Ozempic dropouts pay heavy price, research shows

There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to losing weight with Ozempic and similar medications. Research published this week finds that people who stop taking GLP-1 treatment tend to quickly experience a complication familiar to anyone who has stopped their diet.

Scientists at the University of Oxford reviewed dozens of studies of people who stopped their obesity medications. Former users typically gained back nearly a pound each month, the researchers found, and they regained weight more quickly than people who lost weight through lifestyle changes alone. Even more alarming, the rate of weight regain was even higher among people who stopped taking the newest GLP-1 drugs on the market, semaglutide and tirzepatide.

“These results suggest caution in short-term use of these medications without a more comprehensive approach to weight management,” the authors write in their article. published Wednesday in The BMJ.

Failure to maintain

GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) have greatly improved the obesity treatment landscape in recent years. Trials have consistently shown that these medications are more effective in helping people lose weight than diet and exercise alone. They may also provide other benefits, such as improved cardiovascular health in high-risk groups.

From the beginning, however, doctors have warned that obesity is a chronic disease whose management generally requires constant vigilance. Stopping the habits that led to weight loss can often help you gain it back, even with GLP-1.

Many studies have watch that people who successfully lose weight usually gain it back over time. But the authors wanted to explore how weight regain might differ between people taking obesity medications and those solely engaged in behavioral weight management programs, such as Weight Watchers. They analyzed data from 37 studies collectively involving nearly 10,000 participants.

On average, people who stopped taking obesity medications saw their weight return to about 0.9 pounds per month, the researchers found. At this rate, they estimated that people would reach their original baseline weight within a year and a half to two years. The verdict was even harsher for those looking specifically at the newer GLP-1 drugs; they saw an average weight regain of 1.8 pounds per month. At this rate, these users would return to their original weight within a year and a half.

Notably, the rate of weight regain following medication use was more accelerated than the rate observed in people who stopped weight loss programs, which was approximately 0.7 pounds per month. Participants’ cardiometabolic health markers, such as blood pressure, also began to return to baseline levels and are expected to regress completely within 1.4 years.

“These medications are transforming the treatment of obesity and can lead to significant weight loss. However, our analysis shows that people tend to regain weight quickly after stopping, faster than we see with behavioral programs,” lead author Sam West, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said in a study. statement of the university.

What to do

I repeat, the phenomenon of weight regain is not new. And there will undoubtedly be some people who can maintain their weight loss once they stop taking a GLP-1, just as a few people managed to lose weight and keep it off before these drugs became widely available.

But the findings indicate that many people who want to maintain their weight loss may need to continue taking these medications long term, or even for life. Unfortunately, this has been easier said than done in the real world. Studies have shown that about 50% of people taking a GLP-1 stop using it within a year for a variety of reasons, including the high cost of the drug or the inability to tolerate common gastrointestinal side effects.

More needs to be done for people who cannot or do not want to continue taking these drugs long-term, researchers say.

“This is not a failure of medication, it reflects the nature of obesity as a chronic, relapsing disease,” West said.