Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s, are injectable medications that work by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone that your small intestine makes in response to food.<\/p>\n
[7]<\/p>\n
GLP-1s are medications for type 2 diabetes and weight management that are injected daily or weekly. Sometimes GLP-1s that are approved for type 2 diabetes can be prescribed off-label for weight loss. \u201cOff-label\u201d means that the drug is being prescribed for a condition that it was not originally designed for. You should only take a drug off-label if your doctor gives you a full exam, knows your medical history, and thinks it\u2019s a good idea for you, says Pichamol Jirapinyo, MD, MPH<\/a>, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and the cofounder of Bariendo<\/a>\u00a0weight loss clinics.The drugs mimic the action of an incretin hormone, or gut peptide, called GLP-1, which is secreted by the small intestine.<\/p>\n [8]<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cOur bodies have a natural process that kicks in after we eat, releasing a hormone from the small intestine called GLP-1,\u201d says Michelle Pearlman, MD<\/a>, a board-certified gastroenterologist and obesity medicine specialist with Prime Institute in Coral Gables, Florida. \u201cThis hormone plays a crucial role in managing our insulin levels and blood sugar and sends signals back to our brain to tell us that we are full.\u201dGLP-1 helps to regulate blood sugar by encouraging more insulin to be released from the pancreas, says Monica Amin, PharmD<\/a>, a pharmacist at Marley Drug and Medicure in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. GLP-1 also suppresses glucagon, a hormone that works opposite insulin to keep your blood sugar level from dropping too low.<\/p>\n [8]<\/p>\n \u201cOnce blood sugar levels begin to increase following a meal, these medications help the body increase insulin production, thereby lowering blood sugar levels,\u201d says Amin. \u201cThis decrease in blood sugar levels plays an important role in managing type 2 diabetes and leading to improved glucose control. GLP-1 agonists also cause weight loss by enhancing satiety [feelings of fullness], reducing appetite, and delaying stomach emptying, resulting in decreased calorie intake and potential weight reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n Ibrahim Hanouneh, MD<\/a>, a gastroenterologist and coauthor of Regenerative Health<\/a>, says, \u201cGLP-1 reduces the rate of food absorption from the intestine and takes away the \u2018hangry\u2019 feeling. Studies also suggest that GLP-1 has a positive impact in patients with fatty liver disease, and we anticipate using this medication for management of fatty liver disease in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s, are injectable medications that work by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone that your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,377],"class_list":{"0":"post-395556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}