Noom is using AI body scans to stop muscle loss from weight-loss drugs

The psychology-based digital health care platform Noom announced an AI-powered feature on Thursday that aims to address one of the major side effects of popular weight loss drugs: lean muscle mass loss.

Noom launched a body scan feature on their app today, in partnership with Prism Labs, that allows users to generate a 3D avatar of their body and get accurate body composition stats — all from a 10-second video of their body taken with a smartphone.

The feature aims to help users track their muscle mass while they’re losing weight.

Last month, Noom joined other digital health care companies such as Hims & Hers (HIMS), Ro, and Sesame in offering more affordable alternatives to branded weight loss drugs by introducing an off-brand version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) Ozempic and Wegovy. Noom had already been offering prescriptions to branded weight loss medications since 2023.

While these drugs have been proven to be highly effective for shedding pounds, they can also lead to lean muscle loss. One clinical study of semaglutide found that, on average, 40% of the weight lost was muscle mass, while the remaining 60% was fat. Several drugmakers are now working on next-gen medications to address this issue.

Noom’s solution is a behavior-focused weight loss drug companion program designed to prevent muscle loss. It encourages users to increase their protein intake and incorporate resistance training into their routine.

However, Noom CEO Geoff Cook told Quartz that the company still needed a way to help users measure the program’s effectiveness.

“You need to be able to see a metric to mind it,” Cook said. “You may be more likely to engage in the protein eating and the resistance training if you see that you are sustaining your muscle mass and your lean mass while losing weight.”

Prism Labs can use the data collected from the 10-second video — about 150 photos — and use AI to deliver surprisingly accurate body composition measurements.

A study from Texas Tech University found that body scans are highly consistent, with an error rate of ±0.20% for body fat percentage and ±0.45% for body circumferences in repeated measurements under the same conditions.

“From our perspective, lean mass is really one of the most important measurables that you can have,” said Prism Labs CEO Steve Raymond. “But until now, it’s been sort of a niche thing that hasn’t been available to most people because you need expensive hardware.”

In addition to metrics such as body fat percentage, fat mass, waist-to-hip ratio, and lean mass, Noom will also provide users with a comprehensive health report that includes their ideal measurements based on age and gender, as well as how they compare with national averages.

The app will even allow users to see what their body will look like once they meet their goals.

“Telling somebody that they need to change the number on the scale can be extremely demotivating because that might be something that they’ve heard over and over again and that they’ve struggled with,” Raymond said. “And so reframing the goal around a more informative number is empowering and motivating.”

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