Does diet coaching add to Zepbound? Digbi's employer data shows 18.4% real-world tirzepatide weight loss

Real-world tirzepatide weight loss averaged 18.4% at 12 months among 3,181 employer-covered members who also got Digbi Health's personalized diet and lifestyle care, the company said on November 9, 2026. It is Digbi's own analysis, due as a poster at ObesityWeek, not a controlled trial.

Key points

• Digbi Health says members taking tirzepatide (Zepbound) with its Precision Biology Lifestyle Care lost a mean 18.4% of body weight at 12 months.
• The analysis covers 3,181 members across 10 self-insured employers and will be shown as a poster at ObesityWeek 2026, November 14 to 17 in the Washington, DC area.
• Digbi compares its result with three published U.S. real-world cohorts on the same drug that it says reported 12.4% to 16.5% over similar periods.
• The company says each one-point rise on its 0-to-14 meal score went with about 2 more percentage points of weight loss over 3 to 12 months.
• The release does not say how many members stopped the drug, what doses they reached, or what the program costs.

How much weight do people lose on tirzepatide in real-world use?

Published real-world numbers sit below the clinical trials. In the SURMOUNT-1 trial, people on the highest 15 mg dose lost 20.9% at 72 weeks (NEJM, 2022). Outside trials, the figures Digbi cites run from 12.4% to 16.5% at about a year:

Group Digbi compares with	Patients	Mean loss at about 12 months
Digbi members with its lifestyle care (company poster, ObesityWeek 2026)	3,181	18.4%
SHAPE, patients who stayed on therapy (Advances in Therapy, 2025)	3,122	16.5%
Truveta health-record data, all starters (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2024)	9,193	15.3%, as cited in the release
Cleveland Clinic, all starters (Obesity, 2025)	1,772	12.4%, as cited in the release

Those groups were not built alike. SHAPE counted only patients who stayed on the drug for a year, and only 25.9% of its tirzepatide patients reached the top 15 mg dose (SHAPE); it was run by Novo Nordisk staff. The Truveta and Cleveland Clinic cohorts counted everyone who started, including people who later stopped, and 80.8% of the Cleveland Clinic patients were on low maintenance doses (Obesity, 2025).

What does Digbi say its program adds to the drug?

Digbi says it tailors diet and lifestyle advice to each member's genetics, gut microbiome, blood markers and continuous glucose readings, then delivers that coaching through an AI-run telehealth service for the length of therapy. According to the company, members photograph meals in its app and its AI, called ASRA, scores each plate from 0 to 14 for that person's biology, so the same meal can score differently for two people.

The company reports that higher meal scores went with more weight lost. Its example: a 250 lb. member who raised their score by four points lost 20 lbs. more than one whose score did not change. That is an association within Digbi's own members, not proof that the scores caused the extra loss.

"A breakthrough medication deserves breakthrough care built around the individual,"

— Ranjan Sinha, Founder and CEO, Digbi Health

What should people on Zepbound and their employers take from it?

Our analysis: the result is promising but not yet a fair test. Digbi compares its members with groups it picked from published studies, without a control group of its own, and the release does not say whether its 18.4% counts everyone who started or only those who stayed on the drug, the single choice that most separates the cohorts above. Nor does it give doses, dropout, side effects or price. The poster, which Digbi says will be posted at newsroom.digbihealth.ai, should answer some of that.

The cost question behind the release is real. In one Cleveland Clinic sample, 47.6% of people who stopped semaglutide or tirzepatide within a year did so because of cost or insurance (Obesity, 2025). Digbi argues that pairing the drug with personalized care raises the health return on each dollar, whether an employer or the employee pays; that is the company's case, not a measured result. For more on judging weight-loss studies, see our guide to scientific research on weight loss methods, and on apps and tracking, the role of technology in a personal weight loss journey.

Sources

• Digbi Health's release on its tirzepatide results: press release from Digbi Health via GlobeNewswire, 9 November 2026.
• Real-World Weight Loss Observed With Semaglutide and Tirzepatide (SHAPE): Ng et al., Advances in Therapy, 2025.
• Semaglutide vs Tirzepatide for Weight Loss in Adults With Overweight or Obesity: Rodriguez et al. (Truveta), JAMA Internal Medicine, 2024.
• Changes in weight and glycemic control following obesity treatment with semaglutide or tirzepatide by discontinuation status: Gasoyan et al. (Cleveland Clinic), Obesity, 2025.
• Reasons for Discontinuation of Obesity Pharmacotherapy With Semaglutide or Tirzepatide in Clinical Practice: Gasoyan et al. (Cleveland Clinic), Obesity, 2025.
• Tirzepatide Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity: the SURMOUNT-1 trial, New England Journal of Medicine, 2022.
• ObesityWeek 2026: The Obesity Society's annual meeting.
• Digbi Health: the company's website.