Bariatric weight-loss surgery can help patients lose five times more weight than popular medications like Ozempic, expanding medical possibilities, according to a September NYU Langone Health study.
Researchers analyzed the health records of over 50,000 patients who had undergone bariatric surgery or were prescribed glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist drugs to evaluate the effect of weight-loss treatments for patients. GLP-1s are a class of medication that primarily help manage blood sugar levels for individuals with Type 2 diabetes and treat obesity, while the “minimally invasive” bariatric surgeries alter the stomach’s anatomy and size to reduce the amount of food eaten and digested.
“We wanted to study the real-world outcomes of the new GLP-1s and validate whether patients were achieving similar results to what clinical trials reported,” Avery Brown, a Langone general surgery resident, told WSN.
Compared to those taking GLP-1 drugs, surgery patients in the study lost about 20% more body weight. The study suggests that bariatric surgery has the potential to be a one-time procedure that yields long-lasting results, if patients follow proper post-operative care procedures.
Researchers also found that participants’ weight loss rates were much lower than suggested by previous clinical trials, attributing the inconsistency to a number of factors, including patients stopping treatment prematurely. The recent Langone study observed that within one year, 70% of GLP-1 patients discontinued their medication.
“I think many patients don’t realize that the medications will need to be taken indefinitely,” Brown said. “If they stop using them, the weight loss and cardiometabolic outcomes return to their pre-medication baseline.”
The study was limited in that it relied on retrospective electronic health records and only had access to prescription data, not medication dispensing data.
“One of our next projects is seeing what patient factors are associated with GLP-1 success, so we can better stratify who may benefit more from surgery upfront versus starting with medications,” Brown said.
Contact Tanner Jansen at [email protected].