When a patient loses weight, some fraction of that will always be lean muscle mass. The issue with GLP-1 drugs is that fraction tends to be higher than with other approaches to weight loss. See the link I posted above for details which should make the risk clear to you.
There are circumstances when those drugs are medically indicated. However, it seems they are being over prescribed without proper consideration of the harmful side effects.
Basically yes, but there are nuances too complex to summarize in a brief comment here. If anyone is considering taking one of those drugs then I highly recommend subscribing to watch the entire video and read the show notes (including the linked scientific papers). There is a subscription fee but the it's a fraction of the price of the drugs and the information is top notch.
Can you link those articles directly? I have access to a lot of journals but it’s more out of curiosity than being a candidate for the drugs.
Edit: from what I could read from Attia’s other posts were studies where the control was a reduced calorie placebo group. However, they weren’t controlled to reduce calories to the same extent as the semaglutide group. This still leaves the question open as to whether the side effects are due mainly to the extent of calorie reduction (which could occur through other treatments) or due to some other mechanism unique to the drug.
There are circumstances when those drugs are medically indicated. However, it seems they are being over prescribed without proper consideration of the harmful side effects.