{"id":384168,"date":"2026-04-17T12:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T12:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/384168\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T12:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T12:14:12","slug":"tirzepatide-linked-to-more-lean-mass-loss-than-semaglutide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/384168\/","title":{"rendered":"Tirzepatide linked to more lean mass loss than semaglutide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tirzepatide delivers more weight loss than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.emjreviews.com\/emj-gold\/news\/novo-nordisk-launches-higher-dose-semaglutide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">semaglutide<\/a> \u2013 but it may also cost patients more muscle, according to a new real-world analysis published this week.<\/p>\n<p>The study<\/p>\n<p>The research, by US-based data analytics firm nference and posted to medRxiv ahead of peer review, tracked body composition in approximately 8,000 patients \u2013 around 1,800 on\u00a0 Eli Lilly\u2019s tirzepatide and 6,200 on Novo Nordisk\u2019s semaglutide. Those on tirzepatide lost an average of 1.1% more lean body mass at three months and 2% more at twelve months.<\/p>\n<p>The difference was most striking at the top end of weight loss. Among patients who lost more than 20% of their body weight, roughly one in 10 on tirzepatide experienced a lean mass reduction exceeding 5%, compared with fewer than 7% of semaglutide patients achieving the same overall weight loss.<\/p>\n<p>The implication<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis suggests that patients shouldn\u2019t simplistically be thinking, \u2018I want to lose X amount of weight and I\u2019ll go with the option that delivers greater weight loss,&#8217;\u201d Venky Soundararajan, Founder and CEO, nference, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>The finding matters because lean body mass \u2013 encompassing muscle, bone and organ tissue \u2013 is central to long-term metabolic health, physical function and healthy ageing. Significant lean mass loss, particularly in older patients, raises concerns about sarcopenia, frailty and reduced quality of life well beyond the treatment period.<\/p>\n<p>The exercise factor<\/p>\n<p>Exercise emerged as a critical variable. Reduced exercise tolerance was associated with greater lean mass decline in both groups, but the effect was more pronounced among tirzepatide-treated patients. Higher doses, longer treatment duration and pre-existing musculoskeletal conditions each compounded the risk across both therapies.<\/p>\n<p>Soundararajan told Reuters: \u201cIf you\u2019re not exercising when you\u2019re on these medicines, you are essentially causing attrition of lean body mass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What next?<\/p>\n<p>The cause may be linked to differences in mechanism \u2013 tirzepatide is a dual GLP-1\/GIP receptor agonist, while semaglutide targets GLP-1 alone \u2013 but the study does not identify a biological explanation for the difference in lean mass loss, indicating that further investigation is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tirzepatide delivers more weight loss than semaglutide \u2013 but it may also cost patients more muscle, according to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-384168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}