TOFA, not low-calorie tofu, might slake society’s enormous appetite for obesity solutions — but not necessarily help those suffering from food addiction, too.

TOFA, short for 5-tetradecyloxy-2-furoic acid, is a compound recently shown (in mice) to cause weight loss without the muscle loss associated with GLP-1s. It works differently, too. TOFA blocks specific enzymes that produce fat and activates genes that rev up fat burning. It doesn’t affect appetite like GLP-1s but instead targets the metabolism.

Interestingly, TOFA appears to work even better when paired with GLP-1s:

When TOFA was paired with semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) or tirzepatide (sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound), the combination outperformed either drug alone on virtually every measure tested, including fat loss, blood sugar control, and harmful blood fats. 

Is that all? No, it looks like TOFA may offer additional benefits, too. In mice, it appears to improve liver function in fatty liver disease and therefore indirectly reduce cardiovascular risk associated with certain liver disease medications. Bonus: When mice stopped being administered TOFA, they had slower weight gain rebound than GLP-1s.

This is all very exciting for researchers but too soon to say whether these results would be similar — and safe — in humans. 

TOFA’s mechanism for weight loss (energy use improvements) may not have implications for our understanding of addiction. But Ozempic and other GLP-1s continue to reveal more about the brain’s so-called “craving center.” One researcher has zeroed in on the lateral septum as the physical home of cravings, writing:

There is one last reason to suspect the lateral septum as the mechanism behind the anti-consumption effect of GLP-1 agonists. It is absolutely loaded with GLP-1 receptors.

Emerging research points to this as the mechanism. GLP-1 activation directly in the lateral septum has recently been shown to reduce food consumption in mice. Earlier this year, another study showed the same for alcohol consumption.

My own lab has shown this year that GLP-1 drugs reduce a type of activity in the lateral septum that may prevent it communicating so effectively with other brain regions.

There is evolving evidence that GLP-1 drugs may have positive effects on addictions as seemingly diverse as opioid use, alcohol use, problem gambling, compulsive shopping, and pornography addiction. 

But look closer. These addictions may appear unrelated on the surface, but as some people who have struggled with addiction intuitively know, they are all the same. All addictions are displacement and the ongoing craving for displacement. 

This brings us back to TOFA. Let’s imagine it was cleared for human use and had similar weight loss outcomes as those associated with GLP-1s. But unlike GLP-1s, TOFA only affects the body’s capacity to burn calories. It has no impact on how the brain responds to craving. 

A food-addicted person in this scenario might be slightly better off than a food addict today if, by using TOFA, their bodies could burn fuel faster and more efficiently. Maybe they’d even stay a few steps ahead of the scale. That might be considered a win.

But TOFA use alone wouldn’t be enough because it wouldn’t change the trigger behind food addiction. Displacement of stress is the cause of compulsive overeating, just like it is the cause of all addictive behavior. Until more attention is paid to the Unified Theory of Addiction, we will continue to make progress in our understanding of symptoms or substances instead of examining root causes. 

Written by Katie McCaskey. First published September 14, 2026.

Sources:

“Goodbye Ozempic, Hello TOFA? Obscure Pill Burned Fat Without Muscle Loss Or Weight Rebound From GLP-1s,” StudyFinds, August 26, 2026.

“Ozempic may have revealed the brain’s hidden ‘craving center,’” The Conversation, August 12, 2026.

“A multi-functional oral small molecule targeting energy and lipid metabolism to treat obesity and related metabolic disorders,” Science Advances, August 21, 2026.

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