Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have had a meteoric rise in recent years, with benefits like weight loss and help with other health issues. But according to a recent study, those benefits fade within two years of patients stopping their treatment.
According to a study published in the BMJ, data from 9,341 obese or overweight patients treated in 37 studies with any of 18 different weight-loss drugs showed that they regained about one pound on average after stopping the drugs.
The same study said they were projected to return to their pre-treatment weight in about two years.
But weight was not the only thing that was projected to return after stopping the treatment. According to the same study, health risk factors like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which saw benefits while taking the drugs, were projected to return to their old levels within 1.4 years.
GLP-1 medications tested as well
About half of the patients studied took newer GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide, sold as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as tirzepatide, which is sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. According to the study, the weight regain rate was faster for these drugs, with an average of 1.8 pounds per month.
“But because people on semaglutide or tirzepatide lose more weight in the first place, they all end up returning to baseline at approximately the same time,” study senior researcher Dimitrios Koutoukidis of Oxford University told Reuters.
Weight loss drugs have shown some success
Weight loss drugs like the ones tested in the study have shown large levels of success in the United States in recent years. Back in October 2025, a survey from the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index showed that there were an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese people in the United States compared to 2022.
In 2022, the U.S. adult obesity rate was a record-high 39.9%, while in 2025, that rate gradually declined to 37%. While the obesity rate dropped, the usage of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy doubled between 2025 and 2024, according to the same study.
Contributing: Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY; Reuters
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Here's how fast you can gain weight after ending GLP-1, per study
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