April 30, 2025 — Mass market compounding of semaglutide and tirzepatide is pretty much a thing of the past. As that chapter in the story of inadequate access to care closes, it seems that Novo Nordisk is ready to go all in with telehealth deals to make up some lost ground. Their press release spells it out: “Today, Novo […]
April 29, 2025 — Is this a grand finale? Or a requiem? In The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology yesterday, a new 21-year analysis of outcomes from the Diabetes Prevention Program memorialized an epic study. Even after 21 years, the Diabetes Prevention Program yielded a 24% reduction in the cumulative risk of developing type 2 diabetes, along with detailed outcomes […]
April 28, 2025 — Happy headlines late last year told us that obesity recently “dipped” in the U.S., perhaps because of medicines like semaglutide and tirzepatide. Those headlines presented a partial and misleading truth that a new analysis in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology explains more fully. Yes, the prevalence of overweight and mild obesity has seemingly plateaued. But this […]
April 27, 2025 — Our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has a knack for raising ire. He does it in many ways. But on the diverse subjects of autism and obesity he uses the same word – preventable – to do it. The problem is not the word itself. The problem comes from false […]
April 26, 2025 — An enduring and versatile mainstay of therapy for type 2 diabetes, metformin never ceases to earn our respect. On Thursday in JAMA, researchers showed this humble drug delivers improvements in knee pain for persons with overweight or obesity and osteoarthritis. In this six-month study of 107 persons randomized to either placebo or up to 2,000 […]
April 25, 2025 — It’s back. Weight talk about the U.S. President has returned, with reporters judging whether President Donald Trump’s reduced weight came “the hard way” or with “help.” The Daily Beast writes: “In the White House, there are whispers that the new slimline Trump used a little pharmaceutical help to lose 20 lbs since his last presidential […]
April 24, 2025 — Can obesity prevention be as simple as telling people to chew more slowly? That’s what the principal investigator of a new study published in Nutrients, Professor Katsumi Iizuka, says: “These are easy, money-saving measures that can be started right away to help prevent obesity. “Incorporating the proposed eating behavior into school lunches and other programs […]
April 23, 2025 — ICER, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, yesterday brought a sharp focus to the challenge of dealing with the money flowing for obesity medicines. Sarah Emond, ICER’s CEO, explained the challenge and the opportunity of this unique moment: “This new class of obesity medicines offers weight reduction and associated benefits that, if they’re sustained […]
April 22, 2025 — Change is hard and people resist it. FDA is coming to terms with the idea of radical transparency and certainly drug labels are a good place to start. When we talk about drug labels for prescription drugs, it means the lengthy “prescribing information” that FDA reviews and approves. Its purpose is to tell doctors, pharmacists, […]
April 21, 2025 — It is really easy to beat up on the lowly BMI. The Lancet Commission on clinical obesity gently kicked it to the curb by saying BMI “can both overestimate and underestimate adiposity” and thus declared its obsolescence as a singular measure for excess adiposity. “Excess adiposity should be confirmed by either direct measurement of body […]
