A Randomized Trial Of Lorcaserin And Lifestyle Counseling For Maintaining Weight Loss Achieved With A Low-Calorie Diet

Objective: Improving the maintenance of lost weight remains a critical challenge, which can be addressed by long-term behavioral and/or pharmacological interventions.Methods: This study investigated the efficacy of combined behavioral and pharmacological treatment in facilitating weight loss maintenance (WLM) in 137 adults (86.1% female; 68.6% black; BMI=37.05.6 kg/m(2)) who had lost >= 5% of initial weight during a 14-week low-calorie diet (LCD) program (mean=9.32.9%). Participants were randomly assigned to lorcaserin (10 mg twice a day) or placebo and were provided 16 group WLM counseling sessions over 52 weeks.Resultst: 24 weeks post randomization, more lorcaserin-treated than placebo-treated participants maintained a 5% loss (73.9% vs. 57.4%; P=0.033), and the lorcaserin-treated participants lost an additional 2.4 +/- 0.8 kg versus a 0.6 +/- 0.8 kg gain for placebo (P=0.010). However, at week 52, groups did not differ on either co-primary outcome; 55.1% and 42.6%, respectively, maintained >= 5% loss (P=0.110), with gains from randomization of 2.0 +/- 0.8 kg and 2.5 +/- 0.8 kg (P=0.630), respectively. From the start of the LCD, groups maintained reductions of 7.8% and 6.6%, respectively (P=0.318).Conclusions: Combined behavioral and pharmacological treatment produced clinically meaningful long-term weight loss in this group of predominantly black participants. Lorcaserin initially improved upon weight loss achieved with WLM counseling, but this advantage was not maintained at 1 year.