[rayiner]

This is a very odd phrasing that makes it seem like heart attack and stroke risk are higher for those who stop taking the drug than those who never took the drug. Moreover, the effect of restarting taking the drug seems attributable to the study design. Those who took a break had higher risk at the end of the study than those who don’t. But those who took a break took the drug for less total time than those who took it for the entire study.

You could characterize these same facts in the opposite way. GLP-1s don’t permanently change your body. They provide benefits while taking them but quickly clear out of your system when you stop taking them. Arguably, that’s a good thing in a drug.

[IAmGraydon]

>This is a very odd phrasing that makes it seem like heart attack and stroke risk are higher for those who stop taking the drug than those who never took the drug.

That does appear to be the case, according to the study.

[post-it]

It certainly does not. To make that claim, the study would need a control group of people who had never taken the drug. They didn't have that:

> Participants Veterans Affairs users with type 2 diabetes who started treatment with GLP-1RAs (n=132 551) or sulfonylureas (n=201 136), followed up for three years. Veterans Affairs users were defined as having at least two visits to Veterans Affairs and having used the Veterans Affairs outpatient pharmacy within a year before receiving treatment with GLP-1RAs or sulfonylureas.

[embedding-shape]

> They didn't have that

So, why not? Seems very obvious to everyone here on HN that it's "kind of useless" unless they did have that, yet they didn't. What reason would there be for ignoring that?

[post-it]

They were testing what happens when you stop taking Ozempic compared to what happens when you don't stop taking it, and also what happens when you start taking it again.

Assembling a control group of people who have never taken Ozempic could be difficult. How do you control for the fact that people not on Ozempic are less likely to need Ozempic? You'd need to figure out some criteria by which to include and exclude patients before sorting by whether they take Ozempic or not, so you'd have a smaller sample size of people who are taking Ozempic.

Best not to allow scope creep.

[kube-system]

The conclusion of the study says:

> This study showed that discontinuing and interrupting GLP-1RA treatment could erode and might reverse the cardiovascular benefits of the drug in a duration dependent manner, increasing the risk of cardiovascular events.

emphasis mine

[r-johnv]

Reverse the benefits != increase the net risk

It took a while going through the data in the results section to see this.

[conception]

Could.