A situation causing weight problems is resolved – retiring from a stressful job, etc.The list of drugs that cause weight gain is quite long – often there is a good alternative that is weight neutral or can aid with weight loss. A medication for another medical problem which was causing weight gain is stopped and/or changed to a medication that can help with weight loss.Examples of reasons we might stop a medication include: It should be stopped if the prescribing doctor and patient decide it is no longer needed, or if it is no longer appropriate. So, to get back to the original question, “When should weight loss medication be stopped?” Generally speaking, weight loss medication should be taken chronically, similar to diabetes medication. Because we know that obesity causes 236 other medical problems, 13 of which are cancers, and that it can lower the lifespan 6-8 years, keeping the weight off can have a dramatic effect on our health, but only if it is kept off chronically. Keeping weight off is really the hardest part of all of this, but when successful it is possible to put the obesity into remission, restore health, quality of life and even lifespan. Staying on an effective weight loss medication is one of your most effective tools to keep weight off. Benefits of continuing weight loss medication chronically And, as a chronic disease, obesity tends to get slowly worse over time – so not only does the weight go back to where it started, it tends to climb an additional pound or two each year. In spite of this knowledge, all to often we still see people lose the weight, stop their medication, and come back a year or two later – back at the original weight. If we used medication to help get to the treated weight, discontinuation of the medication will ultimately result in a return of the weight back up to the abnormally elevated Normal weight – for all of the reasons it got elevated in the first place! These reasons include: biology, genetics, environment, appetite dysregulation, sleep disturbance, stress, abnormal food and a host of others. Unfortunately, the “Normal” weight is wherever the weight got up to – the lower weight is now considered the treated weight. People want to go on medication to lose weight – to get back to their “Normal” weight. In one of these studies, it was after weight loss had been maintained for 3 years – when the drug was discontinued, the weight returned rapidly towards baseline. To date, 3 good studies on anti-obesity medications (Belviq, Saxenda and Wegovy) have demonstrated rapid regain once the medication has stopped. Obesity is now recognized as a chronic health problem much like diabetes. This is about as true as the notion that the earth is flat or that low-fat diets are superior for weight loss. In the good old days, it was thought that if a person could lose weight and keep it off for a time, the body would accept this lower weight as a new setpoint, and that weight regain would then become increasingly unlikely. Perhaps the most common question I get from both referring doctors and patients is, “When should weight loss medication be stopped?”

Weight loss medication