October 4, 2024 — Caution is wise when observational studies compete for our attention. But this one, from JAMA Network Open, is intriguing. In a recent analysis of 33,006 persons with both type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder, researchers found a signal that semaglutide might lower the risk of opioid overdoses by as much as two-thirds. “It’s a […]
October 3, 2024 — Late yesterday, FDA announced that Lilly’s tirzepatide shortage is officially over. Both Mounjaro and Zepbound are fully available in all marketed strengths and dosage forms. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined the shortage of tirzepatide injection, a glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) medication, has been resolved. Tirzepatide injection has been in shortage since 2022 […]
September 26, 2024 — It was an interesting day that we spent talking with health policy makers in the Senate yesterday. Refreshing in a way, because the conversations about obesity are so different from the conversations we were having just a few years ago. Not a single person raised the false issue of “personal responsibility” for “being obese.” Only […]
September 2, 2024 — It’s true. We have been getting some pretty good news about GLP-1s lately. In persons with prediabetes and obesity, tirzepatide was 94% effective at preventing the development of diabetes. In the SELECT study, semaglutide for obesity might have cut COVID fatalities by a third. So a little exuberance about the potential of GLP-1 medicines is […]
August 31, 2024 — This is a truly remarkable finding. In the middle of the SELECT study of semaglutide for preventing deaths in people with obesity and heart disease, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. So researchers nimbly adapted and began collecting data on COVID outcomes. They found a big surprise. People who got COVID-19 and were treated with semaglutide had […]
August 27, 2024 — How big might the semaglutide budget bomb be? The authors of a new brief report in Annals of Internal Medicine today are making a point. How threatening can we make this sound? Right up front in their title, they label their estimates as the “maximum costs of expanded Medicare coverage of semaglutide for cardiovascular risk […]
August 24, 2024 — Novo Nordisk is creeping up on an indication for semaglutide in people with obesity and heart failure. Today in Lancet, we have another piece of the puzzle to suggest this drug might help. In a prespecified analysis from the SELECT study, researchers found that semaglutide reduced heart attacks, strokes, deaths, and problems with heart failure […]
August 21, 2024 — Yesterday, Eli Lilly and Company announced an impressive topline number from the results of a three-year study of tirzepatide in adults with obesity or overweight and prediabetes. That number was 94% prevention of progression from prediabetes to diabetes with tirzepatide. No, it was not 100%. But this is awfully close. Historical Context We will have to […]
August 20, 2024 — Semaglutide – under the banner of Ozempic – has set a revolution of obesity medicines in motion. Suddenly, all of the huffing and puffing about “treating obesity seriously” and “obesity as a disease” is moot. Facts on the ground are persuading people to re-orient their thinking about obesity faster than essays and advocacy campaigns ever […]
![Tusch [Fanfare]](https://conscienhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Tusch-Fanfare-501x334.jpg)
August 17, 2024 — Never is a long time and repeatedly telling people NO can be a futile exercise. Thus, doctors are landing somewhere between no and maybe on the use of compounded obesity medicines. Some are seeing a rationale for for using them while others remain resolute in opposition to them. Shauna Levy is an obesity medicine physician […]
