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# 31% of US adults starting a GLP-1 drug for obesity were persistent users over 12 months
- URL: https://www.coios.me/31-of-us-adults-starting-a-glp-1-drug-for-obesity-were/
- Published: 2026-09-20T00:06:10.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-20T00:42:11.000Z
- Description: Among 201,229 commercially insured US adults with obesity and no diabetes who started a GLP-1 receptor agonist, 30.7% followed a persistent-use trajectory over 12 months and 43.1% had discontinued within the first half-year, with 20.3% persistent among 1,139 paediatric initiators.
- Author: Daniel Ryan
- Tags: Behavioural science, What changes behaviour at scale, Obesity, diabetes and the GLP-1 drugs, United States, #peer-reviewed, #confirms, #item, #source-2026-09

A retrospective cohort from 2021 to 2023 MarketScan commercial claims followed 201,229 adults and 1,139 patients aged 10 to 17 with obesity but without diabetes for a year after starting a GLP-1 receptor agonist, measuring the monthly proportion of days covered. Roughly 3 in 10 adults (30.7%) were persistent users, while 19.6% discontinued immediately, 23.5% early and 20.7% late, and 5.5% used the drug intermittently. Among paediatric initiators 20.3% were persistent, and persistence was higher in the Northeast than the South (adult OR 1.32, paediatric OR 1.65), although commercial claims describe insured patients only.

*Why it is interesting: A large claims-based estimate of how long people stay on the GLP-1 drugs in routine US practice, with fewer than 1 in 3 adults persistent at a year.*

Source

[Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 17 September 2026](https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.71299?ref=coios.me)

DOI

10.1111/dom.71299

Type

Peer-reviewed article

Design

Retrospective cohort of US commercial claims (MarketScan 2021-2023), 201,229 adults and 1,139 patients aged 10-17 with obesity and no diabetes, group-based trajectory modelling of 12-month proportion of days covered

Verdict

Confirms prior evidence

Driver

[What changes behaviour at scale](https://www.coios.me/d-behaviour-change/)

Driver

[Obesity, diabetes and the GLP-1 drugs](https://www.coios.me/d-obesity-diabetes/)