That is the title of a recent white paper written by myself and Kristy Piccinini alongside a team from the Health and Fitness Association (Greta Wagner, Amy Bantham, Ken Griffin, Richard Beddie, Zach Weston, Cameron Saunders). Below is an excerpt:
In recent years, glucagon-like-peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have emerged as a transformative treatment option, enabling patients to achieve significant weight loss within relatively short timeframes. The remarkable efficacy of these medications, combined with the large population affected by obesity, has driven a dramatic increase in GLP-1 utilization over the last few years…
Emerging evidence indicates that combining GLP-1 treatment with structured exercise can mitigate both muscle loss during treatment6 and post-treatment weight rebound. However, the long-term clinical and financial implications of this approach are unknown.
The study found that, compared to GLP-1 therapy alone, over a 10-year horizon:
Structured exercise combined with GLP-1 therapy reduces the number of acute cardiovascular events and joint replacements; in the US this translates to 48,000 cardiovascular events and 160,000 joint replacements avoided. Structured exercise combined with GLP-1 therapy increases patient quality of life and overall survival.Structured exercise combined with GLP-1 therapy reduces medical costs and societal losses due to obesity; in the US this results in US$27 billion in medical costs and US$1 billion in societal costs avoided.— Structured exercise combined with GLP-1 therapy results in a large return on investment in all countries studied; across all countries, the return on investment ranged
from approximately 30-500% over 10 years and 3001,500% over 30 yearsStructured exercise combined with GLP-1 therapy produces a net monetary benefit in all countries. The total net monetary benefit in the US, for example, is US$120 billion
over 10 years and US$393 billion over 30 years.
You can read the full white paper here.
