While GLP-1 receptor agonists, like Ozempic and Wegovy, have been touted as wonder drugs for weight loss, research has shown that once patients stop using the drug, they can quickly regain the lost weight. However, experts may have found a way to reduce this weight gain.
A review of nearly 40 studies found that when people stopped taking GLP-1, they typically gained back about a pound per month, and eventually regained all the weight they lost while taking the drug in about two years. People may decide to stop taking GLP-1 for reasons such as cost, insurance coverage issues, side effects, and many others.
Hoping to find a solution to this challenge, researchers from Tufts University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center studied whether structured support — such as using wellness apps and tailor-made meal preparations — could reduce the weight regain experienced by patients. The results were positive.
“Many people receive limited support for changing their lifestyle and behavior when taking GLP-1 medications because the medication itself is very effective at suppressing appetite and reducing food intake,” said Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen, one of the study authors and a research assistant professor at Tufts University. News week.
“If treatment is stopped and hunger and appetite signals return, people may not have developed the strategies needed to manage these changes. These structured interventions help fill this gap,” she added.
The results of the study were published in the journal Science and practice of obesity on October 7.
What the study revealed
The researchers included 39 adults in the trial. Some received the usual care that patients receive after stopping their GLP-1 treatment, others had access to a digital wellness application and others received medically adapted meals. Participants were examined for four months.
The digital app allowed participants to self-monitor their diet, exercise and weight, and also provided education on the physiological, psychological, social and environmental factors that influence eating behavior and offered tools on how to manage these factors. Participants were required to use the app for at least 15 minutes per day.
The medically tailored meals were nutrient-dense meals, developed by dietitians, given to participants with diet-related illnesses, including uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and others. The selected individuals chose 10 of their favorite meals each week from a list of 70 and the meals were sent to their home.
The researchers found that members of the control group (who did not receive structured support after taking the GLP-1 drug) gained approximately 10.75% of their body weight during this period, while those using the wellness app gained 3.6% of their body weight, and those following tailored meals gained 3.58% of their body weight.
Hollis-Hansen said she expected the “most intensive support” would be needed in the first year after stopping GLP-1 treatment “when the risk of weight regain is greatest” but that further research was needed to “determine the optimal duration.”
Ideally, she said structured support in that first year could help people form “sustainable habits around diet, physical activity, sleep and self-monitoring” and “as these behaviors become more entrenched, the level of support could likely be reduced over time, although some people may benefit from ongoing maintenance support.”
Why do people gain weight again after taking GLP-1?
Dr. Caroline Apovian, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Well-Being at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: News week that it is “very difficult, if not almost impossible, to prevent weight regain after GLP-1 treatment.”
“If patients lose significant weight, on the order of 15 to 22 percent, this is usually maintained with continued treatment, because GLP-1 reduces the ‘set point’ for body weight in the brain,” she said, explaining that the hypothalamus – “the control center for energy balance” in the brain – is programmed to maintain fat stores at a certain “set point” for survival.
This point is malleable, she said, but GLP-1 therapy “adds to the satiety side of the equation to satisfy the homeostatic control of lower body fat as long as the therapy is administered.”
This can mean that when a person stops taking the drug, “the body often works to restore lost weight by increasing hunger, reducing feelings of fullness and other biological adaptations that have evolved to protect against periods of food shortage,” Hollis-Hansen said.
She also added that, at the same time, “we live in environments where highly processed, high-calorie foods are widely available, affordable, and heavily marketed,” meaning many people “also face barriers to both accessing healthy foods and physical activity, including limited time, resources, or access to safe spaces to exercise.”
What can you do to prevent weight gain after stopping GLP-1?
Apovian said the findings suggest that a structured intervention can “help by intensifying lifestyle activities, such as healthy eating behavioral cues and exercise, to prevent certain hormonal signals promoting weight gain from exerting an overwhelming influence.”
However, she added that this could be “a short-term solution as there is no hormonal intervention to tip the scales and restore a lower body weight set point.” She said building muscle mass through resistance exercise could help balance hormones and burn more energy.
Ultimately, she said, “behavioral interventions and structured eating habits like healthy prepared meals and exercise should be combined indefinitely.”
The next step is to conduct “long-term studies on GLP-1 combinations and lifestyle to see what kind of weight loss maintenance can be achieved with all the necessary efforts against the environment of ultra-processed foods, endocrine disruptors and other suspected factors like temperature, global warming and pollution that are believed to be driving the increasing prevalence of obesity and now extreme obesity in Western environments,” she added.
Reference
Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen et al (2026) Preventing weight regain after stopping glucagon-like peptide-1 treatment: a pilot randomized controlled trial Science and practice of obesity https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/osp4.70194
Contact Newsweek editors about this story: Marc Vargas And Paul Donnelley.
Gn Health
