Research
Hormonal
Pharmacotherapy with sibutramine or orlistat, combined with lifestyle changes, produces modest weight loss (3-5 kg) compared to placebo, with sibutramine showing slightly greater efficacy than orlistat in some trials.
If lifestyle changes alone are not enough, medications like sibutramine or orlistat can help you lose an additional 3-5 kg. These drugs work best when combined with lifestyle changes and require ongoing use to maintain weight loss.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Overall, pharmacotherapy with sibutramine and orlistat promoted modest mean weight loss (3 to 5 kg) beyond that of controls... sibutramine lost statistically significantly more weight (13.4 kg) than those treated with orlistat (8 kg)
Why this rating
Based on multiple RCTs.
Source
Screening and Interventions for Obesity in Adults: Summary of the Evidence for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
Kathleen M. McTigue et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 2003
DOI 10.7326/0003-4819-139-11-200312020-00013
systematic_reviewCited 607×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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