ATLANTA — Researchers at Georgia State University say they may have found a way to prevent two main side effects associated with popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs.

Those side effects include muscle loss and rapid weight regain after patients stop taking the medication.

Researcher Eric Krause says the team developed an antibody therapy designed to suppress the release of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone.

“When we developed an antibody, so an immunotherapy that will allow us to suppress the release of cortisol, the stress hormone,” Krause said.

Krause says cortisol appears to be behind the two main side effects. In studies involving mice, researchers say suppressing cortisol helped prevent muscle loss and stopped rapid weight regain when the GLP-1 drug was discontinued.

“We were able to prevent the loss of lean mass that comes with semaglutide treatment in our models, and the second was that when we stopped giving the semaglutide, we were able to prevent that large increase in body weight,” Krause said.

Krause says the findings are promising and could help allow long-term reductions in body weight.

“If you can find something that could suppress that weight regain and allow long-term reductions in body weight, I think that would be big,” Krause said.

He says the findings suggest lowering stress hormones may help reset the brain to defend a lower body weight.

The next step is a Phase One clinical trial to determine whether the therapy is safe and effective.

WSB Radio’s Sabrina Cupit contributed to this story.