Research
Hormonal
Discontinuation of GLP-1 based therapies leads to significant weight regain, indicating that obesity requires chronic management rather than short-term treatment.
If you stop taking GLP-1 medications like semaglutide or tirzepatide, you will likely regain the weight you lost. These drugs treat obesity as a chronic condition, meaning they are intended for long-term use to maintain weight loss.
StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
STEP 4 revealed the importance of participants remaining on semaglutide to facilitate continued weight loss and to prevent weight regain... a 1-year follow-up of participants in STEP 1 revealed marked weight regain following medication discontinuation (54).
Why this rating
Supported by STEP 4 and STEP 1 follow-up data.
Source
Evolving Approaches for Pharmacological Therapy of Obesity
Ariana M. Chao et al. · The Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology · 2024
DOI 10.1146/annurev-pharmtox-031124-101146
narrative_reviewCited 15×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Chronic pharmacotherapy with GLP-1 receptor agonists (semaglutide 2.4 mg) and dual agonists (tirzepatide 10-15 mg) produces significantly greater and more sustained weight loss than behavioral interventions alone by neutralizing counter-regulatory physiological mechanisms.Strong
- Tirzepatide (10-15 mg) produces greater mean weight loss than semaglutide (2.4 mg) in head-to-head comparisons, achieving reductions of up to 20.9%.Strong
Related findings · Hormonal
- Initial treatment for type 2 diabetes should be a combination of metformin and either an SGLT-2 inhibitor or a GLP-1 receptor agonist to achieve cardiorenal protection, rather than monotherapy or older agents like sulfonylureas.Strong
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- Continued weekly administration of 2.4 mg subcutaneous semaglutide prevents weight regain and promotes further weight loss in adults with overweight or obesity, whereas switching to placebo results in significant weight regain.Strong
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