In recent times there have been several new weight loss medications that have come on to the market. These new medications have only been around for the last few years.
Most of the new age weight loss medications work by decreasing appetite, increasing fullness, decreasing the rate of emptying of the stomach and improving control of blood sugar. Unfortunately once you stop taking these weight loss medications, the opposite happens. Hunger hormones increase, therefore appetite rises and your body’s metabolism tries to maintain its previous weight which makes it easy to regain weight. Several clinical studies have shown that when you stop taking semaglutide (which is the active ingredient in a lot of new age weight loss drugs), you are likely to regain about two thirds of the weight that was lost within the first 12 months of stopping the medication. Furthermore, some of the improvements in medical problems such as diabetes and high blood fats is also reversed after stopping weight loss medication.
These weight loss medications do not prevent weight gain, they control it. Stopping these medications reverses that effect. Weight loss surgery is still considered the gold standard and has been proven over decades to provide sustained and long term weight loss. Keyhole operations such as sleeve gastrectomy have been shown to result in 60-70% loss of excess weight, which can be maintained long term.
