If you have been taking a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic, Wegovy, or Zepbound correctly — the right dose, the right frequency, with appropriate dietary and lifestyle changes — and your results are substantially lower than what clinical trial averages suggest, science now has a biological explanation for a subset of those cases.
Researchers at Stanford Medicine, ETH Zurich, and the University of Adelaide published a study in Genome Medicine on April 10, 2026 finding that approximately 10% of the population carries genetic variants in the PAM gene that measurably reduce the biological effectiveness of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs. The finding applies to drugs including semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and liraglutide — and provides a biological mechanism for what clinicians have long observed anecdotally: some patients who are clearly adherent to their regimen consistently experience lower-than-expected results.
