Journal club: SURMOUNT-1, read without the press release

Offering a way to settle SURMOUNT-1 rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.

Adding the measurement that post #31 says would settle it.

Having read the whole SURMOUNT-1 thread before replying: the question in the first post has not actually been answered yet, and three of us have answered a nearby one instead.

Post #40 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.

People arriving without having read it should be welcome and should say so, because a question from someone who has not read it frequently exposes an assumption everyone else made.

Where I would look next, rather than where I would stop.

Taking post #54 at face value and following it one step further.

A methods point on SURMOUNT-1 rather than a substantive one: if the comparison is not like for like, the difference you are measuring is the difference in method.

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.

The variance between people here is larger than the effect being discussed.

Reading order that works for these sessions: registry entry, methods, baseline table, primary result, then abstract last. Reading the abstract first anchors everything that follows.

That holds for the case as described. Change the assumptions and it may not.

Nothing to add on the substance. Thank you for taking the question at face value.

Everything in post #146 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.

Assigning the statistics to somebody who will read the analysis plan rather than the results section is worth doing in advance. It is the part that gets skipped by default.

I have separated what I observed from what I concluded, which does not always happen.

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.