Surgery vs weight loss medication - new study reveals which works better

FOX 2 - If you're struggling to lose weight and weighing your options, there's a new study comparing surgery to medication.

The backstory:

Surgery sounds scary. Medication, in the form of the shot might seem easier, but which works better in the long run?

Figuring out how to lose weight and keep it off is a big challenge but a new study from the Cleveland Clinic details some interesting research. 
 
Doctors looked at about 4,000 patients for 10 years. About half had bariatric surgery and half took GLP-1 medications.

Doctor Ali Aminian, led the research.

"Bariatric surgery is usually one and done," he said. "People undergo surgery, two-hour procedure and then they see the benefit for many years. For the medication they need to be on the medications so if they stop the medications then all those benefits are going to subside and go away."

In addition to dealing with obesity, the patients all had diabetes as well. Doctors found that while both bariatric surgery and GLP-1’s can help improve cardiovascular health and metabolism, bariatric surgery ultimately had more long-term benefits.

For example, there was a 32-percent lower risk of death and 35-percent lower risk of major heart problems with those bariatric surgery patients. But why?

"We found that people who had bariatric surgery lost more weight, they had better diabetes control and more importantly, they had better clinical outcomes," he said.

It is important to point out that it was a 10-year study that looked at older and newer medications. The plan is to take these newer medications and compare them against surgery.

It is a personal decision, you have to know what works best for your lifestyle, budget and commitment.