Hacker News Reader

Comment by gpt5 | Hacker News Reader

Especially since every GLP-1 study shows almost complete regain to original weight after stopping.

It’s like stopping a blood pressure medicine and then being surprised that people have more heart attacks afterwards.

There is a recent one, which shows that the weight was generally stable after 1 year of discontinuation of GLP-1.

> In this cohort study of adults with overweight or obesity who initiated treatment with injectable semaglutide or tirzepatide and discontinued the index medication between 3 and 12 months after initiation, 19.6% restarted the index medication and 35.2% received an alternative treatment in the year after initial treatment discontinuation. The average weight change 1 year after index medication discontinuation was relatively small; however, there was considerable individual-level variability.

https://dom-pubs.pericles-prod.literatumonline.com/doi/10.11...

Thanks for sharing. Note that the data quality from this study is quite low because 54.8% of the cohort eventually restarted their medication or transitioned to an alternative therapy (mostly a different weight loss medication).

I don't know why a study that focuses on discontinuation didn't split the groups that restarted or transitioned against the group that actually just stopped.

The discontinued and paused groups in the actual study had lower BMI than the continuing groups - so it seems like this is at least partially independent of any weight regain.

Which makes sense since we have strong evidence for the GLP-1s providing significant protective benefit even without weight loss.

A tale older than the use of GLP-1. People do X to lose weight, they hit a target weight, declare victory and continue the habits that got them in trouble in the first place. You can go a little bit heavier on the meals and loosen the exercise if you desire, but you still have to keep yourself within maintenance threshold or the weight comes back.

GLP-1 masks the problem and people don't realize their actions aren't ideal once the mask is removed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com