Tirzepatide weekly, the SURMOUNT-1 escalation
Written by Aaron Cuha
Weight loss in adults with obesity or overweight and no diabetes
The schedule a registered study in people actually used, taken from the paper and the study's public registration, not from a label summary. Every one links a PubMed or ClinicalTrials record you can open.
Not advice. This is a record of a schedule, not a dose for you.
The schedule, as reported
Each field below is what the source states, not a rounded version of it. Where the source does not publish a detail, the field says so instead of filling the gap.
- Amount
- 5 mg, 10 mg or 15 mg as the ongoing dose, assigned by chance
- How often
- Once weekly
- How it is taken
- Shot under the skin
- How long
- 72 weeks in the main treatment period
How it was reached, step by step
- 01
2.5 mg once weekly to start
- 02
Increases of 2.5 mg every four weeks
- 03
Stepping up stops at the assigned ongoing dose of 5 mg, 10 mg or 15 mg
- 04
That dose is then held to week 72
What was measured
The main things measured: how much body weight changed, in percent, by week 72, and how many people lost at least 5 percent. Also measured: fat and muscle, waist size, and heart and blood sugar numbers.
What was reported
Results as the study reported them, with what they were compared against.
At 72 weeks, people lost 15.0 percent of their weight on average on 5 mg, 19.5 percent on 10 mg and 20.9 percent on 15 mg, against 3.1 percent on the dummy shot.
2,539 adults took part. The three tirzepatide groups differ from each other, and that is the part of this study worth reading: the dose changed the result.
Gut side effects were the most common, and mostly showed up while stepping up the dose, not once people were on the ongoing dose.
Where this comes from
Jastreboff et al., Tirzepatide Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity, New England Journal of Medicine, 2022. A large final-stage study paid for by Eli Lilly.
The step-up rule above is the one in the study's public registration. It says to start at 2.5 mg and add 2.5 mg every four weeks up to each assigned ongoing dose.
What this protocol cannot tell you
Required on every entry in this registry, and never empty.
Weight was what it measured. This study did not measure heart attacks, strokes or deaths. Tirzepatide's later approval for heart health rests on a different study in different people. Everyone here had a diet and exercise program and a study team watching over them, and people with diabetes were left out. The step-up is there to make the drug easier to handle, not a goal to reach. Someone who cannot stay on the assigned ongoing dose has no number in this table that fits them.
The compounds in this protocol
Each profile has the full evidence record, the legal status and what the studies did not show.
- TirzepatideStrong. At least two finished studies in people, and at least 1,000 people who took it. 9 completed trials, 22,802 people given it.11 reported
A once a week shot that works on two hunger and blood sugar signals, GIP and GLP-1. In studies it led to more weight loss and lower blood sugar than drugs that work on GLP-1 alone.
Other trial protocols in the registry
- Semaglutide 2.4 mg weekly, the STEP 1 escalation
- Retatrutide step-up, the early study plan behind TRIUMPH-1
- Tesamorelin 2 mg daily, the pivotal lipodystrophy schedule
- BPC-157 80 mg enema, the Croatian ulcerative colitis study