BioDad
GLP-1 Novice
I have a couple of questions about reta that have been bugging me.
Quick background - I'm a total newbie to this, only about 5 weeks into reta, and literally never touched any other peptides before. Yeah, I know, pretty vanilla.
So I've been digging around trying to understand a few things that don't quite add up for me:
First thing - I keep seeing people swear by once-weekly dosing, saying it's better and more efficacious than splitting doses. But honestly? This doesn't really track when you look at the pharmacokinetics. I get why the trials did weekly dosing (convenience for participants, plus the ~6 day half-life makes it practical), but I'm struggling to understand why it would actually be more effective than splitting. There's a clear threshold dose, similar to most medications, that is required for it to have an effect, but that seems to at least be around 2mg, so anything beyond that is likely enough.
If doses are split, there would be smaller peaks and troughs but the same average levels over the week (eg, lower Cmax, higher Cmin, same Cavg/AUC). The only explanation I can come up with is that people "feel" it working more with the big weekly dose because they get that strong appetite suppression hit at the start of the week (along with more side effects), but then it tapers off by day 6-7. Am I missing something here? I understand the experiences of people and people swear by both sides of the argument, but scientifically, I'm trying to rationalize how once a weeks is possibly more efficacious than split doses. (For the record, I'm using split doses and am quite happy with it, but am willing to do whatever has a better impact.)
Second - This one's been really puzzling me. I've seen loads of people who've used sema or tirz saying they were hungrier and with more food noise than while on reta and end up switching back to tirz, or stack both. I understand that everyone responds differently, but here's what I don't understand...
All the reta studies show pretty impressive weight loss WITHOUT any special diet/exercise programs. Just the medication alone. So presumably those trial participants had normal hunger cues like the rest of us while on reta. =Yet, they lost a considerable amount of weight.
My theory is that even if reta gives you more hunger and less satiety compared to tirz, if you 1) stick with a high enough dose for 2) enough time, you'll 3) likely get the weight loss results, despite stronger hunger cues. At least that's what the studies seem to show. Again, personally, I still get hungry on reta, at the same times of day as previously, but end up eating one serving of dinner rather than two, and sweets have zero appeal at all now (Eg, the KitKat bar while checking out at Walmart). It has just taken the edge off, which I quite like so far.
Does anyone have insights on either of these? Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
Quick background - I'm a total newbie to this, only about 5 weeks into reta, and literally never touched any other peptides before. Yeah, I know, pretty vanilla.
So I've been digging around trying to understand a few things that don't quite add up for me:
First thing - I keep seeing people swear by once-weekly dosing, saying it's better and more efficacious than splitting doses. But honestly? This doesn't really track when you look at the pharmacokinetics. I get why the trials did weekly dosing (convenience for participants, plus the ~6 day half-life makes it practical), but I'm struggling to understand why it would actually be more effective than splitting. There's a clear threshold dose, similar to most medications, that is required for it to have an effect, but that seems to at least be around 2mg, so anything beyond that is likely enough.
If doses are split, there would be smaller peaks and troughs but the same average levels over the week (eg, lower Cmax, higher Cmin, same Cavg/AUC). The only explanation I can come up with is that people "feel" it working more with the big weekly dose because they get that strong appetite suppression hit at the start of the week (along with more side effects), but then it tapers off by day 6-7. Am I missing something here? I understand the experiences of people and people swear by both sides of the argument, but scientifically, I'm trying to rationalize how once a weeks is possibly more efficacious than split doses. (For the record, I'm using split doses and am quite happy with it, but am willing to do whatever has a better impact.)
Second - This one's been really puzzling me. I've seen loads of people who've used sema or tirz saying they were hungrier and with more food noise than while on reta and end up switching back to tirz, or stack both. I understand that everyone responds differently, but here's what I don't understand...
All the reta studies show pretty impressive weight loss WITHOUT any special diet/exercise programs. Just the medication alone. So presumably those trial participants had normal hunger cues like the rest of us while on reta. =Yet, they lost a considerable amount of weight.
My theory is that even if reta gives you more hunger and less satiety compared to tirz, if you 1) stick with a high enough dose for 2) enough time, you'll 3) likely get the weight loss results, despite stronger hunger cues. At least that's what the studies seem to show. Again, personally, I still get hungry on reta, at the same times of day as previously, but end up eating one serving of dinner rather than two, and sweets have zero appeal at all now (Eg, the KitKat bar while checking out at Walmart). It has just taken the edge off, which I quite like so far.
Does anyone have insights on either of these? Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
