Even though muscles get better at using sugar after weight loss, the amount of the GLUT4 sugar transporter protein in the muscle doesn’t change — so something else must be making it work better.

40

Pro

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

40

Community contributions welcome

40

Restoration of insulin responsiveness in skeletal muscle of morbidly obese patients after weight loss. Effect on muscle glucose transport and glucose transporter GLUT4.

Cohort Study

Human

1992 Feb

After losing a lot of weight, obese patients became more sensitive to insulin—but their muscle cells didn’t make more of the GLUT4 protein that helps move sugar into cells. So, the improvement wasn’t because they made more of this protein, which is what the claim says.

Contradicting (0)

0

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No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Restoration of insulin responsiveness in skeletal muscle of morbidly obese patients after weight loss. Effect on muscle glucose transport and glucose transporter GLUT4.

Score: 40

DOI: 10.1172/JCI115638

Similar Assertions

Even people with type 2 diabetes can see their muscles start working like healthy muscles again after losing a lot of weight — and it’s not because they make more sugar transporters, but because the ones they have work better.

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After losing weight, muscles get better at using sugar not because they make more GLUT4 proteins, but because the existing proteins move to the right place or work better.

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When very overweight people lose a lot of weight, their muscles get much better at using insulin to pull sugar out of the blood, which helps fix their diabetes or prediabetes.

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When people are extremely overweight, their muscles are much worse at pulling sugar out of the blood — even when insulin is present — but this gets much better after they lose weight.

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When you exercise, your muscles make more of a protein called GLUT4 that helps pull sugar from your blood. This is the strongest known way to increase this protein, and it helps your body use sugar better and store more energy in your muscles, whether you're healthy or have a disease.

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71%