Peptides for People: The Difference Between Evidence and Hype

We're going to start out this week with more exciting news about the peptide class of medications known as GLP-1s.

Things like Zipfam, Wegovi, Manjaro, and the next generation of drugs like Ritutide, which continue to show benefits and go well beyond weight loss and diabetes.

This week, researchers looked at cancer risk, psoriasis, chronic kidney disease, pregnancy, and even knee replacement surgery.

Every few weeks, we seem to discover another condition that improves when metabolic health improves.

The cancer paper caught my eyes because it was published in the Annals of Oncology.

Researchers found lower rates of several obesity-related cancer among patients taking GLP-1 medications.

Now before someone runs to social media and declares these drugs cure cancer, that's not exactly what the study showed.

What it showed is something we continue to learn over and over again.

Obesity isn't simply a cosmetic issue.

It affects inflammation, hormones, metabolism, and cancer risk.

Improve one, and you improve the others.

Another paper looked at psoriasis.

Now, that may sound odd until you remember that psoriasis is an inflammatory disease.

The review in Frontiers in Immunology suggested GLP-1 medications may help reduce disease severity.

Again, the common thread, inflammation.

Researchers also reported improvement in the quality of life among patients with chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes who take semaglutide, which is the GLP-1.

Now, kidney disease remains one of the leading causes of death in this country.

And as physicians, we focus on laboratory numbers.

Patients focus on whether they can get out of a chair, walk further, hurt less, and enjoy life.

Those outcomes matter.

But the study that surprised many people involved knee replacement surgery.

Those patients who take a GLP1 medication had lower rates of knee replacement.

Now the easy explanation is weight loss.

Less weight means less force across the damaged joint.

but the benefit appeared earlier than weight loss alone would explain.