Shed your weight using drugs? Study finds you might get it all back within a year
A study presented at the European Congress on Obesity made a crucial analysis of the use of weight loss drugs.
As per the study, people who have been on weight loss drugs to shed the excess weight were observed to have regained the lost weight within a year of stopping the medication, The Guardian has reported.
The University of Oxford analysed 11 studies of older and newer GLP-1 weight loss drugs and found that patients typically lost around 8 kg on the weight loss drugs but these individuals also gained the lost weight within 10 months of stopping the intake of the drugs.
The Guardian reported that people taking semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro) lost double the amount of weight compared with people using older jabs – 16 kg on average – and put on 9.6 kg within a year, which means they could expect to regain all 16kg again in just over 20 months.
The research observed 6,370 adults in eight randomised controlled trials and three observational studies. Of these, 1,465 patients were taking semaglutide and tirzepatide.
“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," said Susan Jebb, the co-author of the study and professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford, to The Guardian.
Experts speculate that the difference in how fast the individuals gain the weight back could be due to the fact that people find it hard to practice restraint to lose weight and that includes diets as well. With the weight loss drugs, there is minimal effort and the results are promising.
Health