Posts Tagged ‘FDA’

It only took half a century. Back in 1970, the FDA decided that brominated vegetable oil could no longer have GRAS – generally recognized as safe – status. This week the agency announced it plans to ban this additive to many citrus flavored drinks. The long goodbye to brominated vegetable oil  (BVO) will not be […]

“You’re either invisible, or the answer is to lose weight, even with mental health.” This is the sentiment that surfaced at OW2023 in research of lived experiences from people coping with both obesity and needing treatment for mental health concerns. It becomes acutely important as we learn that drug trials for conditions other than obesity […]

In case you haven’t been paying attention, FDA issued a new label warning for semaglutide that should remind everyone of a key fact – it’s not suitable for DIY weight loss. The warning went onto the label for the Ozempic brand of semaglutide. It is already there for the Wegovy brand and for the Mounjaro […]

It is hard to believe. But a new commentary in Health Affairs Forefront tells us once again that drug labeling fails to assure safe and effective use for many important drugs by people with obesity. These are drugs for conditions other than obesity. But people with obesity may represent half or more of the people […]

The headlines are great. “Pecans: the surprising superfood for obesity prevention and wellness” says one. “Pecans pack a punch in fighting obesity, diabetes and inflammation” according to another. All this magical thinking about pecans comes from a study of mice on a high-fat diet. What does this mean for humans? Mainly it means that the […]

The WHO has taken its skill for exquisitely confusing messages on public health to new heights. One of its agencies, the IARC,  declared yesterday that aspartame is “possibly carcinogenic.” At the same time, a separate committee of WHO, the JECFA, reaffirmed that it’s no problem if a person consumes up to 40 mg per kg […]

It’s a fact. People come in all shapes and sizes. FDA and pharmaceutical researchers know this. They know that body size and composition can have large effects on how a person responds to drugs. So why do we have such a troubling gap of body size diversity in clinical trials? In the AMA Journal of […]

We take it as a given – we want to eat healthy. Since 2016, FDA has been working on developing an updated definition for the meaning of “healthy” if a food seller wants to say that about one of its products. The agency is still struggling with this question today. So we were glad to […]

In case you missed it, the framework for obesity care is in the midst of great change. The availability of medicines that actually work to an extent never seen before is causing everyone to question presumptions that researchers and specialists have known to be false for some time. But these great changes are giving rise […]

Semaglutide for the treatment of obesity continues to be in short supply. Late last week, Novo Nordisk announced that, because the company is still having difficulty keeping up with demand, they would limit production of the lower doses used to start patients on Wegovy. Thus, compounding pharmacies are selling cheap copies of semaglutide injection and […]