September 25, 2024 — This was definitely a textbook case of sitting in the hot seat. For more than two hours the CEO of Novo Nordisk, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, faced intense questions in the Senate HELP Committee about drug pricing for the company’s diabetes and obesity medicines. If you want a sense of the tone for the hearing, consider […]
September 24, 2024 — This is a milestone we’ve been anticipating. New NHANES data on obesity are out and they mark a shift in the dynamics of obesity rates. We now have data to suggest that the overall rate of obesity – which has been climbing relentlessly for four decades – appears to be leveling out at about 40%. […]
September 23, 2024 — FDA is working hard to push drug companies to get more diversity into the clinical trials that are the foundation for bringing new, safe, and effective drugs into the market. In June, the agency issued guidance for diversity action plans to improve the representation of marginalized populations. But unfortunately, it has nothing to say about […]
September 22, 2024 — The scientific understanding of obesity is progressing with impressive speed. But the translation of scientific insight into clinical benefits is slow by comparison. Most clinicians (along with the public) are stuck. We’re encumbered by an inadequate definition of obesity, overreliance on BMI, and medical groupthink. Straining for a Clinical Definition In an excellent essay for […]
September 21, 2024 — A new study this week gives us pause for concern about the chemicals entering our body from food packaging. Some of them are endocrine disrupting chemicals that can alter the way our body stores fat. Researchers inventoried a total of 14,000 chemicals in contact with food from packaging and found evidence for 3,601 of them […]
September 20, 2024 — This year, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award recognizes research on GLP-1 receptor biology that is revolutionizing obesity medicine. This is a revolution that is sending shockwaves through all of healthcare and indeed through society. Revolutions are uncomfortable and many people look at progress such as this with regretful nostalgia or outright fear. So we […]
September 19, 2024 — Maybe you’ve noticed this is an election year. This might explain some of the heat on pricing that both obesity drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are feeling. Both of the U.S. candidates for president are making promises to bring down drug prices. Senator Bernie Sanders and his Senate health committee is turning up […]
September 18, 2024 — People who think of obesity simply as a disease of fatness are walking around with a profound misunderstanding of this disease – it is very much a disease of inflammation. This thread of inflammation ties obesity to diabetes and ties both of those diseases to the complications of COVID. New research on COVID and diabetes […]
September 16, 2024 — The difference between investigative journalism and opinion writing is enormous. Both are valuable. But not interchangeable. So when Stat News publishes a lengthy opinion piece on pediatric obesity guidelines and labels it as investigative journalism, they are unfortunately dispensing spin. This is the case of a report published yesterday under a headline reading: “Pediatricians’ Obesity […]
September 16, 2024 — From the swimming habits of dead trout to the revelation that some mammals can breathe through their backsides, a group of leading leftfield scientists have been taking their bows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the 34th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Not to be confused with an actual Nobel prize, the Ig Nobel […]
