GLP-1-Medikamente zur Gewichtsreduktion sind ein wichtiges Instrument, aber neue Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass sie körperliche Betätigung nicht ersetzen können. Menschen mit schwerer Fettleibigkeit, die regelmäßig Sport treiben, haben gesündere Blutgefäße und weniger Entzündungen als diejenigen, die nur auf GLP-1-Medikamente zur Gewichtsreduktion angewiesen sind.
https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2026/07/exercise-improves-cardiovascular-health-more-than-weight-loss-medication-after-weight-loss/
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**After weight loss, exercise improves cardiovascular health more than weight-loss medication**
**PHYSICAL ACTIVITY People with severe obesity who exercise regularly have healthier blood vessels and lower inflammation than those who rely on medication alone, a new study from the University of Copenhagen shows.**

A new study from the University of Copenhagen shows that exercise plays a crucial role in cardiovascular health – even after significant weight loss.
Those who exercised developed healthier blood vessels and lower inflammation. While medication alone helped maintain weight loss, it did not improve vascular health.
Participants who exercised saw a 6–7% reduction in artery wall thickness. There was no improvement in the liraglutide-only or placebo groups.
Levels of several inflammatory markers also fell among the physically active participants. Chronic inflammation is a key driver of cardiovascular disease.
„Medication can help maintain weight loss, but exercise provides additional health benefits that we do not see with medication alone,“ says Rasmus Sandsdal, medical doctor and PhD student at the Department of Biomedical Sciences and first author of the study.
**Medication should not stand alone**
„Weight-loss medication is an important tool, but our results indicate that it cannot replace exercise. Physical activity remains essential for protecting the heart and blood vessels,“ says Signe Torekov.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-026-01554-4
Surprise! Losing weight but doing nothing to maintain healthy weight without drugs means you are still unhealthy
Wouldn’t same apply to just weight loss via diet? I don’t think this is about GLP-1 specifically, but in general loss of weight without exercise.
Edit: typo.
Another article to allow the anti GLP1 people fuel for their bias. Any healthy method of weight loss plus exercise is going to be better than just weight loss. That being said, weight loss from GLP-1s has allowed millions of people who could not exercise due to excessive weight and its associated issues to begin exercising.
I mean, sure, but we have decades of trying to get everyone to exercise and we just can’t, so for a lot of people this is what we have and, very obviously, the medicine is better than nothing.
Well of course; nobody claimed they were a viable alternative to exercise. Healthy eating isn’t a viable alternative to exercise either, but it’s still good for you.
As someone who uses Ozempic and exercises daily, I concur. What Ozempic can do is get someone down to a comfortable weight which makes exercising easier.
This absolutely smacks of trying to muddy the waters surrounding GLP-1s
I’ve seen this. When I started zepbound, I lost a bunch of weight and then my insurance cut off access so I had to stop.
What I don’t stop was going to the gym 3/4 times a week, even after the meds stopped. I eventually was able to get on foundayo about 4/5 months later, but I never gained the weight back because of this. I went from 350 lbs to 280 lbs and continue to go down from there, slowly but surely.
the exercise you seem to be suggesting might be impossible for someone with heart failure taking these meds – in fact it might kill them. GLP-1 meds and light exercise works well with heart failure, but definitely no spin classes or weights.
Exercise is good. More at 11.
New groundbreaking study shows doing 2 healthy things is better than doing 1 healthy thing!
so does eating less but they want a pill.
Physical activity is healthier than none, more at 11.
It is probably much easier for people to start working out though once they’ve already lost several pounds and they don’t have to lift as much just to move.
I really wish the media would stop calling these „weight loss drugs“. They are (nutrient stimulated ) hormone replacers. They replace hormones that are malfunctioning. The side effect is that weight resets to a new, lower, set-point. (Usually)
What? No one expected that it would.
There are *other* peptides in development though that could theoretically replace exercise, which is pretty exciting.
It’s not a silver bullet. You still have to diet and exercise to maintain fat loss. I’ve lost over 40lbs the “natural” way and watched a coworker of mine gain just as much while on Ozempic because they still eat four donuts for breakfast
I’m genuinely surprised this needed a stand alone study
Sedentary lifestyle gonna get ya one way or another
This is completely consistent with basically all the clinical advice surrounding GLP-1’s since the start.
Being on a GLP-1 is an *opportunity* to make weight loss much more imminently achievable, NOT an instant weight loss button.
It’s like a score multiplier. It makes losing weight through diet and exercise much more achievable, but it doesn’t do it on its own. That’s why its principle prescription basis is diabetes for controlling blood sugar and not weight loss alone. To get the weight loss, you have to make the other lifestyle changes.
I just had a lengthy discussion with one of my preceptors about this exact paper!
Man, every GLP-1 story is like „Yes, this weight loss drug is a literal miracle, but does it also do my taxes and give me blowjobs? Science says no“
I don’t understand people, to be honest. *Obviously* just savaging your digestion to slow down the intake of calories via an injection solves absolutely nothing permanently. Not weight, not physical fitness.
The instant you stop injecting that stuff you’re back to square one. You’re still eating the diet that made you fat to begin with, and will go back to being fat soon. You’re still not exercising so you’re not even in a better condition.
It’s been true forever and almost certainly will be true for centuries to come – weight loss is 99.5% what you eat, with 0.5% other things.
Exercise is for health and better conditioning. It’s not for weight loss, not really. But ideally you start with establishing a diet that you can maintain forever, and then when you’ve stabilized that, you add exercise (well, beyond some daily walks and the bare miniumum) to further improve your health.
„Take pill, get thin“ is a ridiculous completely unscientific notion that isn’t true now and almost certainly never will be. There are no shortcuts. Caloric intake, the distribution of fat/carb/protein within that caloric intake determines weight.
Yeah I mean this shouldn’t be surprising.
Even if you accept it purely as an appetite suppressant with no negative effects, studied or otherwise, which I’m dubious of of course, But even in that acceptance it doesn’t solve health.
Similarly, without the drug I can lose weight while eating only cake so long as I consume less calories than I burn.
But within a few months of eating only cake I will start to have some pretty severe side effects of lack of protein, lack of nutrients, etc.
And if I also do it while engaging in no physical activity combined with no protein, I’ll accelerate those results and have serious muscle loss, cardiovascular strength loss, And as seems to be becoming more and more evident everyday, the lack of nutrients and the lack of physical health will also affect my mental health as well. Like my physiological mental health.
As an additional comment, losing weight without the drug eating only really unhealthy things and not exercising is much much harder to do.
As a general rule, building muscle mass gives you a larger daily caloric intake which gives you more buffer when you’re losing weight. It also increases your appetite, but it dilutes the mistakes. Mistakes if we go to a party we both have the same slice of cake. The person with a higher daily caloric requirement is less affected.
And then also in general the foods that have higher nutrients like meats, veggies, etc. Also make you feel more full per calorie and so it is much easier to lose weight and you won’t feel as hungry if you’re eating more of those types of foods.
But the drug sidesteps that whole appetite equation. So you really can just eat sugar and lose weight
Saving your time:
– Losing weight + exercising > losing weight without exercising
Saved you time.
I don’t think anyone has ever argued that GLP-1’s replace exercise. They help address diet (temporarily), not exercise.
You can lose weight without exercise fairly easily if you’re strict with your diet. The problem is, diet is the thing most people struggle with being strict.
I would hope any doctor prescribing this medication has this talk with their patient.
The end of the day, an average weight person who doesn’t exercise enough will still be more healthy in general than someone who is obese and also doesn’t exercise enough.