Ozempic, Aging Adults, and the Fight for Lean Tissue

The biggest conversation in fitness at this time is longevity. That makes perfect sense. After all, a revolution in strength and conditioning began twenty years ago with the rise of the internet, CrossFit, and a sharing (and blending) of movement practices that the world has never seen. 

Those pioneers are now twenty years older and their eyes are on the horizon: aging. 

What’s emerged as the ubiquitous leading concept about increasing health span is lean muscle tissue. Period. The combination of the natural decline in lean body mass and the preventative power of carrying muscle tissue both in terms of practical mobility (which combats mortality rates) and the metabolic health it provides makes for a proverbial double whammy of importance for men and women in their 40s and 50s and beyond. 

There’s both growing popularity in medical weight loss interventions, like Ozempic, and concern for what this might mean in the future for these patients. While I’m not an MD, some would agree with my assertion that in some extreme cases, an intervention that drives down obesity acutely may be net positive that simply having less body mass could be a short-sided (dare I say misguided) approach. 

What if instead the aging population focused on building and maintaining muscle mass? This would have obvious positive effects on obesity but would improve metabolic health and one’s ability to stave off the degradation we see in the body’s ability to move with autonomy into later stages of life. 

One key critique of the Ozempic phenomenon that’s not talked about enough is that while “it’s working” in the sense that patients lose body mass, it’s worth noting that they are losing this mass from both fat and muscle tissue. The question is, can aging adults afford to lose lean muscle tissue? 

I don’t think we can.