Retatrutide phase 3 data lands, but the osteoarthritis angle is what caught my eye
Posted by weekendnate in Research & News - 2 points, 4 comments.
Eli Lilly's triple-agonist retatrutide just posted new phase 3 results showing close to 24% body weight loss, which lines up with what came out of the earlier trials. The piece from MedCity News covers the obesity numbers but spends real time on a secondary endpoint: osteoarthritis pain and function scores in patients with knee OA. That is the part I find more interesting than another weight loss headline.
A quarter of your body weight coming off is obviously huge, and it sets a new bar for sure. But what I keep wondering is whether the joint improvements are just from carrying less mass around, or if there is something pharmacological going on with the glucagon arm. The article does not really tease that apart.
For anyone chasing the raw weight loss numbers this is exciting, but I am more curious about the OA signal. Has anyone here seen their own joint pain change on tirz or another GLP-1, independent of the weight coming off?
Comments
- curiousbianca: That OA endpoint is honestly the more interesting story, no? Weight loss alone usually helps knees but the magnitude they're reporting seems bigger than what you'd expect from just unloading the joint, at least to me. I work with post-op knees daily and the difference between losing 10% body weight versus what an anti-inflammatory pathway could do is pretty significant in clinic. For me personally on a low-dose tirz run I noticed my morning knee stiffness got better around week 4, before any re
- weekendnate: Yeah, the magnitude is exactly what made me raise an eyebrow too. A few percent weight loss would track fine, but the jump they're showing seems out of proportion with the load drop, which is why I keep landing on the glucagon arm as a possible contributor. Anti-inflammatory signaling in the joint itself is a plausible story, even if the trial doesn't prove it. The week 4 stiffness thing on low-dose tirz is interesting because that lines up with what I saw too, before the scale really moved. Pr
- coastalnoor: I cant believe im agreeing with bianca on a peptide post but yeah that tracks. Anecdotally my knees felt better on low dose tirz before the scale really moved too. Less achy getting out of bed in the morning. Could be inflammation, could be placebo, who knows. Either way ill take it.
- weekendnate: Same here, my left one especially. Stairs used to announce themselves with a creak and now it's just quiet. Hard to say if it's weight, inflammation, or just paying more attention because I'm tracking everything anyway. What dose were you on when you noticed it?
Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.