Stopping obesity drugs means people regain weight and lose heart health benefits

Elizabeth Cooney is a cardiovascular disease reporter at STAT, covering heart, stroke, and metabolic conditions. You can reach Liz on Signal at LizC.22.

The list of health benefits from weight loss drugs is long, but they last only as long as people take them. 

Beyond being good for type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and clogged arteries that can lead to heart attacks and stroke, the new class of obesity medications can also help people living with sleep apnea and addiction. But along with their high cost and troubling side effects, obesity drugs have another downside: Roughly half the people who start on the drugs stop taking what is meant to be lifetime medication within a year of starting. That rate hits 60% among people over 65 who have diabetes. 

Now a systematic review published Wednesday in the BMJ says it’s not just weight that returns after going off GLP-1s, but also concerning markers of heart disease risk. Those reversals are worse than what happens when people stop weight loss programs that aren’t based on drugs, known as behavioral weight management.