Global Ozempic shortage fix: Cheaper, faster method produces 10x more
By Paul McClure
March 12, 2024
https://newatlas.com/medical/novel-semaglutide-analog/
Manufacturing the groundbreaking and extremely popular diabetes and weight-loss drug semaglutide – Ozempic, Wegovy – is a complex, slow process. Amid ongoing global shortages, researchers have developed a cheaper, faster method that produces ten times more of a therapeutically similar version of the in-demand drug.
The effectiveness of semaglutide, sold as the diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss drug Wegovy, contributed to its overwhelming popularity and huge demand. This led to global shortages throughout 2022–23, which maker Novo Nordisk says will likely continue into this year. The shortage has particularly affected type 2 diabetics who rely on semaglutide to keep their blood glucose levels under control and are left searching for suitable alternatives.
Researchers at The Florey Institute in Melbourne, Australia, may have discovered a way of addressing the critical shortage, developing a method of production of a drug analog that has the same therapeutic effects as semaglutide. Their novel production method is not only cost-effective and simpler but produces far more of the drug.
An "anti-hunger" molecule produced after vigorous exercise is responsible for the moderate weight loss caused by the diabetes medication metformin, according to a new study in mice and humans. The molecule, lac-phe, was discovered by Stanford Medicine researchers in 2022.
The finding, made jointly by researchers at Stanford Medicine and at Harvard Medical School, further cements the critical role the molecule, called lac-phe, plays in metabolism, exercise and appetite. It may pave the way to a new class of weight loss drugs.
"Until now, the way metformin, which is prescribed to control blood sugar levels, also brings about weight loss has been unclear," said Jonathan Long, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pathology. "Now we know that it is acting through the same pathway as vigorous exercise to reduce hunger. Understanding how these pathways are controlled may lead to viable strategies to lower body mass and improve health in millions of people."
Long and Mark Benson, MD, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, are co-senior authors of the study, which was published in Nature Metabolism. Postdoctoral scholar Shuke Xiao, Ph.D., is the lead author of the study.
Many people with diabetes who are prescribed metformin lose around 2% to 3% of their body weight within the first year of starting the drug. Although this amount of weight loss is modest when compared with the 15% or more often seen by people taking semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, the discoveries that led to those drugs also grew from observations of relatively minor, but reproducible, weight loss in people taking first-generation versions of the medications.
Post-workout appetite loss
When Long and colleagues at Baylor University discovered lac-phe in 2022, they were on the hunt for small molecules responsible for curtailing hunger after vigorous exercise. What they found was a Frankenbaby of lactate—a byproduct of muscle fatigue—and an amino acid called phenylalanine. They dubbed the hybrid molecule lac-phe and went on to show that it's not only more abundant after exercise but it also causes people (as well as mice and even racehorses) to feel less hungry immediately after a hard workout.
Kombucha microbes break down fat stores like fasting – without the effort
By Bronwyn Thompson
April 03, 2024
It may not be to everyone's taste, but kombucha tea may be able to deliver the benefits of fasting, without the hardest part – the fasting itself. Researchers found that the when the yeasts and bacteria from the fermented, sweetened tea colonized the gut, they altered fat metabolism, without any other dietary changes, resulting in lower fat stores.
At the center of these findings is the flora found in kombucha tea's SCOBY (Symbiotic Cultures of Bacteria and Yeasts), the gelatinous starter, rich in microbes, found floating near the surface of the fermented liquid. The probiotic microbes, including species of Acetobacter, Lactobacillus and Komagataeibacter genera, have previously been linked to a range of positive health benefits including lowering blood pressure.
A study led by Medical Research Council (MRC) researchers has identified genetic variants in two genes that have some of the largest impacts on obesity risk discovered to date.
The discovery of rare variants in the genes BSN and APBA1 are some of the first obesity-related genes identified for which the increased risk of obesity is not observed until adulthood.
The study, published in Nature Genetics, was led by researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit at the Institute of Metabolic Science, both based at the University of Cambridge.
