Posts Tagged ‘health disparities’

GLP-1 agonists offer an opportunity to reduce health disparities, writes Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times. But a problem with equity in obesity care is getting in the way. So instead, it seems they may be making things worse. Cardiologist and health services researcher Lauren Eberly tells Kaplan: “These patients have a higher burden […]

One of the core principles Obesity Care Week is that this chronic disease is treatable. That’s becoming plain to see with emergence of advanced GLP-1 therapies. But equity in access to obesity care is practically non-existent. Prices for these medicines are high, supplies are low, and health plans make a sport of torturing people who […]

Obesity is the most prevalent chronic disease in America, so you might think that prescriptions for obesity medicines are relatively common – but only if you are unfamiliar with prevailing attitudes about these medicines. Because in fact, even in a large health system known for excellent care in cardiometabolic health, these prescriptions are rather rare. […]

Right now, the promise of GLP-1 medicines for obesity, though revolutionary, is serving only to widen the economic rift in health. People with extraordinary wealth or generous health insurance plans receive the health benefits that flow from treating obesity effectively – which include a longer life, fewer strokes, and fewer heart attacks. Others are consigned […]

It is mildly entertaining to watch people squirm as new obesity medicines disrupt their presumptions about obesity and its treatment. Of course, this squirming comes in many different forms. One expression of it is dismay that many people don’t keep taking obesity meds after a year. “Until compliance for these medications increases,” we’re not going […]

Men are coming up short in life expectancy. In fact, the gap in lifespan between men and women is now the widest it has been in three decades. Why? The short answer is COVID. But the truth is that it is more than just COVID. The pandemic took more lives from men because their underlying […]

In the midst of an argument for lifestyle as the “cornerstone” for dealing with obesity, Frank Hu recently made a point with which we agree. He expressed the importance of GLP-1 agonists for obesity and warned that issues with access could bring wider health disparities. Because pricing of these drugs, health insurance, and weight-related biases […]

Writing for the New York Times, Joseph Goldstein tells us that prescriptions for GLP-1 agonists are going to the wealthiest, whitest, and healthiest neighborhoods in New York City. Neighborhoods where the medical need is greatest? Not so much. Though we might hope that advanced medicines for obesity and diabetes would go to places with the […]

If you are paying attention to the disparities in wealth, poverty, health, and obesity, you might note that there’s good news and bad news to be found right now. On the good news side of things, the global inequality of wealth shrank in 2022. That happened for two reasons. People in some of the poorest […]

Subtly buried in the excitement about results of the SELECT trial is an issue of disparities. The fact is that this is largely a study of White males. Less than four percent of persons in this study were Black, ten percent were Hispanic, and 76 percent were non-Hispanic White. Males comprised 72 percent of the […]