Two recent Epic Research studies reveal that adults experiencing significant weight loss during their first year on GLP-1 therapies are likely to retain these gains into a second year, with sustained benefits more common among those without diabetes and influenced by the type of medication used.
Adults who lost weight during their first year on GLP-1 medicines were likely to keep that progress into a second year, according to two new Epic Research studies published on August 12 and August 13. The findings applied to patients with and without diabetes, and suggest that the benefits of continued treatment generally persist as long as the drugs are kept up. Epic researcher Kersten Bartelt said people without diabetes were more likely to hold on to the loss, while tirzepatide was associated with less regain than semaglutide.
The studies drew on Cosmos, Epic’s large multi-system data set built from more than 310 million patient records across thousands of hospitals and clinics in all 50 states and elsewhere. In the diabetes group, researchers followed 38,621 adults who had started a GLP-1 medicine, stayed on it for at least a year and lost at least 5 lb in that first year. In the non-diabetes group, 25,213 adults met the same basic criteria. Weight was tracked monthly to see whether the initial loss was sustained, extended or partially reversed.
Among people without diabetes, 53.1% of semaglutide users and 52.9% of tirzepatide users maintained their weight loss two years in. For patients with diabetes, the comparable figures were 37.7% for semaglutide and 47.3% for tirzepatide. At the same point, more than 30% of both groups were still losing weight, while full return to baseline was uncommon. Epic Research also found that 14.9% of semaglutide users without diabetes and 8% of tirzepatide users without diabetes had regained at least a quarter of their first-year loss, rising to 26.9% and 14.2% respectively among patients with diabetes.
The new work fits with earlier Epic Research findings that many patients still retain at least some weight loss after stopping GLP-1s, even if some regain occurs over time. Other Epic analyses have also suggested that tirzepatide and injectable semaglutide produce the largest weight losses among GLP-1 medicines, and that people with higher starting body-mass index or larger initial losses are more likely to keep the weight off after discontinuation. Caroline Apovian, who reviewed the diabetes study for Medscape Medical News, said the key message is that patients generally preserve the benefit only while they remain on treatment, though cost and side effects can shape that decision as much as medical advice.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
