Obesity

And this is published in Epidemiology and Genetics.

And it can be found in Obesity, which is a journal about obesity and its management.

And the Obesity Society publishes this.

It's a well-respected peer-reviewed journal.

So I'm going to hit the highlights of what the New York Times discussion says first, and then we'll go kind of back and forth between that and the actual scientific article.

You're listening to The Scalpel's Edge.

I'm your host, Tim Syed, MD, double board certified plastic surgeon in Southern California with a practice that focuses on holistic health and wellness, breast implant illness, explant surgery, GLP-1 medication prescribing with medically supervised weight loss, and other holistic health aspects.

And today we're talking about a New York Times review of a published article in the Obesity Journal about GLP-1 drugs being prescribed to a lot of patients who have no medical indication for it.

Also, at least half of people taking a GLP-1 medication end up stopping it, whether by choice or because of cost or side effects, and weight regain afterward is an expected and common problem.

In a study out of Vanderbilt published in the journal Obesity in 2024, researchers looked at patients transitioning off a GLP-1 medication.

The majority were kept on metformin afterward as a maintenance strategy, and many held on to the bulk of their weight loss well over a year later.

Keep in mind that this was a small study with only 105 participants, and we saw that over time there was eventually some weight regained.