Research
Hormonal
Retatrutide (12mg weekly) achieves 24.2% weight loss, rivaling bariatric surgery outcomes.
Retatrutide 12mg weekly can lead to ~24% weight loss. This is the highest efficacy reported in this review, rivaling surgery.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
At 48 weeks, patients receiving the 12 mg dose achieved a mean weight loss of 24.2% from baseline, compared to approximately 2% in the placebo group.
Why this rating
Phase 2 trial.
Source
Pharmacologic Disruption: How Emerging Weight Loss Therapies Are Challenging Bariatric Surgery Guidelines
Safi Alqatari et al. · Medicina · 2025
DOI 10.3390/medicina61071292
narrative_reviewCited 5×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Tirzepatide (15mg weekly) achieves 20.9% weight loss, with 50-57% of users losing >= 20% body weight, rivaling bariatric surgery.Strong
- Emerging pharmacotherapies, specifically GLP-1 receptor agonists and multi-agonists, induce 15-25% weight loss, challenging the necessity of bariatric surgery for patients with BMI 30-40 kg/m2.Good
- Current bariatric surgery guidelines (BMI >= 35, or 30-34.9 with comorbidities) may need re-evaluation due to the efficacy of pharmacotherapy.Good
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- For patients with specific monogenic obesity syndromes (leptin deficiency, POMC/PCSK1/LEPR mutations), targeted pharmacotherapy (recombinant leptin or setmelanotide) is highly effective and should be prioritized, unlike in polygenic obesity.Strong
- 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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