Obesity is a chronic, repeating disease: those who lose weight tend to put it back on after a time. In order to understand the impact of stopping weight management medications (WMMs), researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effect of these drugs on long-term health and body mass.
The research indicates that individuals typically experience rapid weight regain after treatment ends, with many returning to their original weight within approximately 1.7 years. Furthermore, cardiometabolic improvements, including blood pressure and glucose levels, were found to typically reverse and return to baseline shortly after the drugs are discontinued.
Notably, weight is regained significantly faster after pharmacological treatment than after finishing behavioural weight management programmes. Listen to our podcast for a summary of the paper published in The BMJ, along with the researchers’ conclusions.
