Grant: CIHR Fellowship

We want to understand how a medicine called semaglutide (Ozempic®), which helps people lose weight and treat type 2 diabetes, affects how their bodies use energy. When a person loses weight, their body slows down, and they feel hungrier, making it hard to keep the weight off. Semaglutide seems promising at controlling appetite and reducing weight, but how it affects how our bodies burn calories is still a debate. To date, no medication safely approved by Health Canada targets energy metabolism, an important factor for weight loss and maintenance. Studies in animals and initial studies in humans make us believe that Ozempic® may positively affect energy metabolism, but further studies with adequate methodology are needed to confirm this. We are proposing a study with 20 people with obesity and type 2 diabetes using semaglutide recommended dose for obesity once weekly for 6 months, and we will evaluate how their bodies use energy in different situations such as resting, exercising, after eating, and while they are sleeping. We will use gold-standard methods to measure energy metabolism, available only at 2 centers in Canada. Energy metabolism will be evaluated both in a controlled chamber (like a hotel room) where individuals stay for 24 hours and in daily living while performing usual activities. We will also explore other health factors like muscle mass quantity and quality, and blood exams. We are particularly interested in discovering if Ozempic® can prevent the body from slowing down its energy use after weight loss. We expect to find out if Ozempic® can be a better treatment for people who struggle with losing weight and managing diabetes (called slow burners), especially for different types of obesity who do not respond well to traditional treatments, such as nutrition and exercise. Thus, our findings could help the development of more personalized treatments contributing to the fight against the exponential increase of obesity and type 2 diabetes worldwide.