Answering the narrow version, because the broad one does not have a single answer. The OASIS programme put 50mg oral in the same territory as 2.4mg injectable — around 15% mean weight loss — but it needed a dose 20 times larger to get there because almost none of the tablet is absorbed. The dose numbers are not comparable across routes and quoting them side by side confuses people.

DataDave said:

The OASIS programme put 50mg oral in the same territory as 2.4mg injectable — around 15% mean weight loss — but it needed a dose 20 times larger to…

DataDave has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. Worth adding that the tablet is taken daily, so a missed dose costs far less than a missed weekly injection. That is a genuine advantage nobody lists.

dave_SLC said:

On 25mg oral, four months in, and my results are closer to the low-dose injectable arm than to the numbers being quoted for 50mg.

This matches mine closely enough to be worth saying so. Oral semaglutide is absorbed in the stomach with the help of SNAC, which locally raises pH and protects the peptide long enough to cross. That mechanism is fragile: bioavailability is roughly 1% and highly sensitive to gastric contents, so a mouthful of coffee genuinely changes the exposure. This is why the label wants 30 minutes and no more than half a glass of plain water.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions. Agreeing that something happens says nothing about whether it happens enough to act on.