2025 WCHRI Summer Student

The surprising side effects of Ozempic on young hearts and muscles

Darius Sahid’s research focused on understanding how semaglutide — the active drug in medications like Ozempic — affects muscle loss, a key concern for children and teens using this weight-loss treatment. While the drug is highly effective for reducing fat, it can also lead to the loss of muscle in the body and heart.

His project used animal models on a high-fat diet as stand-ins for adolescents living with obesity, and treated them with either semaglutide or a saline solution to study the drug’s effects on muscle and heart health during a crucial growth period. 

“A valuable piece of advice my mentor gave me is to strive to be independent in the lab by planning my own experiments and troubleshooting in case experiments fail. My mentor taught me that by having more than one plan of action, any delays or difficulties can be avoided.“

Project goals:

• Determine how much muscle and heart mass animal models lose on semaglutide.
• Assess how this muscle loss affects the body’s ability to handle stressors such as exercise.
• Investigate any long-term effects on the heart under stress, like high blood pressure.

Potential impact: Semaglutide is a powerful tool to fight obesity, but the potential for muscle and heart loss in growing children could have serious long-term consequences, including compromised bone health and increased risk of heart disease later in life. By providing insights into these effects, this research could help create safer and more informed treatment plans for young people.

Supervisor: Jason Dyck, professor, Department of Pediatrics

Funders: Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation

Interested in doing research to improve the health of women and/or children? Read more about WCHRI’s training awards for students at all levels and generous grants for researchers.