When you stop taking new-generation weight loss drugs, you gain weight back four times faster than if you stop your diet and exercise regimen. new research It was found on Thursday.

But British researchers who conducted the largest and most recent study on the issue say this is mainly because they lost so much weight in the first place.

A new generation of appetite-suppressing injectable drugs called GLP-1 agonists have become extremely popular in recent years and have revolutionized the treatment of obesity and diabetes in many countries.

RELATED: You gain weight back when you stop taking drugs like Ozempic, study finds

These have been shown to help you lose 15-20% of your body weight.

“This all looks like good news,” says John, a public health nutritionist at the University of Oxford. new BMJ study.

However, recent data shows that “about half of people stop taking these drugs within a year,” she told a news conference.

This may be due to common side effects, such as nausea, or because the cost of these drugs can exceed $1,000 per month in the United States.

Researchers looked at 37 studies that looked at discontinuing various weight-loss drugs and found that participants regained about 0.4 kilograms per month.

Six of the trials involved semaglutide, an ingredient used in Novo Nordisk’s brands Ozempic and Wigovy, and tirzepatide, used in Eli Lilly’s Maunjaro and Zepbound.

While taking these two drugs, trial participants lost an average of nearly 15 kg.

However, once the medication was discontinued, the weight returned by 10 kg within a year. This is the longest follow-up period available for these relatively new drugs.

The researchers predicted that participants would regain their original weight within 18 months.

Heart health measurements such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels also returned to normal levels after 1.4 years.

people who were replaced program It included diet and exercise, but no medication, so weight loss was significantly reduced. However, it took an average of four years to regain the weight lost.

This means that people who took the drug regained their weight four times faster.

“It’s not a cure, it’s a starting point.”

“When people lose a lot of weight, they tend to gain it back more quickly,” said study lead author Sam West from the University of Oxford.

However, he added that another analysis showed that “weight gain was consistently faster after taking the drug, regardless of the amount of weight lost to begin with.”

This may be because people who have learned to eat healthier and exercise more often continue to do so even after gaining weight back.

Jebb emphasized that GLP-1 drugs are “a very valuable tool in the treatment of obesity, but obesity is a chronic, relapsing condition.”

“Like blood pressure medications, you would expect these treatments to need to be continued for life,” Jebb says.

If so, the researchers stressed, it would influence how national health systems determine whether these drugs are cost-effective.

“This new data makes it clear that they are a starting point, not a cure.” said Garon Dodd, a metabolic neuroscience researcher at the University of Melbourne, was not involved in the study.

“Sustainable treatments are likely to require combinatorial approaches, long-term strategies, and treatments that go beyond food intake and reshape how the brain interprets energy balance.” said.

© Agence France-Presse