Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

Fat cells only turn over about 20% per year. You basically need to maintain a reduced weight for 5 years before the fat cells "forget" the higher weight.

If you come off it before that 5 years are up, yeah, you are probably expected to bounce back somewhat.

You might not need to be on GLP-1 forever, but you might need to be on it longer than people currently think.

Oh thanks, that 20% is a super useful statistic to keep in mind.

Do you happen to have a reference for that or a specific link to learn more? That sounds oddly specific.

Was also interested and a quick search for "human fat cells turnover time years" returned a few research papers that quote 10% a year.

Weight / obesity management is basically managing a chronic condition, that's why time-limited interventions (workout camps, fasting, dieting, drug injections for a few months) don't work - you have to continuously manage the issue. The idea that you have an issue (obesity) and then make an intervention (loose weight) and therefore the issue is resolved (you are no longer obese) is just wrong. It needs to be managed from either the demand side (regular GLP-1 agonist injections to suppress hunger) or the supply side (eating less / better food). Hence: Dieting = never works. Building sustainable habits or continuous administering of GLP-1 = always works.

(Or you're one of the 5% or so of people with a rare gene variation that basically prevents major fat build-up in the body and there's just nothing to manage for you about that — this would've been a pretty disadvantageous adaption in the past, but it's fair to say that the other 95% are maladpated to the last couple thousand years of human life).

> If you come off it before that 5 years are up, yeah, you are probably expected to bounce back somewhat.

It would only be possible to bounce back if you eat excess calories once off the GLP-1.

That's a much rosier picture than requiring GLP-1s for your entire lifetime.

Obviously, but the 'obesogenic memory' that this article is about is a real problem. Calories don't manifest out of thin air but for a plethora of reasons they're much much easier to overconsume as a formerly fat person.

It's semantics but 'changing your diet' is more apt.

Not offhand, but it was an article talking about how they use background radiation to estimate cellular lifetimes.

Over consuming calories is always easy for everyone. Sugar and fat instead of vegetables.