Weight-Loss Surgeries Decline 25% as More Americans Turn to GLP-1 Meds

October 25, 2024
Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporter

As the popularity of GLP-1 meds like Wegovy and Zepbound grows, fewer Americans are turning to weight-loss surgeries to trim their waistlines, a new report finds.

Prescriptions of this GLP-1 class of diabetes and weight-loss medications more than doubled between 2022 and 2023, a new tally finds.

"In contrast, there was a 25.6% decrease in patients undergoing metabolic bariatric surgery" during the same time period, reported a team led by Dr. Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy (the first GLP-1 medicine aimed at weight loss) in mid-2021, sales of the drug and related GLP-1 meds such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Zepbound have soared.

Rapid weight loss has been a hallmark of these medications, which work, in part, by making folks feel full earlier.

Prior to the advent of GLP-1s, diet and exercise or bariatric surgeries were the main routes to weight loss for obese Americans. However, the "Ozempic era" may have changed all that, Tsai's team said.

"Anecdotally, health systems have closed hospital-based metabolic bariatric surgery programs due to decreased demand," they noted in the introduction to their study.

To get at harder numbers, the researchers tracked data from the medical records of more than 17 million Americans insured via private coverage or Medicare Advantage. All patients were non-diabetic but obese.

They tracked trends in prescriptions for GLP-1 meds used for weight loss during the last six months of 2022 and the last six months of 2023.

They also tracked trends in weight-loss surgeries during these same time periods.

While prescriptions for GLP-1 meds more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 (a rise of 132.6%), rates of bariatric surgery declined by 25.6%, the team found.

Will these trends last?

Tsai and colleagues note that even though meds like Wegovy and Zepbound are effective in helping people shed pounds, the drugs' "high cost and high rates of gastrointestinal adverse effects can lead to treatment cessation and subsequent weight regain."

Demand for weight-loss meds has also outstripped supply, so it's possible that the number of weight-loss surgery patients may rise again if "ongoing national shortages" of GLP-1s continue, the research team added.

In the meantime, "policymakers and clinicians should continue to closely monitor trade-offs between pharmacologic and surgical management of obesity to ensure optimal access to effective obesity treatment," Tsai's group said.

The findings were published Oct. 25 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

More information

Find out more about bariatric surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

SOURCE: JAMA Network Open, Oct. 25, 2024

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