Journal club: SURMOUNT-1, read without the press release posts 151–158

The baseline characteristics table is the single most useful page for the questions that get asked here, because it tells you who the result applies to.

That is what I would do. It may not be what is correct.

That is consistent with mine, for whatever one more account is worth.

Taking post #151 at face value and following it one step further.

I disagree with the framing of SURMOUNT-1 above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.

The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.

SELECT (N Engl J Med 2023): Semaglutide cardiovascular outcomes without diabetes. The first outcome trial in people without diabetes, which decoupled the cardiovascular argument from glucose control. Read the absolute numbers, not just the relative reduction.

Before the thread moves on from SURMOUNT-1 — what is the sample size behind the claim? I am not being difficult; I have seen the same figure quoted from an n of four and from an n of four hundred.

Where the group cannot agree, record the disagreement rather than resolving it by seniority. The recorded disagreement is more honest and more useful later.

A qualification I should have led with rather than closed on.

Building on post #157 rather than restating it.

I keep a log for SURMOUNT-1 specifically because my memory of it turned out to be systematically wrong in one direction. Six weeks of notes cost nothing and settled it.