November 8, 2024 — Amid a steady stream of news from ObesityWeek, the CDC released new NHANES data this week documenting an ongoing rise in U.S. diabetes prevalence. Between 1999 and 2023, the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes, diagnosed and undiagnosed, in adults rose from 9.7% to 14.3%. The total prevalence in adults between 2021 and 2023 was 15.8% – […]
November 7, 2024 — We have a lot to think about. Well over 3,000 people spent the better part of the week absorbing new science and insights into obesity – not to mention a momentous election. So as everyone sets about the task of catching up with routines, here is a quick take on five thoughts about what we’re […]
November 6, 2024 — Are we ready for delivering obesity care at the scale necessary to have a meaningful effect on population health? Given the current situation with drug pricing and problems with health insurance, it is easy to think not. But at ObesityWeek in San Antonio, we see people who look past those barriers and find ways to […]
November 5, 2024 — This should not be so hard. New research at ObesityWeek 2024 tells us that chronic care for the chronic disease is truly compelling. Specifically, we are talking about the results of three years of treatment with tirzepatide presented yesterday from the SURMOUNT-1 study. In this study of more than a thousand adults with pre-diabetes, three […]
October 30, 2024 — November is upon us and thus, so is ObesityWeek 2024 in San Antonio. This has been a year of radical change in the environment for obesity research, prevention, and care. So as we peruse the program for this meeting, it comes across as a year for consolidating the understanding of this disease and transformative options […]
October 28, 2024 — “Our results provide a national contemporaneous estimate of the decline in metabolic bariatric surgery associated with the era of GLP-1 RAs.” Writing in JAMA Network Open last week, Kevin Lin, Ateev Mehrotra, and Thomas Tsai say rates of metabolic surgery dropped 26% in 2023 as use of GLP-1 medicines for obesity more than doubled. Nonetheless, […]
October 20, 2024 — Headlines and health plans depict the demand for advanced obesity medicines in terms of mania or a stampede. “The Ozempic craze is booming in the United States,” says the University of Kentucky healthcare system. But is it reasonable to describe the people seeking these medicines as crazed? Or is this really an expression of false […]
October 18, 2024 — We are seeing a subtle, but important shift in the way scholars of population health are looking at obesity and the people it affects. At one time, the implicit bias was to discount those who already have the disease. There’s little we can do for them was the thought behind this. Sometimes it was even […]
October 8, 2024 — For dietitians who have long been seeing people who want help with issues related to diet, weight, and obesity, the last few years in obesity care have been disorienting. The source of discomfort is simple. New medicines that offer tremendous help with the physiology of obesity have changed the landscape for the nutrition guidance dietitians […]
September 28, 2024 — Since forever, health systems have been closed to the need for obesity care. While obesity prevalence tripled, care providers, health plans, and even government policy doubled down on a simple response. “Your obesity is not our problem. It’s yours. Go away, eat less, move more, and come back when you’ve lost 25, 50, or 100 […]
