Archive for the ‘Health Policy’ Category

Surprise! GLP-1s Don’t Have to Blow the Bank for a Health Plan

May 29, 2025 — A new analysis from Milliman has a revelation for health plan managers complaining loudly about the burdensome costs of GLP-1s blowing up their budgets. They’re doing it wrong. Expenses for GLP-1s that can dramatically improve the health of persons with obesity simply do not have to break the bank for a health plan. In fact, […]

Are Health Plans Insuring Profits More Than Health?

May 27, 2025 — “It’s absolutely insane to try to keep up with it all,” says obesity medicine physician Laura Davisson. She is talking about the impossible maze of requirements that so-called health insurance plans set up to prevent people from securing coverage for medicines to treat obesity. It leads us to ask: Are health plans insuring profits more […]

From ASCO, a Hint That Obesity Treatment Prevents Cancer

May 26, 2025 — The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology is not where we typically get insights on obesity. But from this year’s meeting, another hint emerges that treating obesity treatment may prevent some of the cancer that arises from obesity. This hint comes from a large and seemingly careful study of 170,030 persons with […]

Implications of “Miniscule” Effects in Obesity Prevention

May 24, 2025 — In BMJ Public Health, Annabel Davies and colleagues have published a new analysis of interventions to prevent obesity in children. They started with data from two Cochrane systematic reviews published in 2024 (here and here) and applied a Bayesian multi-level meta-regression analysis. What they found were obesity prevention effects that range from being small and […]

Fear of Food and Medicine in the New MAHA Report

May 23, 2025 — The new MAHA (Making America Healthy Again) report on the health of American children is out and, in a word, things are terrible. In the words of the report, “it presents the stark reality of American children’s declining health.” We have a whole generation at risk because of toxic chemicals, ultra-processed food, unnecessary medical treatments, […]

Legal Semaglutide Compounding Ends Today, So What’s Next?

May 22, 2025 — The game is over. Today is the day legal semaglutide compounding at scale ends by decree from the FDA. Compounding pharmacies have known this day was coming since February when the agency determined that the shortage of semaglutide from Novo Nordisk was over. Well-informed patients who have depended upon compounding for affordable access to a […]

Reservations About Preclinical Obesity in Pediatrics

May 20, 2025 — A new viewpoint in JAMA Pediatrics articulates a concern we hear repeatedly about the Lancet Commission on Clinical Obesity. Pediatric obesity experts have reservations about applying the concept of preclinical obesity in pediatrics. Melania Manco is a professor of pediatrics, clinical research scientist, and consultant endocrinologist at the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome. She writes: […]

Discomfort with Obesity Care Standards for the Masses

May 19, 2025 — Obesity care is in the midst of an awkward but critical transition. Standards of care for obesity are leaking out from specialists in obesity medicine through a process of translation to the setting of primary care for the masses. Primary care for obesity will draw upon the authoritative work of organizations like Obesity Canada, The […]

U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies Coming in August

May 15, 2025 — Who needs 164 pages of nutrition mumbo jumbo? The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, yesterday told the House Appropriations Committee he will be releasing a four-page document that sounds a lot like U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies. He says it will be done by August: “We have until January, […]

ECO2025: Setting the Agenda for Ending Weight Bias

May 11, 2025 — ECO2025 in Málaga, Spain, today (Sunday) started off with a sweeping review of weight bias, obesity stigma, and strategies for ending them. It’s a big ambition. But it was an honor for ConscienHealth to participate with an array of experts in the subject. The thought to take away from it is simply that progress is […]