The growing use of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs has had an outsized, sometimes negative, impact on all sorts of industries, particularly those related to food . Another such casualty, research out today suggests, seems to be weight loss surgery.

Researchers examined a major database of bariatric surgeries performed in the U.S. Following a rise in recent years, the estimated number of total procedures took a sharp dive in 2024, they found. Though the study can’t show the cause for this decline, the researchers suspect that GLP-1s are playing a big part. They also worry some people with severe obesity are being steered away from the surgical treatments they would most benefit from as a result.

“Our concern with the current state of obesity treatment is that the marketing of GLP-1 medications and their massive popularity is overshadowing scientific evidence supporting metabolic and bariatric surgery as the most efficacious therapy for obesity,” lead study author Tyler Cohn, a surgeon and associate professor…