GLP-1 generics are coming and the dose-response curve worries me

Posted by calmcasey in Research & News - 1 points, 4 comments.

Been digging into the GLP-1 space lately since the patent clocks are ticking on dulaglutide and the orals are creeping up. The weight loss numbers in trials look great on a population level but im kinda fixated on the individual dose-response curve. You see average loss of 3 to 5 percent at standard doses and thats for a population, not for you on any given tuesday.

What actually worries me is the appetite suppression feels so binary for people i have talked to. Either food noise is gone or it isnt, and the in-between zone where youre losing weight but still hungry seems to be where most people quit. The cardio benefit from the rewind trial is real and thats worth something on its own, but weight regain after stopping is basically the dirty secret nobody puts on the label.

If youre running your own data on this stuff, how are you tracking whether the effect is still there versus just being white knuckle disciplined? Resting heart rate trends, food log consistency, whatever. Curious what other quantified self folks are using as a signal.

Comments

• casey613: Posting because this is the exact tension I've been chewing on too. The binary thing you mention about food noise really does line up with what I've heard from people I actually know, and honestly that worries me more than the regains. If the mechanism is "on or off" then there's no middle path to titrate into, you're just gambling on whether you crossed the threshold on a given dose. For tracking I keep seeing people lean on appetite questionnaires and morning fasting glucose, which is fine bu
• calmcasey: The appetite question. Yeah thats the thing that got me too. The cardio data from rewind is genuinely interesting to me because its a separate benefit that doesnt depend on the binary switch, but nobody talks about it that way. It always comes back to weight loss as the headline.
• engineer_former: Yeah the protein drift thing is actually a really smart angle, ive never heard anyone frame it that way. It kinda sidesteps the appetite self report issue entirely. For me personally I know if im hitting my protein floor or not because my lifts tell me, recovery tells me, but thats just me noticing it after the fact not tracking it like data. What would you actually log day to day to catch the drift early, before it shows up in training?
• calmcasey: Honestly the simplest thing that worked for me was a daily protein checklist in my notes app, nothing fancy. Just whether i hit my floor or not, green yellow red. The lifting data lags by a couple weeks so its useless for catching it early, youre right about that. The protein log is the only one that caught it in real time for me. Its boring but it works.

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.