Posts Tagged ‘diabetes’

Seeking Truth, Finding Problems, Rethinking Dietary Health

January 15, 2024 — Gary Taubes has a new book – Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments. The problem of this book is right there in the title. It all but promises the truth about dietary health. Definitive Truth? The problem, of course, is that the science of dietary health is not so good […]

Health Systems Rigged to Interrupt Obesity Treatment

November 17, 2023 — It’s not easy. Getting access to good obesity care and maintaining it is a challenge that is especially frustrating as we see that the options for care are improving. But it seems that health systems right now are rigged to interrupt obesity treatment. An illustration of this comes from a recent study published in Obesity. […]

The Intersection of Heart, Kidney, and Metabolic Outcomes

October 13, 2023 — The handwriting is on the wall. Insurers can’t avoid covering obesity drugs forever, said a recent analysis from Bloomberg and they were right. What prompted that conclusion is the cascade of health outcome studies that make it unmistakeable. Treating obesity and and related metabolic diseases with advanced medicines like semaglutide has a dramatic effect on […]

A Fierce Debate at EASD 2023 About Diabetes Remission

October 5, 2023 — Two professors yesterday at the EASD meeting engaged in a fierce and collegial debate about the feasibility of lasting remission in type 2 diabetes with very low calorie diets. Professor Kamlesh Khunti brought a polished presentation of objective data. He was unequivocal. Is lasting remission feasible in a real world setting? “It’s a definite no […]

Places with Wealth-Based Access to Diabetes and Obesity Care

August 27, 2023 — Writing for the New York Times, Joseph Goldstein tells us that prescriptions for GLP-1 agonists are going to the wealthiest, whitest, and healthiest neighborhoods in New York City. Neighborhoods where the medical need is greatest? Not so much. Though we might hope that advanced medicines for obesity and diabetes would go to places with the […]

Perspective on Bias in Diabetes and Obesity

August 8, 2023 — Folks who have not detected a shift in public discourse about obesity are simply not listening. In that shift, we detect some easing in longstanding bias about this disease. But perspective is difficult. Is the proverbial glass half full with progress to celebrate? Or is the remaining void a reminder that overcoming weight bias and […]

Nutrition 2023: Taking Food Is Medicine Seriously, Not Literally

July 24, 2023 — Sloganeering inevitably plays a role in advocating for policy changes. But it can be a very blunt tool. Food Is Medicine is one of these blunt tools, currently popular with some nutrition policy advocates and it got a good hearing at Nutrition 2023 in Boston yesterday. Underneath the problematic umbrella of this slogan, enthusiastic advocates are […]

Is Mounjaro Gliding Toward an Obesity Approval?

April 28, 2023 — Tirzepatide, marketed by Lilly under the  Mounjaro brand, may be gliding toward an FDA approval for obesity later this year. A year ago, the first phase 3 study results for tirzepatide in obesity wowed us. Yesterday, Lilly revealed yet another impressive piece of the puzzle – impressive weight reduction in persons who have both obesity […]

Why Ozempic Gets More Traction Than Wegovy

April 26, 2023 — Insights surface when we take the time to listen to people living with obesity. Yesterday, Ro and the Obesity Action Coalition released results from a study of the thoughts and feelings people are having about obesity, weight loss, and the new GLP-1 medicines. There’s a lot to think about in these results – about motivations […]

Causality, Attribution, and Diet Culture

April 18, 2023 — Consider these two competing headlines. In the Washington Post, Kate Cohen tells us “It’s time to cancel diet culture.” Then with a press release about new papers in Nature Medicine, researchers tell us “Most new Type 2 diabetes cases attributable to suboptimal diet.” It’s a fascinating mashup of causality, attribution, and diet culture. On one […]