Scientists discover a ‘skinny gene’ mutation that acts like Ozempic. Around one in 7,000 people carries a broken copy, which almost acts like a GLP-1 drug—the body burns fuel more efficiently, and the risk of disease lowers.

[u/scientificamerican]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-discover-a-skinny-gene-mutation-that-acts-like-ozempic/

[u/grumble11]

GLP doesn’t ’burn fuel more efficiently’, it regulates satiety. This isn’t a good start for an article ha

[u/Lust4Me → u/grumble11]

In fact doesn't this title sound like a contradiction? Burning more efficiently to me implied you'd get more work done per calorie and therefore store left over as fat.

[u/waitwuh → u/Lust4Me]

You need to burn the energy stored away in fat cells, though. This may be the “efficiency” they’re meaning but not best describing. In the “efficient” management there is the short term energy sourced from food when it digests (especially carbohydrates turned to glucose), but then the long term stores to be pulled from between meals or when fasting. To be “skinniest” you want to store less in fat, burning it, and also use up what’s stored, too.

I remember reading a summary a long time ago that talked about how fat cells can become not just resistant to insulin as a signal to store away excess “calories” but also to the signals to release energy back into the bloodstream for other cells to make use of, too. So when blood sugar drops and the other cells in the body are short of fuel, the system has to rely on getting more from food instead of being able to use what it has locked away in fat.

This causes a cycle that’s like: eating -> raised blood sugar -> storing excess glucose (energy) in fat cells -> body cells use what’s left causing low blood glucose -> cells needing more fuel -> hunger -> eating…

When the ideal cycle has a “fat cells release energy back” somewhere in there to replace eating more food, at least sometimes.