If you take a weight-loss drug, or a weight-loss injection such as semaglutide, get the prescription at a hospital and raise the dose and come back for checks as the doctor arranges. Do not buy from an online shop that ships without a prescription, and do not get injected at a beauty salon

A prescription drug has to be sold against a prescription. Selling it online also takes a real prescription and a real name. An online shop that ships without a consultation, or a beauty salon that comes to your home to inject, is usually supplying drugs of unclear origin, and nobody is responsible for the dose or for who should not have it. 1 year after the weight-loss injections stop, about 2/3 of the weight lost comes back, so count it as long-term treatment.

Cost

1 registration visit, plus the trip there and back. Tens of yuan, and half a day. If you are getting the weight-loss injections, you also go back for checks at the times the doctor sets. The money for the drug is separate. After you stop the injections the weight mostly comes back, so count this money as long-term use.

Benefit

The Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Drug Distribution and Use Quality say that a drug retailer must follow the system that sorts drugs into prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs. That system puts drugs in 2 kinds. One kind can be bought only with a doctor's prescription. The other can be bought by the person. The pharmacy must sell prescription drugs against a prescription, as the rules require, and keep the prescription for at least 5 years. When the pharmacist or another pharmacy technician is not on duty, a sign must say so, and prescription drugs must not be sold without their review. Prescription drugs must not be sold from open shelves, for a customer to take down. Article 9 of the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Drug Sales says that, when prescription drugs are sold to an individual online, the seller must make sure the prescription comes from a real and reliable source, and must use real-name rules. Article 10 requires a risk warning shown prominently under each drug's display page. Before the prescription has been reviewed, the package insert must not be shown, and no buying service may be offered. Before the prescription is reviewed, the page should not even give a button to buy. Article 8 says that drugs under special state control must not be sold online. These include vaccines, blood products, narcotic drugs, psychotropic drugs, toxic drugs for medical use, radioactive drugs, and drug-class precursor chemicals. The National Health Commission's Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Obesity (2024 edition) state that 5 drugs have been approved by the National Medical Products Administration for weight loss in adult primary obesity. The 5 are orlistat, liraglutide, beinaglutide, semaglutide, and tirzepatide. The same guidelines count a BMI (body mass index) from 24 up to but not including 28 as overweight, and 28 and above as obese. A drug is considered when the person is overweight and also has a related disease, such as high blood sugar, hypertension (high blood pressure), abnormal blood lipids, or fatty liver, or is already obese. The premise is that changing how you live has not brought the weight down. The drug is added on top of that. The guidelines require a full assessment of the illness and the contraindications before the drug, and regular follow-up under a specialist physician while it is used. Semaglutide starts at 0.25 mg a week, with a maintenance dose of 2.4 mg or 1.7 mg. Tirzepatide starts at 2.5 mg a week, up to 15 mg. If the weight lost is under 5%, the guidelines suggest stopping the drug. What happens after stopping is in 3 trials. The STEP 1 extension followed 327 people. After 68 weeks on semaglutide they had lost 17.3% on average. 1 year after stopping, the weight had come back by 11.6 percentage points, and the net loss left was 5.6%. The authors' conclusion was that they had regained 2/3 of the weight previously lost, and that most cardiovascular and metabolic markers had also moved back near the start. STEP 4 took 803 people who had already injected for 20 weeks and lost 10.6% on average, and split them by drawing lots. Those who kept injecting lost another 7.9% over the next 48 weeks. Those switched to a placebo regained 6.9%. In SURMOUNT-4, 670 people first injected tirzepatide for 36 weeks and lost 20.9% on average. Those who kept injecting then lost another 5.5%. Those switched to a placebo regained 14.0%. In July (7) 2026 the Yinchuan market supervision administration issued a risk alert. It said that the internet-famous "weight-loss injections" and "slimming pens" on the market are mostly repackaged drugs of unknown source, smuggled drugs, or counterfeit drugs. Buying them online or through a purchasing agent and injecting them yourself can easily set off a severe allergy, acute pancreatitis, organ damage, and a wound infection. An injection of this cosmetic-medicine kind can be done only at an institution that has a medical-aesthetics qualification. An injection at the person's home, or a private injection at a beauty salon, is not compliant. See item 2 of this section (2 things to check before injections, thread lifts, or surgery).

Notes

The articles can be checked word for word, and the figures for weight coming back after stopping come from trials that split people by drawing lots. But nobody has quantified "how many fewer events you get if you use a prescription instead of buying it yourself," so it is graded B as hard to quantify. The STEP 1 extension stopped not only the drug. The guidance on diet and exercise stopped with it, and only some of the people in the original trial were followed. The steroids and sex hormones in items 5 and 7 of this section follow the same rules. When weight really has to come off with a drug, the doctor first looks at BMI, at whether there are other diseases, and at whether there is a reason the drug cannot be used, and only then decides whether to take it and which one. That judgment cannot be bought.

Sources · 7

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4. Wilding JPH et al. (2022). Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension. Diabetes Obes Metab. doi.org/10.1111/dom.14725
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6. Aronne LJ et al. (2024). Continued Treatment With Tirzepatide for Maintenance of Weight Reduction in Adults With Obesity: The SURMOUNT-4 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. doi.org/10.1001/jama.2023.24945
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