Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
The muscle energy improvement wasn’t because people lost weight or got more active — it seemed to be linked directly to IGF-I levels instead.
Correlational
Before starting the study, both the drug group and the placebo group had the same muscle energy recovery ability, so any later differences weren’t due to starting out differently.
Descriptive
Even though the drug raised IGF-I levels, it didn’t make the muscle energy recovery noticeably better than the placebo — so the effect might be subtle or only show up in certain people.
Quantitative
After a year of taking tesamorelin, obese people with low growth hormone had much higher levels of IGF-I than those who took a sugar pill — proving the drug works as intended.
Even when accounting for differences in weight, fitness, and blood sugar, the more IGF-I went up, the better the muscle energy recovery — meaning IGF-I likely has a direct role.
In people who took tesamorelin, the more their IGF-I levels went up, the better their muscles recovered after exercise — and this link was even stronger than in the whole group.
When obese people with low growth hormone took a drug called tesamorelin for a year, their muscle energy recovery got better, which means their muscle cells may have become better at making energy.
The fat gets healthier-looking on scans even if the amount of fat doesn’t change — the drug is improving the fat itself, not just shrinking it.
Causal
Even if your fat started out looking healthier or less healthy on the scan, the drug still made it denser — the effect doesn’t depend on where you started.
The fat got healthier-looking on scans after 6 months of treatment, and there’s no sign the effect faded — it lasted the whole time.
If the drug doesn’t shrink your belly fat by 8%, it won’t make your fat healthier-looking on scans — you have to respond to the drug for this benefit.
Doctors use CT scans to measure how dense fat is — denser fat means the fat cells are smaller and healthier, even if you can’t see them directly.
The study mostly included men who are white — so we don’t know if the drug works the same way in women or people of other races.
If the drug doesn’t shrink your belly fat by at least 8%, it won’t make your fat look healthier on scans — you have to respond to the drug for this benefit.
The drug makes the fat around the organs healthier-looking on scans more than the fat under the skin — it works better on belly fat than on thigh or arm fat.
Before treatment, the fat under the skin looked just as healthy on scans in both the drug and placebo groups — so any changes later were caused by the drug.
Before starting the drug, the fat quality in the group that got the drug was just like the group that got the placebo — so any differences later were due to the treatment.
Only HIV patients whose belly fat shrinks by at least 8% after taking this drug also get healthier-looking fat on scans — others don’t benefit in this way.
The fat under the skin gets denser and healthier-looking on scans even when the amount of that fat doesn’t change much — the drug is improving its quality directly.
Even when scientists account for how much belly fat was lost, the fat that’s left still gets denser and healthier-looking on scans — meaning the drug is doing something beyond just shrinking fat.
The same drug that reduces belly fat in HIV patients also makes the fat under the skin denser and healthier-looking on scans, even when the amount of fat doesn’t change much.
For HIV patients with belly fat who respond to this drug, the fat becomes denser and healthier-looking on scans after 6 months of treatment, even if the amount of fat doesn’t change much.
MOTS-c didn’t make mice move more, so its effects on weight and metabolism aren’t just because they were exercising more.
MOTS-c made mouse cells break down more fat for fuel, as shown by higher levels of fat-burning byproducts and lower levels of stored fats.