The Science of Ozempic
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Show Me The Science with Professor Luke O'Neill, a Newstalk original podcast. Hello, Luke O'Neill here, and welcome to Show Me The Science. Now, this week in a request, and I'm very happy to take requests. I've got about 20 lined up, though, sadly. So apologies to people who might be waiting for me to cover it, but I will get to them. Many of them are fantastic suggestions. Very happy to get them.
And my email is laoneal, with two L's, at tcd.ie. That's my work email in Trinity. And do please send me in a request. And if I can feel I can cover it, I will. I'll do my best. And this one came in.
The person didn't want their name read out, so that's fine. This is The Science of Ozempic Manjaro GLP-1, and more broadly, The Science of Peptides. Now, anybody who watches sort of developments with cosmetics and supplements and all sorts of things will have come across this phrase, peptides. And this person says, well, look, what is a peptide? And what are these peptides doing? And they'd spotted that things like GLP-1 and Ozempic are peptides. So is it all the same or whatever? So I'm very happy to cover it because it does get a bit complicated. And there's an awful lot of nonsense, let's get that out there, of peptides doing certain things, allegedly claims on them, slowing down ageing, making your muscles stronger, speeding up recovery after injury, boosting your mood.
You'll see all this, you know, people trying to flog peptides to do these things. And the truth is, most of that stuff is maybe true, but there's limited evidence to support a lot of it. Where there is massive evidence, of course, is the semaglutides, which are peptides. And that would include things like Ozempic, Wago v. Mount Jaro. They're all words we all now know. Isn't it amazing? Everybody seems to have heard, of course, heard of these things because they're being used so commonly. And they work. That's the sound end of the world of peptides, by the way. Millions of people are on them for diabetes and weight loss. They're the two big things that you take semaglutides for. And then they've been in the news and maybe this person
I've seen this as a new member. It's called retatrutide.
What is the science behind Ozempic and GLP-1?
It's been given the name Godzilla. It's having a huge effect on weight loss and it's much more stronger than the other ones. And I'm going to mention that a little bit as well as we go along. Now, of course, what's very important is these ones, the things like ozempic and so on, they're very tightly regulated. They've been examined by the FDA in America. and the EMA in Europe, and they've been approved for use, which means that all the evidence is there, clinical trials, both on efficacy and safety, so we're on very firm ground with them, hence the approval of them. The other ones, very few have been approved and very few have been examined in that way, and very few have been proven to work and be safe, so you've got to be careful.
Now, let's define what peptides are. Well, biochemists, and I am a biochemist at heart, are very familiar with peptides. They're bits of proteins. So proteins are made up of things called amino acids. And you have 20 different amino acids in your body. And think of them like beads on a string. And they all get attached together like a big thing on a necklace. And then it twists into a shape, and that's a protein. Okay, so proteins are made... of string, a string containing loads of amino acids. Now, because there's 20, it's very complicated. Each amino acid is different. You might have one type here, a second type there, two types next, you know. So you end up with this huge diversity of proteins. And remember, in your body, proteins are critical because they do all the various things because they're all so different, made of the different amino acids.
They'll digest your food. Their collagen, that's a protein in your joints. Antibodies in your immune system, they're proteins as well. So these really are the workhorses of life and they're made of all these amino acids all stitched together on a chain and then folded up into a shape that gives the protein this function.
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