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.
"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."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 butduring the last six months of 2022 and the last six months of 2023.While prescriptions for GLP-1 meds more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 , rates of bariatric surgery declined by 25.6%, the team found.
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.
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