You can't really compare other GLP-1s to reta. Let me explain why.
First, take a look at the TRIUMPH-1 study. You can see that people were still losing weight at week 104 instead of plateauing. And in my personal opinion, you also can't compare trial patients to the people here.
As you can see from the triz curve, people started regaining weight once they stopped the GLP-1 meds. That tells me one thing: they were using GLP-1 purely as a lifestyle drug. They hadn't changed anything about their lifestyle or eating habits - they were simply in a calorie deficit. That's it.
With reta and grey GLP-1s especially, I see people using the drug as a window of opportunity to actually change their lives -to start doing sports, lifting weights, building muscle, and so on.
Now back to the triz study you quoted. The only thing it really shows is weight loss - not what people lost. And that's the key difference between a number on the scale and actual health, because we don't want to lose muscle mass; we want to get rid of fat.
In the triz study, people lost more weight on the 10 mg dose than on 5 mg simply because their calorie deficit was greater. That's it. Most people - even on reta - struggle to hit their minimum protein intake to slow down muscle loss, since muscle protein gets catabolised for gluconeogenesis.
That's why a dose of around 4 mg is the better choice. This is where you get the most long-term benefit. You can always escalate further, but there's no need to if you don't have to.
And for those who claim they have no side effects: because of the drug's half-life, you can't just say, "Yeah, I took an 8 mg dose and everything was fine." The peak concentration - even at 8 mg - won't hit until after the fourth injection, so about a month later.
