Posts Tagged ‘precision medicine’

Reporting for the Washington Post, Daniel Gilbert tells us “the next frontier in weight-loss drugs is one-time gene therapy.” Setting aside his misuse of the “weight-loss” misnomer, should we take him seriously? How much can we expect from gene-based therapies for obesity? Scientifically Substantial The body of peer-reviewed evidence for genetic therapies in obesity is […]

So many people are chasing the concept of precision medicine for obesity. Because we can easily imagine that the rewards will be great. Right now, in treating obesity the clinical approach is something of a trial and error process. But the wish is to be able to assess a patient and from the start have […]

This week the European Congress on Obesity drew spectacular crowds. Of course, hanging in there for the final day of any congress is a challenge, but the closing day of ECO2025 rewarded stalwarts with excellent insights into the promise of precision obesity medicine. The Genetic Contribution to Obesity Although it was not intended as a […]

Public health experts have long been accounting for it. People are living in larger bodies. Better than 40% of U.S. adults have a body weight in the range of obesity. But new reporting from JoNel Aleccia for the Associated Press tells us that pharma and the FDA are not yet accounting for this fact. It’s […]

For decades now, health policy advocates have been pursuing a solution to the growing effects of obesity on public health. The banners shift over time, but the goal is pretty consistent. It’s better diets and more physical activity across the population to reverse the trend in obesity prevalence. Low fat everything! Let’s Move! Tax and […]

Editors note: after this post appeared, significant questions arose about errors in the Acosta paper described below. We will offer more information when more is available. Update June 23, 2021: The journal has published a correction, making clear that this study was not randomized nor did it have a pre-registered protocol and leaving us with […]

The future is in the toilet. Fitbits are passé. Smart watches have hit their peak. But real health tech innovation is coming to your toilet. Are you ready? Toilet Bowl Metabolomics This is no joke. In NPJ Digital Medicine, Ian Miller and colleagues describe the technology to bring metabolomics to your toilet. They propose a […]

Precision nutrition is a concept with an almost irresistible allure. It borrows on the cachet of precision medicine. On top of that, frustration with the presently imprecise nature of nutrition science makes the promise of precision personalized diets especially appealing. So in pursuit of this idea, a new study in Nutrients offers some tantalizing clues. […]

Two years ago, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals made a big splash with a study showing impressive efficacy for their super targeted obesity drug, setmelanotide. That paper in the New England Journal of Medicine showed setmelanotide could reverse obesity in patients with a rare POMC gene defect. Now, researchers have published new data showing promise in patients with […]