1.7 yrsestimated time to return to starting weight after stopping medicationClinicReview08.01.26
Weight comes back faster after stopping weight-loss drugs than after diet programmes, review finds
Pooling dozens of studies, Oxford researchers estimate people return to their starting weight within about two years of stopping.
Amino Weekly science desk8 Jan 20262 min read
What the review did
The team gathered randomised trials and other studies in which adults lost weight with a medicine and then stopped it, and compared them with studies of behavioural programmes such as diet and exercise coaching. They pooled what happened to weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar after treatment ended.
What they found
Weight returned at an average of about 0.4 kg a month after stopping a medicine. On that path, the authors estimate people would be back at their starting weight after about 1.7 years. Improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar faded on a similar or shorter timescale.
Regain was faster than after behavioural programmes, even when the drugs had produced more weight loss in the first place. The authors suggest one reason: programmes teach habits that some people keep, while a drug’s effect on appetite stops when the drug does.
How firm is it
The newest GLP-1 and GIP/GLP-1 drugs were covered by only a handful of studies with follow-up after stopping, and most of those followed people for about a year. The 1.7-year figure is a projection from those slopes.
Averages also hide wide spread. Some people kept much of the weight off. The review does not say who those people are, and it does not compare stopping with lowering the dose, which several trials are now testing.
Source West S. et al., The BMJ, January 2026 (systematic review and meta-analysis)
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