People 65 and older represent prime targets for such medications. “The prevalence of obesity hovers around 40%” in older adults, as measured by body mass index, said John Batsis, a geriatrician and obesity specialist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
The proportion of people with Type 2 diabetes rises with age, too, to nearly 30% at age 65 and older. Yet a recent JAMA Cardiology study found that among Americans 65 and up with diabetes, about 60% discontinued semaglutide within a year.
Another study of 125,474 people with obesity or who are overweight found that almost 47% of those with Type 2 diabetes and nearly 65% of those without diabetes stopped taking GLP-1s within a year — a high rate, said Ezekiel Emanuel, a health services researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and senior author of the study.
Patients 65 and older were 20% to 30% more likely than younger ones to discontinue the drugs and less likely to return to them.