Research

Hormonal

Weight regain after discontinuation of GLP-1-based AOMs is an inherent feature of current pharmacological strategies, but future interventions such as gene therapy (GLP-1PGTx) or gradual dose-tapering may mitigate this by sustaining hormonal signals or allowing hormonal adaptation.

Stopping GLP-1 medications currently leads to weight regain for most people due to hormonal adaptations. While lifestyle changes help, they may not be enough to counteract these hormonal shifts. Future treatments, such as gene therapy or careful dose-tapering, aim to sustain weight loss after stopping, but these are not yet standard care. Patients should plan for long-term management strategies with their providers.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Cessation of treatment often results in weight regain and recurrence of obesity... In another yet-to-be published work, diet-induced obese mice given a one-time intraperitoneal injection of adeno-associated virus gene therapy, GLP-1PGTx... effectively sustains fat mass loss following semaglutide discontinuation.
Aaron Novikoff et al. · The Lancet Regional Health - Europe · 2024

Why this rating

Based on preclinical gene therapy data and speculative clinical strategies (tapering).

Source

Why are we still in need for novel anti-obesity medications?

Aaron Novikoff et al. · The Lancet Regional Health - Europe · 2024

DOI 10.1016/j.lanepe.2024.101098

narrative_reviewCited 18×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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