Bariatric Surgery Declines as GLP-1 Medications Rise

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USA Today (10/25/24): Bariatric surgeries drop sharply as people turn to Wegovy, Saxenda for weight loss

An excerpt:

The researchers found a 25.6% drop in people undergoing bariatric surgery in the final six months of 2023 compared with the number of surgeries people had during the same period the year before. During the latter half of 2023, the number of patients who took a glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1 medication for weight loss, surged by more than 130%, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open…Another popular weight loss drug, Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, was not included because the Food and Drug Administration did not approve it until November 2023…[And there are] anecdotal reports of hospitals that shut down bariatric surgery programs as the number of patients seeking operations slumped…

In 2022, nearly 280,000 metabolic and bariatric procedures were performed in the United States, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. That represented about 1% of all U.S. residents eligible for weight loss operations…The CDC estimates that about 40% of U.S. residents have obesity and 1 in 10 have severe obesity.

Reference: Lin, K., et al. (2024). Metabolic Bariatric Surgery in the Era of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists for Obesity Management. JAMA Network Open. doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.41380.

Methods: This cross-sectional study, we used 2022 to 2023 deidentified claims from 17 million unique deidentified adult patients with medical and pharmaceutical coverage through commercial and Medicare Advantage insurance in the OptumLabs Data Warehouse. We included only patients without diabetes and with obesity.

**Only 6% of patients with obesity in the study population received either GLP-1 drugs or surgery, suggesting that many more patients could be receiving treatment.

My take: The GLP-1 drugs have established a medical therapy with a good probability of effectiveness. This was lacking from prior medical treatments. It certainly is logical that their availability could reduce the use of bariatric surgery. The AAP may need to revise their bariatric surgery recommendations from 2020.

Related blog posts:

Bariatric surgery:

GLP-1 Drugs:

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