What You Read and Shared Most on ConscienHealth in 2024

This has been quite a year. We’ve seen endless death and destruction in Ukraine and the Middle East. People expressed discontent with the status quo in elections all over the world. But most notably for our readers – more than 100,000 of you this year – the progress on obesity and health has been nothing short of amazing. So to give you a quick look back, here are the top ten posts that you read and shared most on ConscienHealth in 2024.

1. Debunking the Blue Zones

Your interest in this unusual interview was off the charts – more than ten times higher than an average post. In an interview with Saul Justin Newman, he explains that the data on longevity, used to support claims about “blue zones,” nutrition, and lifespan, are deeply flawed.

2. Medical Resident Fired for Having Obesity

This was an eye-opening account of just how brutal weight discrimination can be for a medical professional in an academic setting. Readers shared this post more than any we published this year.

3. Mandisa Dies from Obesity

Mandisa Lynn Hundley was an American gospel and contemporary Christian recording artist. Known simply as Mandisa, her death on April 18 this year at the age of 47 was due to complications of class 3 obesity. Though this cause of death is common, documenting it in official records is not.

4. FDA Flip-Flops on Compounding

Compounded versions of semaglutide and tirzepatide attracted a lot of attention in 2024 because of the high prices and limited supply of the more reliable, branded versions of these important medicines. FDA had difficulty in deciding whether to permit this.

5. An FDA Nominee on Compounding

Though FDA flip-flopped on the subject of compounding GLP-1 medicines, the incoming administration’s pick to lead that agency seems not to have reservations about it. He has served as Chief Medical Officer for a telehealth business that sells them.

6. Ultra-Processed Facts & Fiction

Ultra-processed foods are the new boogeyman of nutrition. This post by Professor Eric Robinson discussed tacts, fiction, and speculation about this diverse group of much-maligned foods.

7. Survodutide & Tirzepatide in MASH

At the EASL Congress 2024 in Milan, we witnessed quite a splash of new data on both survodutide and tirzepatide for MASH.

8. Tirzepatide Preventing Diabetes

Eli Lilly and Company released impressive results of a three-year study of tirzepatide in adults with obesity or overweight and prediabetes. They showed 94% prevention of progression from prediabetes to diabetes with tirzepatide. Amazing.

9. A Tirzepatide Price Cut for Cash Customers

In the midst of a lot of harsh attention to the high prices of semaglutide and tirzepatide, Lilly made a bold move to make their product available in vials (rather than injection pens) for one half of the list price for its other offerings.

10. South Park on Obesity

Progress comes in surprising ways. Proving this point, we had a crude cartoon – South Park – telling the world that fat jokes are too offensive and stupid to be funny.

Philosopher Reading, painting by Rembrandt / WikiArt

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December 26, 2024