#3,303 – Ozempic Without the Side Effects

Thanks to AI we may have just discovered something similar to the popular weight loss drug Ozempic that would deliver all the same benefits without any of the side effects.

New Atlas explains:

“Despite all its promise, however, Ozempic does come with a range of side effects. These can range from relatively mild symptoms like nausea, diarrhea and dizziness to more serious effects like gallbladder disease, hypoglycemia, and pancreatitis. The drug has even been linked to suicidal ideation and up to a sevenfold increase in a rare form of blindness known as an ‘eye stroke.’

So, researchers led by a team at Stanford Medicine set out to see if they could find a natural alternative to semaglutide that would deliver its weight-loss benefits while reducing or eliminating its side effects. To do so, they focused on prohormones, biologically inert protein molecules that become active when they are chopped up into smaller parts called peptides by other protein molecules. Some of these peptides function as hormones in the body.

The researchers developed an algorithm called Peptide Predictor that analyzed thousands of genes that encode prohormones, and more specifically looked at the sites where each could be carved up by the action of outside proteins. This led them to find a small peptide named BRP which consists of only 12 amino acids yet increased the action of neuronal cells in the brain tenfold over controls. Developing a drug that only works in the brain, they reasoned, would be an improvement over Ozempic, which works throughout the whole body.”

And since it only works in the brain and not the whole body there aren’t the same side effects. A huge boon to any of the thousands of people already taking Ozempic and anyone else interested in joining them down the road.

Not only is this discovery huge for the likely impact it will have on our health, but it also points to the role that AI will play in scientific research going forward. Serving as a tool that we can set on finding a solution to a targeted problem that we have, coming up with a solution far quicker than humans ever could. Thanks AI!

Did AI just find a better version of Ozempic?