Weight-loss drugs: after treatment, you quickly regain lost weight

Weight loss pills, especially those that act as GLP-1 receptor antagonists (such as semaglutide, liraglutide, and tirzepatide), are increasingly popular not only for obesity treatments but also for weight loss. But alongside concerns about potential contraindications and side effects, a much more serious and concrete question has now arisen: with these medications, once treatment is stopped, the lost weight is regained very quickly. Approximately 0.8 kilograms per month, with a recovery up to four times faster than that of people who have taken a simple diet.

This data comes out from a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and carried out by Oxford University, in the United Kingdom, whose researchers have collected and examined in detail 37 studies with over 9.300 adults who had stopped taking weight-loss medications. After stopping, most people returned to their starting weight within 12 to 18 months, and this rapid recovery can be explained by the loss of the drug's effects. Appetite, which returns with GLP-1 receptor antagonists, along with obsessions about food, disappears, while the positive effect on energy expenditure and gastric emptying, which prolonged the feeling of satiety after meals during therapy, disappears.

In addition to the weight, also improvements in cardiometabolic parameters (such as blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol) tend to return to pre-treatment values within approximately from drug suspension.

The bottom line is that these drugs deliver results. while you take them, but if they are interrupted without a lasting change in lifestyle, it is very likely that most of the weight lost you'll be back in a short time, and definitely faster than any natural diet, without the aid of drugs.

The English study also highlights two important things to know when starting treatment with these drugs, which can potentially result in a huge waste of money. The first: while it's not a true addiction, returning to normal weight means that these drugs, once discontinued, leave no trace of their therapeutic effect, and therefore there's no real "cure." The examples of medications that, once discontinued, can produce a "rebound effect" are long and include, for example, medications to lower blood pressure. pressure orcholesterolOnce discontinued, blood pressure and cholesterol levels quickly return to alarming levels. Applying the same criteria to weight-loss drugs would mean having to take them forever, which is risky and expensive, so much so that treatment usually lasts about a year. Weight-loss pills based on GLP-1 receptor antagonists cost between €260 and €640 per month. Drugs such as semaglutide or tirzepatide are widely available in Italy, but for the 'obesity, and even less so for overweight, are not part of the essential levels of assistance (LEA) e they are not reimbursed by the NHS. So, those who ask for them and take them to lose weight (and not for other pathologies such as diabetes), you pay for them out of your own pocket.

Weight loss drugs: after treatment, you quickly regain the lost weight.

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