or who are overweight with a related health condition. But patients taking these drugs should not neglect diet and exercise, experts say.that patients taking these medications should also maintain proper nutrition and get regular exercise.
Gary Foster, PhD, chief science officer of the popular weight loss program WeightWatchers, agreed that GLP-1 drugs alone are not enough for people who need to lose a significant amount of weight. The Mayo Clinic recently hired Amwell, a national telemedicine firm, to provide GLP-1 prescriptions to qualifying members of its diet clinic. If a clinic member meets FDA qualifications -- a body mass index over 30 for obese patients or a BMI over 27 for overweight people with at least one weight-related chronic condition -- they can go directly from the Mayo Diet Clinic site to Amwell and make an appointment with an Amwell doctor to get a prescription.
Nutrition has to be calibrated to both the direct and the side effects of these weight loss drugs, she explained. And if you lose muscle, “it will make it much harder to keep all that weight off, and the metabolic effects of losing muscle can have implications for bone health and metabolic health. When people get older, it can affect balance and make them weaker.”“These medications effectively decrease appetite and reduce food ‘noise,’ which we define as constant, intrusive thoughts about food, resulting in substantial weight loss.
Experts estimate that roughly half of the people who start using GLP-1 drugs discontinue them within a year, either because of their side effects or because of the cost. After they stop taking the drug, they usually regain much of the weight they lost. But if they are in a diet program, it can help them keep their weight down even after they stop the medication, Schmidt said.