Research

Hormonal

For individuals with obesity who fail to lose ≥2% body weight in the first 4 weeks of intensive behavioral treatment, adding phentermine (15.0 mg/day) significantly increases 24-week weight loss compared to continuing behavioral treatment with placebo.

If you have been doing intensive lifestyle changes for a month and haven't lost at least 2% of your body weight, adding phentermine (15 mg daily) to your plan can significantly boost your weight loss results compared to sticking with lifestyle changes alone. This approach helps early non-responders achieve clinically meaningful weight loss (≥5%) much more effectively. Regular monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate is recommended due to potential side effects.

LimitedSupportsHIGH confidence
early nonresponders assigned to BT + AOM had a greater mean (±s.e.) reduction in weight of 5.9 ± 0.7% from randomization to week 24, as compared to 2.8 ± 0.7% for those assigned to BT + P (mean difference = 3.1 ± 1.0%, 95% confidence interval = 1.1–5.1%, Cohen’s d = 0.73, P = 0.003).
Jena Shaw Tronieri et al. · Nature Medicine · 2025

Why this rating

Double-blind randomized controlled trial, but with a relatively small sample size (n=76 randomized) and short duration (24 weeks post-randomization).

Source

Anti-obesity medication for weight loss in early nonresponders to behavioral treatment: a randomized controlled trial

Jena Shaw Tronieri et al. · Nature Medicine · 2025

DOI 10.1038/s41591-025-03556-3

rct · n=76Cited 6×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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