Long-term Drug Treatment for Obesity

Thirty-six percent of US adults are obese, and many cannot lose sufficient weight to improve health with lifestyle interventions alone.

To conduct a systematic review of medications currently approved in the United States for obesity treatment in adults. We also discuss off-label use of medications studied for obesity and provide considerations for obesity medication use in clinical practice. EVIDENCE REVIEW: A PubMed search from inception through September 2013 was performed to find meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized, placebo-controlled trials for currently approved obesity medications lasting at least 1 year that had a primary or secondary outcome of body weight change, included at least 50 participants per group, reported at least 50% retention, and reported results on an intention-to-treat basis. Studies of medications approved for other purposes but tested for obesity treatment were also reviewed.