Research
Adherence
Continuing lifestyle interventions (diet/exercise) after stopping AOMs does not prevent significant weight regain, as this subgroup also showed significant regain.
Even if you maintain a healthy diet and exercise routine, stopping anti-obesity medication is likely to lead to weight regain. The biological effects of the medication are significant, and lifestyle changes alone may not be enough to counteract the regain.
ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
In the study, the subgroup with continuous lifestyle intervention showed significant weight regain (WMD = 1.83 kg, 95% CI 1.36 to 2.31, P < 0.001, I2 = 85%), whereas the subgroup without continuous lifestyle intervention did not (WMD = 1.1 kg, 95% CI − 0.99 to 3.19, P = 0.30, I2 = 34%).
Why this rating
Subgroup analysis with limited number of studies (only three in both subgroups).
Source
Trajectory of the body weight after drug discontinuation in the treatment of anti-obesity medications
Han Wu et al. · BMC Medicine · 2025
DOI 10.1186/s12916-025-04200-0
Meta-analysis · 11 studiesCited 21×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Discontinuation of anti-obesity medications (AOMs) leads to significant weight regain starting at 8 weeks post-treatment, with the trajectory stabilizing by 26 weeks.Good
- GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA) are associated with significant weight regain after discontinuation, whereas non-GLP-1 related treatments did not show statistically significant regain in this meta-analysis.Moderate
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