Follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health policy and obesity
April 4, 2024 — We have much to learn from a recent crisis of escalating insulin prices. This is the bottom line of a new paper in Diabetes Care. In short, multifaceted public policy action eased that crisis. So it has important implications for issues with anticompetitive pricing of diabetes and obesity medicines broadly. Anticompetitive Pricing Practices Authors Kathryn […]
April 3, 2024 — We’re stuck. This assessment sums up frustration with efforts to reduce the harm of obesity and diabetes in public health. For many decades we have remained fixated on a paradigm that tells us obesity and diabetes are rising because our patterns of diet and exercise are all wrong. Writing in the Guardian, Amy McLennan tells […]
April 2, 2024 — We were hopeful. Shortly after launch, it seemed like Lilly was keeping up with the demand for Zepbound – the tirzepatide brand they’re selling for obesity. But it turns out that the overwhelming need for effective obesity medicine is outstripping the supply that both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk can offer. Lilly told reporters on […]
April 1, 2024 — “I might be on on a sugar high, but I’m not a diab*tic. Don’t pathologize my pancreas.” With these words from Lexi Cherinson, a new movement was born last week to challenge a dominant narrative around health, wellbeing, and diverse bodies. Specifically, Cherinson is challenging the fearmongering about a global epidemic of diab*tes. She prefers […]
March 31, 2024 — Narratives are powerful because humanity has a natural inclination to tell stories. We seek to understand our world through the stories we tell. But this sets up a problem for nutrition and obesity science. Appealing narratives untethered from the truth can take decades to recognize as misleading. All too often, this happens only after policymakers […]
March 30, 2024 — Remember when grains were good? Judging by the nutrition red alert arising from the possibility that potatoes might be classified as a grain instead of a vegetable, maybe grains are on the naughty list now. Brave potato defenders in the U.S. Senate are rising up to keep this from happening. They want to save us […]
March 29, 2024 — A fascinating new study is prompting some very clickable headlines this week. It is all about the interaction of genetic risk for obesity and physical activity. It shows that in people with higher genetic risk scores for obesity, the association between physical activity (using daily step counts as a surrogate) and BMI is different than […]
March 28, 2024 — A new economic analysis in JAMA Network Open brings unsurprising news: manufacturing costs for GLP-1 agonists are a tiny fraction of the price for these important medicines. This is always the case for innovative prescription drugs that must recover billions of dollars of development costs in order to be profitable. The response from policy makers […]
March 27, 2024 — Much of the world is having a revelation. Stat News call is a revolution. So does Oprah. They are waking up to a very basic fact that we’ve been working with for decades now. Obesity is a chronic, treatable disease. Obesity medicine wasn’t born yesterday. But it has, at times, been lonely. Arthur Frank, a […]
March 26, 2024 — Eight states have moved to provide nutritious meals at school for free to all students. A few simple reasons make it clear enough that this is a good idea. It reduces the stigma attached to receiving free school meals while improving food security for children from low-income families. Furthermore, nutrition quality goes up for all […]
