Archive for the ‘Health Policy’ Category

Rational and Irrational Exuberance About GLP-1 Medicines

September 2, 2024 — It’s true. We have been getting some pretty good news about GLP-1s lately. In persons with prediabetes and obesity, tirzepatide was 94% effective at preventing the development of diabetes. In the SELECT study, semaglutide for obesity might have cut COVID fatalities by a third. So a little exuberance about the potential of GLP-1 medicines is […]

A Simple and Cost-Effective Way to Reduce Type 2 Diabetes?

August 28, 2024 — Type 2 diabetes prevalence is up and the Lancet Regional Health has a simple way to reduce it. Daniel Windred and colleagues write: “Advising people to turn off their lights at night, or use lights that reduce the circadian impact (dim and “warm” light), is a simple, cost-effective, and easily-implementable recommendation that may promote cardiometabolic […]

A Quick 50% Price Cut for Low-Dose Zepbound (tirzepatide)

August 27, 2024 — That was quick. At about 6 am today, we posted to say that obesity drug prices are stuck in the spotlight. “Bold leadership on obesity drug pricing and access to care is the only thing that will bring relief from this uncomfortable spotlight,” we wrote. Before the end of the hour, Lilly took the cue. […]

Obesity Drug Pricing Remains Stuck in the Spotlight

August 27, 2024 — How big might the semaglutide budget bomb be? The authors of a new brief report in Annals of Internal Medicine today are making a point. How threatening can we make this sound? Right up front in their title, they label their estimates as the “maximum costs of expanded Medicare coverage of semaglutide for cardiovascular risk […]

A Bias for Medical Neglect in Obesity

August 26, 2024 — New research reminds us of something that just about any person living with obesity can tell you. The prevailing bias against people living with obesity favors medical neglect. Especially for someone living with significant obesity, it is all too common to have providers dismiss medical complaints or blame them on obesity and simply instruct the […]

What Do Microplastics in Our Brains Mean for Metabolic Health?

August 25, 2024 — When neuroscientists coined the phrase brain plasticity, they were certainly not thinking about microplastics accumulating in our brains. But unfortunately, it seems this is a phenomenon with implications we need to study. New NIH-funded research, published as a preprint, suggests these tiny particles are building up at an alarming rate. But it does not tell […]

The Enduring Fascination with Causal Pathways for Obesity

August 23, 2024 — A new paper this week reminds us of the enduring fascination with causal pathways for obesity. Why has the prevalence grown so relentlessly? How can we reverse it? This preoccupation has been the source of controversy and mistakes in dealing with obesity. One of the more memorable controversies is the back-and-forth debates between David Ludwig […]

Overlapping Tragedies in Youth Mental Health and Obesity

August 18, 2024 — The mental health of youth is in serious decline around the world – a decline that is a mirror image of rising obesity. These overlapping tragedies may be independent. But common threads are easy enough to find. An editorial from the Lancet Psychiatry distills perspective from the new Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Youth Mental Health: […]

Health Equity for a Price in Obesity Care

August 16, 2024 — Is the price for health equity in obesity care too high? Or do policy makers simply not care to make it a priority? Writing in the Washington Post, Reverend Al Sharpton tells us that advances in obesity care bring an appalling failure of health equity into plain view: “Despite rates of obesity among people of […]

Soups, Shakes, Weight Loss, and Diabetes Remission

August 10, 2024 — This is an impressive sales push. A diet of soups and shakes offers a brilliant path to weight loss, changing the lives of people with obesity and diabetes. So says the director of the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission program, Clare Hambling: “It’s brilliant that these findings show a large number of those […]