October 31, 2024 — The eternal question about medical and surgical treatment for obesity in young persons is all about long-term outcomes. Will the net effect of highly effective treatment actually be to make their lives better? An impressive new analysis of ten-year outcomes for metabolic surgery in teens offers excellent insight. A Landmark Publication The Teen-LABS (Longitudinal Assessment […]
October 30, 2024 — November is upon us and thus, so is ObesityWeek 2024 in San Antonio. This has been a year of radical change in the environment for obesity research, prevention, and care. So as we peruse the program for this meeting, it comes across as a year for consolidating the understanding of this disease and transformative options […]
October 29, 2024 — In some ways, it is nothing new. The medical needs of people living with obesity have been dismissed seemingly forever. But at the same time it is shocking to learn of Merck – a highly respected pharmaceutical firm – leaving doctors in the dark by choice about how one of their drugs acts differently in […]
October 28, 2024 — “Our results provide a national contemporaneous estimate of the decline in metabolic bariatric surgery associated with the era of GLP-1 RAs.” Writing in JAMA Network Open last week, Kevin Lin, Ateev Mehrotra, and Thomas Tsai say rates of metabolic surgery dropped 26% in 2023 as use of GLP-1 medicines for obesity more than doubled. Nonetheless, […]
October 27, 2024 — It seems that both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are dreaming of a bigger ban on competition for their wildly successful obesity drugs. With semaglutide and tirzepatide, they have valuable assets that meet a tremendous medical need. And they really do not like the compounding pharmacies taking big bites from their apples. So this week, […]
October 26, 2024 — Yesterday at Concordia University, we wrapped up two days of an international weight bias summit aimed at setting priorities for translating an explosion of weight stigma research into action for ending weight stigma. Observations of Progress Rebecca Puhl spoke in a webinar with more than 250 people from all over the world. She reflected on […]
October 25, 2024 — At the very outset of this week’ s International Weight Bias Summit in Montreal, one thing was plain see. Weight bias in healthcare is an area to focus on for much needed action. How can we accept this? People seeking care for obesity and health conditions that may (or may not) be related to it […]
October 24, 2024 — This week, we are in Montreal for the International Weight Bias Summit at Concordia University. A host of organizations committed to better strategies, policies, and care for people living with obesity are supporting this effort. Leading into the summit is the launch this week of a new and improved bias-free obesity image gallery at HLTH […]
October 23, 2024 — God bless the people who put their time into the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. It fits the textbook definition of a thankless task. Years of work go into producing a scientifically sound set of recommendations for a new edition of dietary guidelines to emerge sometime next year. But no matter what those recommendations are, people […]
October 22, 2024 — Adolescence is hard. With respect to mental health, especially of late, the environment is especially harsh. Even harsher if an adolescent is living with obesity. So a recent study in JAMA Pediatrics showing teens with obesity are having fewer suicidal thoughts when they get a GLP-1 is welcome news. Authors Liya Kerem and Joshua Stokar […]
