This gets cited here weekly, usually second-hand, so it is worth setting out what it does and does not establish.
The mechanism that matters here is not stomach emptying, it is central. GLP-1 receptor agonism in the arcuate nucleus stimulates POMC neurons and suppresses AgRP/NPY signalling, which is why the effect is appetite and food salience rather than physical fullness. Delayed gastric emptying largely tachyphylaxes over the first months; the appetite effect does not.
Where I think it is weakest: the follow-up is short relative to how long people actually take these drugs, so durability is an assumption here rather than a finding.
The question I want answered is how much of the between-person variation is pharmacokinetic and how much is just adherence measured badly. I would rather have one careful answer than five confident ones.
Figures above are from the primary publication rather than the press summary. If a number here disagrees with one you have, post yours and we will work out which of us is reading a secondary source.
ben_calgary said:The mechanism that matters here is not stomach emptying, it is central.
Agreed, though "tolerable" needs defining. A dose you tolerate by eating almost nothing is not tolerated, it is being paid for somewhere else — usually in lean mass, sometimes in adherence three months later.
ben_calgary said:The mechanism that matters here is not stomach emptying, it is central.
I read this differently from ben_calgary, on substance rather than tone. The trial means are being read too generously in this thread. STEP populations were selected, supported, and titrated by protocol, and the real-world curves are consistently a few points worse. That difference is not noise, it is what happens when you remove the study infrastructure.
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Browse GL BiochemShort answer first, then the reasoning. Albumin binding above 99% is the whole reason weekly dosing works, and it is also why the trough matters more than the peak. People who dose late are not losing a peak, they are letting the trough fall, and the appetite effect tracks the trough.
Dr.BariatricHTX said:Agreed, though "tolerable" needs defining.
All true, with one condition: that curve is for people who reached the dose on schedule. Anyone who slowed the ladder for tolerability is on a different, flatter curve, and comparing yourself with the published mean will make you feel like a non-responder when you are not.