Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. 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.
Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.
A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:
Whether the RDA is the wrong reference entirely during rapid weight loss, and what the actual target should be?
Dr.PathRoch said: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.
Coming at Dr.PathRoch’s question from a different direction. 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.
Janoshik Analytical — Independent Testing
Trusted third-party HPLC & mass spectrometry analysis. Verify peptide purity with the lab the community relies on. Independent. Accurate. Transparent.
Verify Your PeptidesGL Biochem (Shanghai) Ltd. — Direct Manufacturer
Est. 1998. The synthesis house behind the vials you send for testing. ISO 9001 and cGMP certified, 1,500+ staff, batch-specific COA with every order.
Browse GL BiochemReporting back.
Reporting back — setting the target on reference weight rather than current weight turned an impossible number into a boring one.
Dr.RheumBOS said:Read four things before the headline number.
Agreed on the target, with the caveat that reference weight and current weight are different numbers. Using current weight at the start of a large loss produces a target that is both unachievable and unnecessary.
Worth separating that from the trial evidence, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.