In a specific type of diabetic rat, a 7-day course of an SGLT2 inhibitor lowers triglyceride levels in muscle and blood but does not affect triglyceride levels in the liver or overall body weight.

We analyzed one study on diabetic rats and found that a 7-day course of an SGLT2 inhibitor lowered triglyceride levels in muscle tissue and plasma — the liquid part of blood — without changing triglyceride levels in the liver or the rats’ overall body weight [1]. This single observation suggests that, under these specific conditions, the drug may selectively reduce fat in certain tissues without altering liver fat or total weight. The evidence we’ve reviewed so far does not show any contradiction to this finding. However, this result comes from just one study using a specific type of diabetic rat, and we don’t yet know if the same pattern would appear in other rat models, different doses, longer treatment periods, or in humans. Triglycerides are a type of fat that moves through the blood and can build up in tissues like muscle; lowering them there might help with how the body uses energy, but we can’t say yet what this means for health outcomes. We also don’t know if the liver remained unchanged because the drug doesn’t act there, or because the study was too short to see changes. Body weight staying the same suggests the reduction in muscle and blood fat wasn’t due to overall fat loss. What we’ve found so far is limited but consistent: in this one case, the drug lowered muscle and plasma triglycerides without affecting liver fat or body weight. More studies would be needed to see if this pattern holds under different conditions. For now, this is a single data point that points toward a possible tissue-specific effect — but we can’t say if it’s reliable or generalizable.