concentrated 7-OH compound reported at up to 40 times morphine's receptor potency is sold in gas stations as herbal kratom. The plant's biggest trade defenders are cheering the DEA for banning it.
Metabolic & WeightSwitch Off One Protein Called Mitch, and Cells Start Eating Their Own Fat
Women with obesity carry more of it. Disable it in mice and they turn lean and muscular at once, the opposite of what the injectable weight-loss drugs do to your body.
Metabolic & WeightObesity Stopped Denting Older Adults' Metabolic Numbers: In the Young It's Biting Harder Than Ever
For middle-aged and older adults, extra weight no longer tracks with the cardiovascular damage it once did. For the young, the same fat is biting harder and earlier. The lab panels converged; the fat didn't.
Metabolic & WeightSame Calories, Different Wiring: Why Fructose Leaves Your Hunger Neurons Running
Glucose flips off the brain cells that drive hunger. Fructose barely nudges them, and the corn-syrup blend in your soda quiets them even better, which is exactly why it's so easy to keep drinking.
Metabolic & WeightThe Belly Fat You Gain After 40 Comes From a Cell That Barely Existed in Your Twenties
Transplant old fat stem cells into a young mouse and they keep churning out fat; young ones in an old mouse stay quiet. In mice, the fat-making program travels with the cell, not the body around it.
Metabolic & WeightThe Obesity 'Revolution' Everyone's Promising Comes From People Who'd Cash In On It
A new commentary says the GLP-1 era is just the prelude to a bigger obesity "revolution." The authors have direct financial stakes in what comes next, and the celebrated new pill loses less weight than the shot.
Metabolic & WeightYour Kidneys Are Quietly Failing. The WHO's Plan Skips What's Actually Killing Them.
The Lancet is pushing fast implementation of the first WHO kidney resolution, which expands screening and treatment access while leaving the ultraprocessed food and sugar driving the global CKD doubling untouched.
Metabolic & WeightSleep apnea's heart damage may run through the gut, not the airway
Researchers at UCSD report that knocking out a single bile-acid receptor abolishes the arterial plaque sleep-apnea conditions would otherwise drive in mice. The mechanism fits the CPAP era's underwhelming trial record better than the airway story ever did.
Metabolic & WeightLilly's triple agonist hit 30% weight loss. The glucagon bet is why.
Lilly's triple agonist hit nearly 30% weight loss at 104 weeks at ADA 2026. The glucagon bet is what makes retatrutide different from semaglutide and Mounjaro, and it's what makes the open safety signals different too.
Metabolic & WeightRetatrutide's Triple-Receptor Triumph Came With a One-in-Five Skin-Sensation Signal Nobody Wanted to Linger On
Eli Lilly's investigational retatrutide hit bariatric-surgery-level weight loss at ADA 2026. The highest-dose arm of TRIUMPH-4 also saw 20.9% of patients report abnormal skin sensations, and a small cardiac imbalance turned up in the type-2 trial. Both got far less stage time than the headline numbe
Metabolic & WeightThe Oral GLP-1 Race Just Got a Third Serious Contender, and Its Curve Was Still Climbing
Structure Therapeutics' once-daily oral GLP-1 aleniglipron hit 11.3 percent placebo-adjusted weight loss at 36 weeks and kept climbing in the open label. The catch: oral semaglutide and orforglipron already cleared the FDA.
Metabolic & WeightThe Ozempic 'Resistance' Headline the Data Didn't Quite Earn
A new study identifies PAM-gene variants tied to weaker six-month HbA1c response to GLP-1 diabetes drugs, but the 'why Ozempic may not work' framing imports a weight-loss conclusion the paper doesn't reach, and the buried trials that used longer-acting GLP-1 drugs showed no carrier effect at all.
Metabolic & WeightA gut hormone keeps showing up in the brain's reward circuit, and 600,000 veterans just gave us the biggest hint yet that it matters
A VA cohort of 606,000 diabetic veterans on GLP-1 drugs showed lower risks of new substance use disorders and large drops in overdose and drug-related death versus a peer diabetes drug. The mechanism story is where it gets interesting.