July 10, 2024 — The headline is compelling. “Zepbound outperforms Ozempic and Wegovy in head-to-head weight loss study.” It certainly confirms the bias of a lot of people in the field. But is it true? Did tirzepatide (Zepbound) really beat semaglutide (Wegovy) in a head-to-head comparative study for obesity? In a word, no. Uncontrolled, Observational, and Inequivalent Dosing The […]
February 17, 2022 — If a patient is Black, health providers are more than twice as likely to put negative words in that patient’s health history. These are descriptors like hysterical, noncompliant, unpleasant, or uncooperative. Those word choices don’t suggest a good relationship with a patient. This conclusion comes from an analysis of records for 18,459 patients, published recently […]
September 22, 2021 — We have an opportunity before us, say Thiago Gagliano-Jucá and Caroline Apovian. They are writing in Annals of Internal Medicine to reflect on the implications of words we use in healthcare. Specifically, they are talking about the words providers attach to obesity – words like morbid. These are words that leave patients feeling judged. Such […]
October 30, 2018 — Tech has a very mixed track record in obesity care. Diet apps were early hits. Fitness trackers have a loyal following. The apps are free and the trackers have a lot of gee whiz pizazz. What’s not to like? Unfortunately, proving that they lead to better health outcomes has been tough. But now, in the […]
July 20, 2013 — Healthcare systems are playing catch-up with big data. Wal-Mart generates, analyzes, and acts on 2.5 petabytes of data every hour. That’s 2.5 million gigabytes, or a bit more than the contents of all the U.S. academic research libraries put together — collected every hour and analyzed in the service of our consumer economy. Meanwhile, clinicians […]
