The Stopping Question

Part 1 — Clinical Trials

A design note on withdrawal trials, and why the run-in matters

A withdrawal trial answers a narrower question than it appears to. This piece states which question.

Part 2 — The Ledger

The shortage years, and what they taught about interruption

Real-world persistence figures, with their definitions stated, because the definitions are doing most of the work.

Part 3 — The Ledger

Maintenance dosing: what is licensed, what is practised, and what is evidenced

A survey of the maintenance evidence, which is shorter than the survey of the withdrawal evidence.

Part 4 — The Ledger

The lead-in, the randomisation, and the year that followed

Three randomised withdrawal designs have tested what happens when treatment stops. Their results are consistent and they are consistently misreported.

Part 5 — Patient Notes

Two sessions a week, and the evidence behind the prescription

The older-adult diet-and-exercise trials are the closest analogue to rapid pharmacological weight loss, and they are twenty years old.

Part 6 — The Ledger

STEP 2 was built to answer the stopping question, and it did

A withdrawal trial answers a narrower question than it appears to. This piece states which question.

Part 7 — Clinical Trials

How much of cagrilintide weight loss can any instrument actually attribute?

The compartment called lean mass contains water, glycogen, viscera and skin. Only some of it is the tissue anybody is worried about.

Part 8 — Patient Notes

Load, not cardio: the distinction the general advice keeps losing

The older-adult diet-and-exercise trials are the closest analogue to rapid pharmacological weight loss, and they are twenty years old.