However, recent data has suggested that \u201caround half of people discontinue these medications within a year\u201d, she told a press conference.<\/p>\n
This might be because of common side effects such as nausea or the price \u2013 these drugs can cost over US$1000 ($1700) a month in the United States.<\/p>\n
The researchers reviewed 37 studies looking at ceasing different weight-loss drugs, finding that participants regained around 0.4kg a month.<\/p>\n
Six of the clinical trials involved semaglutide \u2013 the ingredient used in Novo Nordisk\u2019s brands Ozempic and Wegovy \u2013 and tirzepatide used for Eli Lilly\u2019s Mounjaro and Zepbound.<\/p>\n
While taking these two drugs, the trial participants lost an average of nearly 15kg.<\/p>\n
However, after stopping the medication, they regained 10kg within a year, which was the longest follow-up period available for these relatively new drugs.<\/p>\n
The researchers projected that the participants would return to their original weight in 18 months.<\/p>\n
Measurements of heart health, including blood pressure and cholesterol levels, also returned to their original levels after 1.4 years.<\/p>\n
People who were instead put on programmes that included diet and exercise \u2013 but not drugs \u2013 lost significantly less weight. However, it took an average of four years for them to regain their lost kilos.<\/p>\n
This meant that people taking the drugs regained their weight four times faster.<\/p>\n
\u2018Starting point, not a cure\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cGreater weight loss tends to result in faster weight regain,\u201d lead study author Sam West of Oxford University explained.<\/p>\n
But separate analysis showed that weight gain was \u201cconsistently faster after medication, regardless of the amount of weight lost in the first place\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
This could be because people who have learned to eat more healthily and exercise more often continue to do so even as they regain weight.<\/p>\n
Jebb emphasised that GLP-1 drugs \u201care a really valuable tool in obesity treatment \u2013 but obesity is a chronic relapsing condition\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne would expect that these treatments need to be continued for life, just in the same way as blood pressure medication,\u201d Jebb said.<\/p>\n
If this was the case, it would impact how national health systems judge whether these drugs are cost-effective, the researchers emphasised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis new data makes it clear they are a starting point, not a cure,\u201d said Garron Dodd, a metabolic neuroscience researcher at the University of Melbourne not involved in the study.<\/p>\n
\u201cSustainable treatment will likely require combination approaches, longer-term strategies, and therapies that reshape how the brain interprets energy balance, not just how much people eat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, recent data has suggested that \u201caround half of people discontinue these medications within a year\u201d, she told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[25900,14120,13695,372,535,206670,1154,61396,21627,31807,1240,105,206668,4326,457,206669,206671,2343,26335,63966,50612,40881,7767,21032,15822,8746,16,15,10892,36292,50239],"class_list":{"0":"post-681684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-stop","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-back","11":"tag-diet","12":"tag-drugs","13":"tag-ending","14":"tag-exercise","15":"tag-faster","16":"tag-found","17":"tag-four","18":"tag-generation","19":"tag-health","20":"tag-kilos","21":"tag-medication","22":"tag-people","23":"tag-pile","24":"tag-regimes","25":"tag-research","26":"tag-return","27":"tag-see","28":"tag-taking","29":"tag-than","30":"tag-them","31":"tag-they","32":"tag-times","33":"tag-today","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-weightloss","37":"tag-when","38":"tag-would"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}