NEWS

On the opening day of ObesityWeek yesterday, we got quite a treat in a passionate debate of the Lancet Commission report on clinical obesity. Four of our favorite people – Sue Yanovski, Bob Kushner, Fatima Cody Stanford, and Donna Ryan – participated and made it memorable. We walked away with a clear understanding that many […]

It was remarkable and much needed. On the pre-convention day for ObesityWeek in Atlanta, ADA, OAC, and TOS began work to collaborate on models for obesity care that will begin to deliver on a scale that matches the urgency and scope of unmet medical need. TOS Vice-President Jonathan Purnell described the urgency of this to […]

A year ago, we had these wonderful new obesity medicines – semaglutide and tirzepatide – and nobody could get them. Demand had outstripped supply and we had a shortage. Earlier this year, the supply shortage for both drugs resolved, but now we face the same situation because of a different shortage. There is a shortage […]

The headlines won’t stop. “Obesity rates are falling and it’s almost certainly because of Ozempic,” says the Futurism banner. Vox tells us “the Ozempic effect is finally showing up in obesity data.” So can it be true that use of GLP-1s is lowering obesity prevalence? The short answer is no. Not now. Probably not ever. […]

We’re packing our bags and scanning the meeting app for ObesityWeek in Atlanta, November 4-7. This promises to be a very intense week, with the biggest attendance yet for this signature meeting of the Obesity Society. The agenda for the week has a lot of options and we are still processing them all. But for […]

Yesterday’s news from the business of developing and selling obesity medicines reveals a lot. Lilly told us tirzepatide is now the biggest-selling drug of any kind in the world and Novo Nordisk started a highly unusual bidding war with Pfizer for Metsera. Metsera is a biotech startup focused on obesity medicines. Booming Tirzepatide Lilly announced […]

Very often, news reports about obesity rates have more puffery than substance to offer. However, a report this week from Gallup deserves your attention. It tells us that a steady decline in self-reported obesity rates appears to be a genuine trend and that an association with use of GLP-1s may explain it. In fact, for […]

In 2016, the use of the word “numbskull” in English literature soared to a new high. It has remained high ever since. Though we cannot be sure why, we are confident that members of Congress are earning that label as they crash toward creating an utterly unnecessary American hunger crisis by cutting off SNAP food […]

A new study in JAMA suggests that AI can lead a fully automated diabetes prevention program and deliver outcomes that are just as good as programs with human coaches. Shall we view this as a threat? Or, more optimistically, as a tool to help with the challenge of delivering obesity care at scale? A Mobile […]

Writer Sarah Jones faces a vivid personal need to reconcile the appealing creed of MAHA with her own recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Confronting a diagnosis she clearly did not want, she found herself blaming herself. She did this despite knowing that the disease is more complicated than a simple blame game. This led […]