The short answer
Stopping one prescription did not always mean stopping weight-management care. Many patients restarted medication or received another treatment.
Who was studied?
Researchers reviewed 7,938 adults in an Ohio–Florida health system who stopped injectable semaglutide or tirzepatide within 3–12 months of starting. A supply gap longer than 90 days counted as discontinuation.
Percent of participants; categories can overlap
Original visual based on the study.
| Group or measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Restarted original medicine | 19.6% |
| Received alternative treatment | 35.2% |
What happened next?
During the following year, 19.6% restarted the original medicine and 35.2% received an alternative obesity treatment. These categories should not be added as mutually exclusive groups.
Only 3,810 patients had both required weight measurements and no censoring events. Among them, average post-discontinuation change was +0.5% for those originally treated for obesity and −1.3% for those treated for diabetes. Individual changes varied widely.
How to read the finding
This was not an experiment in stopping all treatment. Restarts, other medicines and lifestyle care help explain why its averages differ from withdrawal trials. Missing weights and unknown reasons for stopping add uncertainty. It does not show that stopping medication reliably avoids regain.
Sources
Gasoyan and colleagues, Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2026. Supported by Cleveland Clinic Mandel Accelerator Grants.