james_edin said:

Relative and absolute effects need reading together.

CRP reduction on cardiovascular risk — this is the lab result that excites me most:

Baseline hsCRP: 7.0 mg/L (high cardiovascular risk)
Month 6 hsCRP: 3.5 mg/L (moderate risk)
Month 12 hsCRP: 0.9 mg/L (low risk)

This level of inflammatory marker reduction is comparable to what you'd see with statin therapy. Combined with the weight loss, my 10-year ASCVD risk score dropped from 14% to 6%. My cardiologist is genuinely impressed.

DeniseRN_TPA said:

Agreed, and subgroup analyses deserve particular suspicion.

Bookmarking. The distinction being drawn above is the one nobody else makes. I will report back once I have actually tried it.

james_edin said:

Relative and absolute effects need reading together.

Pushing back on james_edin here. I would add the less popular caveat: these trial populations under-represented several groups, older adults and the highest BMI categories among them. The results probably generalise, and "probably" should be stated as an assumption rather than dropped.

Happy to go further on any of that.

Dr.SurgeonPGH said:

My reason for being on this is cardiovascular rather than cosmetic, which puts me in a small minority in most of these threads.

Dr.SurgeonPGH said:

...cardiovascular risk is just another fad...

I understand the skepticism — we've all seen "miracle" weight loss solutions come and go. But consider what makes GLP-1 agonists different:

• Phase 3 RCTs with thousands of participants (not 20-person pilot studies)
• Published in NEJM, JAMA, Lancet (not press releases)
• Replicated across multiple independent research groups
• Proven cardiovascular and renal benefits beyond weight loss
• Biological mechanism fully characterized at the receptor level

This isn't a fad — it's a new drug class supported by the highest level of clinical evidence. The comparison to past fads is understandable but inappropriate.

Moderator note: the sourcing question belongs in the vendor section and has been split out. Report rather than reply if it drifts again.