Research

Hormonal

Adults with diabetes and overweight/obesity are significantly more likely to use weight-inducing (WI) medications than weight-reducing (WR) medications, with WI use being 4 to 20 times higher than WR use, despite clinical guidelines recommending preferential use of WR agents.

If you have diabetes and are overweight, your current medication might be working against your weight loss goals. Many common diabetes drugs cause weight gain. Ask your doctor about switching to weight-reducing options like GLP-1 agonists or SGLT2 inhibitors, which are now recommended for people with your profile. Be aware that these drugs can be expensive and may require injections, but they are designed to help you lose weight, unlike older medications.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
people with diabetes and overweight/obesity were 4 to 20 times more likely to use diabetes-specific WI medications (48%–64%) than the preferred and guideline-recommended WR medications (3%–15%).
Rodolfo J. Galindo et al. · Obesity · 2023

Why this rating

Large, nationally representative US population study (MEPS, n=7402) over 10 years, though observational.

Source

Use and continuity of weight‐modifying medications among adults with diabetes and overweight/obesity: US population study

Rodolfo J. Galindo et al. · Obesity · 2023

DOI 10.1002/oby.23869

cross_sectional · n=7402Cited 14×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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