News Archive for June, 2023

At the ASMBS Annual Meeting this week, a new study of major bad outcomes in people with both obesity and sleep apnea reminds us why metabolic surgery remains an important option for comprehensive obesity care. The risk of death, heart attacks, strokes, and other major bad cardiovascular outcomes is 37 percent lower if a person […]

After four exhilarating days of new possibilities for overcoming diabetes and obesity at ADA2023, we had to come back down to earth. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK stepped up to this task right away. On Tuesday, NICE said nope to recommending tirzepatide use for type 2 diabetes in the […]

In his scientific autobiography, Max Planck wrote that “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Economist Paul Samuelson shortened this to say “science progresses one funeral at […]

The last of four big days at ADA2023 brought us astonishing results from three studies of a new obesity medicine, retatrutide. This is the first 3-in-1 metabolic receptor agonist to advance this far in clinical trials as a medicine for obesity or diabetes. Researchers presented phase 2 results for obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD – three […]

“We may be on the cusp of an era of astonishing innovation – the limits of which aren’t even clear yet,” writes David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times. Among other breakthroughs, he cites the transformation in care that semaglutide and tirzepatide are bringing for the most prevalent chronic disease in the world – obesity. […]

We take it as a given – we want to eat healthy. Since 2016, FDA has been working on developing an updated definition for the meaning of “healthy” if a food seller wants to say that about one of its products. The agency is still struggling with this question today. So we were glad to […]

Suddenly at the ADA2023 meeting in San Diego, it seems the tides are rolling in to promise more options than ever before for treating obesity. By tides we mean all those drugs targeting the GLP-1 receptors. GLP-1 is shorthand for glucagon-like peptide 1. Most, but not all of these drugs making a splash in San […]

Since January, when the American Academy of Pediatrics released a guideline for treating the disordered physiology of children and youth with obesity, we’ve been inundated with popular psychology influencers concerned about the impact on young persons with disordered eating. Their arguments are quite passionate. “Obesity guidelines for kids terrify me,” says one person with a […]

It can be tedious. But the truth is that persistent pursuit of access to obesity care does indeed bring incremental progress. The latest case study came this week in Connecticut, with Governor Ned Lamont signing a bill into law to provide better access to obesity care under the state’s Medicaid program. Years of Effort This […]

We’re packing our bag for San Diego and the 83rd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, which starts on Friday. This is not a meeting that has been a regular habit for ConscienHealth. But this year it seems ADA2023 will be another milestone in the ongoing diabesity merger. That almost too clever term first […]