November 25, 2022 — “Can’t never could.” This old bit of Southern American wisdom aptly describes one of the startling reactions to impressive progress in obesity treatment – “we can’t do this. It will cost too much.” This reaction has been part of the landscape of obesity care for some time, so it should not be startling. But when […]
November 17, 2022 — Can bariatric surgery cut the risk of a heart attack in half? The answer, of course, depends upon the population of patients and their risk profile. And we must remember that risk is a tricky thing to measure. But a recent study in JAMA Network Open found half the risk of a wide range of […]
November 16, 2022 — It’s a fact. Media needs your attention. Thus, journalistic standards live in in tension with the temptation for sensational headlines that trivialize a subject like obesity. We’ve seen it before. Yet the current crop of sensational headlines offering a twisted understanding of serious new obesity treatments is especially disappointing. Here’s an example from the supposedly […]
November 15, 2022 — It is indeed happening. A great shift has begun in pediatric obesity care and a new study in Pediatrics measures the beginning of it with an increase in bariatric surgery for youth. Between 2010 and 2017, the rate of bariatric surgeries for pediatric patients doubled, according to this study. But let’s be clear. This is […]
November 14, 2022 — Two patients. This fits our definition of a small pilot study and Nature Medicine published it recently. In this study, Rajat Shivacharan and colleagues treated binge eating disorder and severe obesity in two patients, using responsive deep brain stimulation. It involves the placement of tiny electrodes in the brain, connected to a pulse generator implanted […]
November 7, 2022 — There’s a clue in the strained supply of new obesity and diabetes meds that most everyone is missing. For more than a year now, Novo Nordisk has been unable to produce and distribute an adequate supply of semaglutide in the form of Wegovy for the treatment of obesity. This has knock-on effects. So supply of […]
November 6, 2022 — A pair of thoughts kept floating through the halls of ObesityWeek 2022 and they set up something that seems like an economic doom loop for the future of obesity care. The new drugs for obesity are amazing. But they’re too damn expensive. Professor John Cawley gave an excellent presentation on the economics of obesity that […]
November 5, 2022 — It’s been quite a week in San Diego and we hope that everyone is safely home or on their way. So with the wrap-up of OW2022 yesterday, here are a few thoughts we’ll take home with us from this remarkable week. 1. Pediatric Obesity Care Is Set to Leap Forward It’s hard to miss this […]
November 3, 2022 — Mind-blowing. That’s how pediatric obesity medicine expert Claudia Fox described the outcomes with semaglutide for teens with obesity at OW2022 yesterday. As she and a panel of experts in the field discussed this huge advance for teens with obesity, every seat and space to stand in the ballroom was taken. Daniel Weghuber presenting these results […]
November 2, 2022 — Opening ObesityWeek with a quick succession of pithy talks to set the agenda for the week seems to be a good way of getting getting the attention of the diverse audience focused on obesity. Last night, it worked. A series of talks served to focus the group on the theme for OW2022 that President Dan […]
