Weight loss drugs can help shed the kilos, but they also strip away muscle. Now a world first Australian study has shown how lifting weights can limit that loss and make patients stronger.
Doctors now say exercise must be part of any prescription.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Weight loss drugs need exercise to preserve muscle
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
Dropping kilos, picking up weights. David Burchett and Stephen Johnson combined weight loss jabs with some heavy lifting.
“I felt so much stronger at the end of the trial than I did at the very beginning,” Burchett said.
Johnson lost more than 25kg. He’s still hitting the gym.
“If you don’t do the physical training, you’re selling yourself short,” Johnson said.
Researchers at the University of Western Australia wanted to know if exercise could stop muscle loss during rapid weight loss.
“It’s the first time in the world anyone has done a study like this,” endocrinologist Professor Bu Yeap said.
They tracked 120 adults taking Mounjaro for 40 weeks. Half did strength training. Both groups shed around 22kg.
But those training lost a quarter less lean tissue.
“And the group who did resistance training actually got stronger and more functional,” Professor Daniel Green said.
Doctors say prescribing the jab is only part of the job. They’re now calling for exercise to be prescribed alongside it, especially strength training to counter frailty.
“Frailty is a really bad thing as you get older because it can make you unstable, it can lead to falls,” Green said.
“We should probably be encouraging everyone to do resistance exercise,” Yeap said.
And you don’t need a gym membership.
“You can do lunges, you can do push-ups, you can do things that use your own body weight,” Green said.
