Regaining the weight you’ve just lost is a major risk for anyone who decides to stop taking Ozempic or Zepbound.
MONDAY, April 27, 2026 — Regaining the weight you've just lost is a major risk for anyone who decides to stop taking Ozempic or Zepbound.drug without packing on the pounds, according to new research scheduled for presentation at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Chicago.
“As effective as GLP-1 medications are, many people stop taking them because of cost, side effects or simply not wanting to take a drug long-term,” said lead researcher Dr. Shelby Sullivan, director of the Endoscopic Bariatric and Metabolic Program at Dartmouth Health Weight Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. “But if they stop these medications, weight regain occurs in the vast majority of patients, and the metabolic benefits are lost,” she said in a news release.
“Finding a treatment that allows patients to stop these medications without weight regain or loss of metabolic benefit is a huge unmet need. ” The procedure, called duodenal mucosal resurfacing, involves a small thin tube that's run through the GI tract to the duodenum – the upper part of the small intestine that sits just below the stomach.
For the current study, researchers tested whether this metabolic reset could help people keep weight off after stopping their GLP-1 drug.diets can cause changes in the inner lining of the duodenum, rewiring how the gut responds to food, Sullivan said. The resurfacing procedure is intended to reset a person's metabolism to their new weight to help them keep off the pounds they've lost.
The team recruited 45 people who had lost at least 15% of their total body weight on tirzepatide — around 40 pounds on average — but were quitting the drug. Researchers randomly selected 29 to undergo the outpatient procedure, and the rest to receive a sham procedure.
“Other than recovering from the general anesthesia, there isn't much recovery time involved,” Sullivan said. “You can be back to your daily routine in about a day. Participants could not tell if they had the sham or real procedure because there are not a lot of symptoms after the procedure.
” Six months after quitting tirzepatide, those who got the sham procedure had regained 40% more weight than those who got the real gut reset, the study found.resurfaced had regained just 7 pounds, maintaining over 80% of their weight lossThe difference in weight regain between two groups also appeared to widen from one to six months following the procedure, researchers noted.
“What's particularly encouraging is that the benefit appears to increase over time rather than fade, and that it behaves like a drug in terms of dose response,” Sullivan said. “That gives us confidence that we're targeting the right biology. ” A larger clinical trial of the procedure involving more than 300 people is now underway, with early data expected later this year, researchers said.
Sullivan is to present these results May 4 at the Digestive Disease Week meeting, which is jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study ofFindings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. There are many reasons for sudden weight gain when there are no changes in diet or exercise. Learn to identify the cause of your sudden weight gain.
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