Scientists say they’ve come up with a way for the body to produce its own store of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).GLP-1 is the naturally produced hormone whose function is being mimicked by drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide, the active ingredients in popular and highly effective weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound.As CNN reports, two biotech startups are working on gene therapy treatments that would require, in a best-case scenario, a single injection that would reprogram the body’s cells to produce the hormone instead of relying on weekly injections like current drugs. The idea is to coax existing cells into producing the hormone, reaping the benefits of GLP-1 drugs without ongoing treatment.Both companies have already shown that the approach works in mice and are already testing it on larger animals, including pigs and monkeys. However, whether the human body can also benefit from the approach remains to be seen. It could take years of more research to determine whether it works, let alone if it’s safe.But the upsides could be significant. According to recent Gallup data, the use of GLP-1 injectables has doubled in the United States in the last year alone. Promisingly, obesity rates have also started to decline since 2022, with experts suspicious that GLP-1 drugs have contributed to the trend.The effects aren’t just cosmetic, either. Besides leading to weight loss, the injectables have also been shown to ward off chronic diseases, help control blood sugar, lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart disease, and improve kidney health.The news comes after the Trump administration announced huge government-mediated discounts on GLP-1s.This week, biotech company Fractyl presented its latest results of a new gene therapy, dubbed Rejuva, finding that obese mice treated with the therapy lost roughly 20 percent of their body weight within just three weeks. Normal-weight mice also didn’t gain any weight and maintained healthy blood sugar levels after being treated and given a high-fat diet.“It outperformed semaglutide,” Fractyl Health cofounder and CEO Harith Rajagopalan told CNN.The approach works by using a small virus that can insert DNA instructions on how to produce GLP-1 into cells.“Because we are delivering it locally, we believe that we will need a very low dose of this virus, which helps gives us confidence in the potential safety in people,” Rajagopalan explained.However, experts warn that such an approach in humans would likely be irreversible and could lead to long-term issues in the pancreas, which is responsible for blood sugar control.Fractyl competitor RenBio uses a different approach, by including the DNA instructions to make GLP-1 in a saline solution, which is then injected into muscle tissue. Short electrical pulses then allow the instructions to be delivered directly into cells, effectively “using the cell’s own machinery to turn it into a protein factory,” per CNN.Mice injected with the solution lost roughly 15 percent of their body weight, significantly more than mice in a placebo group, and kept the weight off for at least a year. Blood sugar level regulation improved as well.While Rajagopalan hopes to see “human data in the next year,” a long road remains to a potential human treatment.“There’s a long way to go before you get there, and we can’t minimize the work involved,” Rajagopalan told CNN. “I mean, that’s equivalent to saying we’re going to colonize Mars, in terms of the magnitude of effort involved to get there.”“But why not aspire to aspire to that,” he added.More on GLP-1s: Trump Strikes Deal to Offer Americans GLP-1 Drugs for Much CheaperThe post Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out a Way to Reprogram the Pancreas to Produce GLP-1s Without Ozempic appeared first on Futurism.