I keep finding that the number in the press summary and the number in the paper are not the same number, and the difference is always in the same direction.
A quick sanity check on any figure quoted here: is it mean or median, is it intention-to-treat or completers, and what was the comparator. Three questions, and they resolve most disagreements in these threads.
What I am trying to establish is how to read a result like this without either dismissing it or over-reading it, since the summaries all read like press releases.
Happy to be told the question itself is wrong.
Answering the narrow version, because the broad one does not have a single answer. The gap between trial results and real-world results is consistent and it is not fraud. Trial participants get titration by protocol, scheduled contact, free drug and dietetic support; removing that infrastructure costs a few percentage points every time it has been measured. When your own curve sits below the published mean, that is the likeliest explanation before anything about you or your material.
Happy to go further on any of that.
Dr.ObesityLA said:The gap between trial results and real-world results is consistent and it is not fraud.
Dr.ObesityLA said:...regarding the trial evidence...
I think this is an underappreciated point. To expand on it with some data:
A recent meta-analysis of 18 RCTs (n=15,600) found that the trial evidence was associated with a robust effect size across diverse patient populations[1].
The NNT was 15, which is comparable to statins for secondary prevention. That's a strong clinical argument for this approach.
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View ResultsNauseaFreeNow said:I keep finding that the number in the press summary and the number in the paper are not the same number, and the difference is always in the same…
This matches mine closely enough to be worth saying so. Read four things before the headline number. The population, because trial populations are selected and supported in ways that real cohorts are not. The comparator, because "better than placebo" and "better than the current standard" are different claims and get reported identically. The primary endpoint as pre-registered, because a secondary endpoint promoted after the fact is a hypothesis rather than a finding. And the completion rate, because a large effect in the half of participants who finished is a different result from a large effect in everybody enrolled.
That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.
Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads.
Propensity score matching studies and the trial evidence: when RCTs aren't available for a specific question, propensity score-matched observational studies can provide useful evidence.
A recent PSM study of 18,000 GLP-1 users vs matched controls showed reduced MI incidence (HR 0.78) over 4 years of follow-up[1].
These results complement the RCT data and suggest the benefits translate to real-world populations.
[1] Registry-based cohort study, pre-print 2024.