Meridia Results and Benefits

Benefits of Losing Weight with MERIDIA

Clinical studies have clearly demonstrated that sibutramine, in combination with diet and exercise, has demonstrated three clinical benefits in weight management:

• Enhancing weight loss,
• Improving weight maintenance, and
• Impacting certain clinical measures associated with obesity.

The Sibutramine Trial of Obesity Reduction and Maintenance – the S.T.O.R.M. Trial – is a two-year study that looked at weight loss and weight maintenance in patients using sibutramine, with diet and exercise, compared to patients on diet and exercise alone. This study, published in the Lancet, a leading international medical journal, demonstrated that sibutramine, in combination with diet and exercise, was significantly more effective than diet and exercise alone in maintaining weight loss over 2 years. Additional analyses of this study demonstrated that weight loss in the sibutramine treatment group was also associated with significant improvements in HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

In this study, 94 percent of patients treated with sibutramine and a diet and exercise program for the first 6 months lost greater than 5 percent of their body weight and approximately 55 percent lost at least 10 percent of their initial body weight. After 6 months, patients were divided into 2 groups: sibutramine with diet and exercise, and diet and exercise alone for an additional 18 months. Nearly 70 percent of patients taking sibutramine maintained a 5 percent weight loss at 2 years, compared to 42 percent of patients on diet and exercise alone. A 10-percent loss was maintained by 46 percent of the people receiving sibutramine, while only 20 percent of the patients on diet and exercise alone saw a similar result at 2 years. Forty-three percent of MERIDIA patients maintained at least 80% of their weight loss at 2 years compared with only 16% of those in the diet and exercise alone group.

Currently, there are only 2 pharmacologic options indicated for long-term (up to 2 years) weight management, one of which is MERIDIA, that have been approved by both the FDA and the European regulatory agencies.

MERIDIA has been studied extensively and thoroughly in more than 100 clinical studies, which included more than 12,000 patients. Since MERIDIA was first approved in 1997, more than 8.5 million people in more than 70 countries have used it for the management of obesity.

How long will I have to take Meridia? Will I gain my weight back if I stop taking it?

Most patients will have to take Meridia® indefinitely, either continuously or intermittently. Some patients may eventually switch to other medications. Obesity is a chronic condition, and the elements an individual uses in a weight loss program usually need to be continued in weight maintenance.

Meridia does it work

Studies on most weight loss drugs show that weight is regained rather rapidly when medication is withdrawn. The Sibutramine Trial in Obesity Reduction and Maintenance (STORM trial) had similar results. In the study, 605 patients at a number of European centers took Meridia® for a six month weight loss period. After that time they were randomized to receive either Meridia® or placebo. The Meridia® patients kept almost all of their weight off, with a small weight regain in the last six months. Over twenty-five percent of Meridia® subjects kept the weight off for the entire two year period. On the other hand, subjects taking placebo gained almost all of their weight back.

Weight maintenance: sibutramine vs. placebo.