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A new analysis determined ceasing weight loss medications will likely result in a return to baseline weight within two yearsNewer medications, such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, exhibit both more total weight lost and faster weight regain than older medications“Either people really have to accept this as a treatment for life, or we in science need to think really, really hard, how to support people when they stop the drug,” study co-author Susan Jebb said
A new analysis discovered that patients who stop using weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro are likely to regain the total weight they had lost in less than two years.
The reviewconducted by the University of Oxford’s Biomedical Research Centre, sought to measure weight gain after stopping the use of weight loss medication, or GLP-1 receptor agonists. Researchers determined that ceasing older weight loss medications resulted in a return to original weight within one year — and less than two years for newer weight loss medications.
Overall, the study found, ceasing weight loss drugs is likely to yield a more rapid weight regain than ceasing behavioral weight loss measures, like dieting.
In total, 7,944 titles and abstracts were assessed. The analysis compared studies examining both new and older medications — one study concerning Byetta and seven concerning Victoza (“older” medications, approved in 2005 and 2014, respectively), as well as two pertaining to Ozempic/Wegovy and one pertaining to Mounjaro (“new” medications, approved for weight loss in 2021 and 2023, respectively).
Wegovy.
Steffen Trumpf/picture Alliance via Getty
The average weight loss on any of the four medications was 7.9 kg (17.4 lbs), and after ceasing usage, the monthly rate of weight regain was 0.7 kg (1.5 lbs). Thus, reviewers projected that stopping weight loss drugs — broadly, both old and new medicines — would result in the return to the original weight in just under one year.
Those on newer medications averaged 16.1 kg (35.5 lbs) lost, but gained slightly more, 0.8 kg (1.8 lbs) per month, after stopping the drug. Reviewers estimated the return to original weight after stopping newer weight loss medications to take 1.7 years.
“This rate of regain is greater than observed following behavioural weight management programmes and sounds a cautionary note to the use of these medications without a more comprehensive approach to the treatment of obesity and prevention of weight regain,” the study concludes.
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Guidelines established by the National institute for Health and Care Excellence state such weight loss drugs shouldn’t be a long-term treatment — patients should be on the drugs two years or less.
Susan Jebb, one of the co-authors of the study, called weight loss medications “very effective,” but if used as directed, only a temporary solution, per The Guardian.
“Either people really have to accept this as a treatment for life, or we in science need to think really, really hard, how to support people when they stop the drug,” Jebb said.
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