In a recently published Nature Medicine article, Dr. John Batsis and colleagues discussed unintended risks of sarcopenic obesity during weight-loss interventions in older people. According to Batsis, drugs being prescribed to older adults for weight loss (incretin mimetic drugs or GLP-1s) do reduce fat, but may reduce muscle as well.
Consequently, preserving muscle in older adults, especially those taking these medications, is crucial to their physical health and well being. As the article says, “Sarcopenic obesity is consistently associated with worse physical function, lower quality of life and higher mortality than either sarcopenia or obesity alone.”