Study: Bariatric surgery leads to five times greater weight loss than GLP-1 drugs

Editor's Note

Bariatric surgery produced five times greater weight loss than GLP-1 medications in a new study of over 51,000 patients with obesity, according to a June 18 article from Fox News.

The retrospective study, funded by the NIH and conducted by researchers at NYU Langone Health and NYC Health + Hospitals, was reportedly presented at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington.

As detailed in the article, researchers compared outcomes for patients with a BMI of at least 35 who received either surgical or medication-based obesity treatment between 2018 and 2024. Patients who underwent bariatric surgery lost an average of 58 pounds—approximately 24% of their total body weight—while patients who received GLP-1 receptor agonist injections for six months or longer lost an average of 12 pounds, or about 4.7% of body weight. Those who remained on the medication for at least a year achieved 7% average total weight loss. Researchers also noted that GLP-1 drug users tended to have more chronic conditions and lower incomes than the surgical group, and up to 70% stopped using the drugs within a year.

Fox News reports that this is the first study to compare real-world effectiveness of GLP-1 medications against bariatric surgery across a broad population. The researchers hope to conduct additional studies to improve outcomes for GLP-1 users and determine which patients may be better candidates for surgery or medication. Prior clinical trials of semaglutide and tirzepatide have reported weight loss between 15% and 21%, but those trials involved highly selected participants.

According to the article, real-world adoption of both treatments remains limited: 12% of eligible patients have ever used a GLP-1 drug and only 6% currently do, while just 1% of eligible patients underwent bariatric surgery in 2023.