Weight-loss medication, comparable to Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy could result in individuals dropping pounds however a assessment of trials performed on hundreds of adults reveals that many regain weight quickly after they cease utilizing the remedy.
Weight-loss drug customers, on common, regain weight at a fee of 0.4 kilograms per thirty days after they cease taking their weight-loss drugs, a assessment of 63 trials protecting greater than 9,000 people revealed within the British Medical Journal on Wednesday discovered.
Of those, round 6,000 had been on GLP-1 medication comparable to semaglutide or tirzepatide and had stopped taking them, whereas round 3,000 had been on behavioural weight administration programmes (BWMPs) that embody a mixture of counselling, eating regimen, train and different help measures.
The trials had been performed as much as February 2025.
Sufferers who went on the weight-loss medication after which stopped them regained their complete baseline weight on common round 20 months after they stopped taking the medication.
Sufferers who stopped taking among the newer medication included within the analysis — semaglutide or tirzepatide — noticed their weight return at a a lot sooner fee (0.8 kg/month) and regained their baseline weight a lot sooner, in round 18 months on common.
For a lot of specialists, the research solely confirms what they already know.
“What the paper finds, very unsurprisingly, is that while you cease a drug that’s prescribed to trigger weight reduction, then individuals start to regain their weight,” stated Dr. Hertzel Gerstein, professor of drugs and endocrinologist at McMaster College.
The results of GLP-1 medication comparable to semaglutide or tirzepatide are non permanent and go away as soon as a affected person stops utilizing them, stated Jennifer Lake, assistant professor on the College of Toronto’s Leslie Dan College of Pharmacy.
“They make you are feeling fuller they usually cease the meals going by means of your GI [gastrointestinal] tract,” she stated.
The problem is that when a affected person stops taking their remedy, the drug is gone however their “meals surroundings” stays the identical, stated Dana Small, professor at McGill College and a Canada Excellence Analysis Chair in metabolism and the mind.
“As soon as the GLP-1 or the lively agent is gone, while you cease taking the remedy, all the things [else] is because it was earlier than. The meals surroundings remains to be there, all the things remains to be right here,” she stated.
The “meals surroundings” refers back to the bodily, political, financial and sociocultural components that contribute to the type of meals that an individual has entry to. For a lot of Canadians and People, that normally means a plethora of ultra-processed meals.
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Sufferers who stopped behavioural weight administration applications additionally regained weight, albeit at a a lot slower fee – 0.2 kg per thirty days.
Counting on train and eating regimen, versus GLP-1 medication, will imply “neither as a lot weight reduction but in addition slower and never as a lot as weight regain,” Small stated.
Sufferers misplaced different advantages
Sufferers who go off the weight-loss drugs additionally run the danger of different advantages going away, the analysis reveals. That features advantages for an individual’s coronary heart and cardiovascular system, which are sometimes improved on account of the load loss that comes from the drugs.
“Whenever you go off the GLP-1 medicines, because the research confirmed, you additionally lose the cardiometabolic advantages,” Small stated.
All these markers returned to the baseline stage after round 16-17 months of sufferers stopping these drugs, the research reveals.
This implies a return of the danger of circumstances like heart problems, excessive ldl cholesterol and hypertension, Lake stated.
“Whenever you achieve again the load, you return to having these high-risk issues,” she added.
Older sufferers additionally run the danger of shedding not simply weight but in addition lean muscle mass.
“That may put individuals liable to falls and frailty,” Lake stated.
‘Nothing to be alarmed about’
Nevertheless, Gerstein warns towards referring to this impact as a “rebound” or “yo-yo” impact.
It is because the medication themselves don’t alter the affected person’s physiology completely.
“They’ve a pharmacologic impact. They’ve a drug impact, and the drug impact does many issues to the physique — many good issues. However while you cease the drug, that drug impact is gone,” he stated.
The BMJ assessment additionally has many limitations, he added.
“All the information listed below are observational information and never experimental,” Gerstein stated.
“There’s actually nothing stunning about it, and there’s nothing to be alarmed about this. This simply tells you that the drug works whilst you’re taking it.”
‘You are most likely going to be on it endlessly’
Proof within the BMJ analysis “cautions towards quick time period use of WMMs” (weight administration drugs).
“We’re saying to individuals: once they’re utilizing them for weight reduction, that is most likely a power remedy for you. You’re most likely going to be on it endlessly,” Lake stated.
For a lot of sufferers fighting weight problems, these drugs have been a “game-changer,” stated Dr. Sonja Reichert, affiliate professor within the Division of Household Drugs at Western College.
“We perceive how advanced weight problems is now. It includes our genes and hormones and so many issues that now we have zero management over. Folks have typically tried each eating regimen or have tried each train plan and nonetheless haven’t been capable of obtain their weight administration targets,” she stated.
When utilized in mixture with train and eating regimen, GLP-1 medication could be useful to some sufferers, Small stated.
“You probably have entry, it’s nonetheless factor to take the drugs to lose the load. You have got advantages till you regain the load, however you’ll be able to complement with issues like behavioural weigh- loss applications,” she stated.
GLP-1 medication are “positively not a panacea” for weight reduction, she stated.
“They don’t tackle the underlying reason for weight problems, which is the meals surroundings. And till we modify the meals surroundings, we are able to’t count on that we’re going to reverse the weight problems epidemic,” she stated.
