Use of GLP-1 Drugs to Treat Obesity Doubled: Researchers Reveal
A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, in collaboration with researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Brown School of Public Health, examined a large sample of privately insured patients with obesity and found that use of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) as anti-obesity medications more than doubled from 2022 to 2023. During the same period, there was a 25.6% decrease in patients undergoing metabolic bariatric surgery to treat obesity. The study is published in JAMA Network Open.
Using a national sample of medical insurance claims data from over 17 million privately insured adults, the researchers identified patients with a diagnosis of obesity without diabetes in 2022-2023. The study found a sharp increase in the share of patients who received GLP-1 Receptor agonists during the study period, with GLP-1 receptor agonist use increasing by 132.6% from the last six months of 2022 to the last six months of 2023. Meanwhile, there was a 25.6% decrease in use of bariatric metabolic surgery during the same period.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Researchers from Mass General Brigham and collaborators assessed national trends in the number of patients with obesity-prescribed GLP-1 drugs and the number who underwent metabolic bariatric surgery.
Researchers documented a 132.6% increase in patients prescribed GLP-1 drugs between 2022 and 2023, and a 25.6% decrease in patients undergoing bariatric surgery.
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.
Reference: Lin K et al. “Metabolic Bariatric Surgery in the Era of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists for Obesity Management” JAMA Network Open DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.41380
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