Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Obesity Drug Shows Heart Benefit
Reuters: Obesity Drug Brings Heart Health Benefit Alongside Weight Loss, Study Says
Taking Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO) new obesity drug may help reduce the risk of heart disease as well as boosting weight loss, according to new research from the United States. After a year of taking semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, patients’ risk of suffering from conditions like a heart attack or a stroke over the next ten years dropped to 6.3% from 7.6% when measured by a commonly used calculator, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found. (Rigby, 5/19)
The Atlantic: Could Ozempic Also Be An Anti-Addiction Drug?
All her life, Victoria Rutledge thought of herself as someone with an addictive personality. Her first addiction was alcohol. After she got sober in her early 30s, she replaced drinking with food and shopping, which she thought about constantly. She would spend $500 on organic groceries, only to have them go bad in her fridge. “I couldn’t stop from going to that extreme,” she told me. When she ran errands at Target, she would impulsively throw extra things—candles, makeup, skin-care products—into her cart. (Zhang, 5/19)
NBC News: Weight Loss Drugs Can Lead To Muscle Loss, Too. Is That A Bad Thing?
Weight loss drugs have soared in popularity in the past year, helping some lose dramatic amounts of weight — but not all that weight is fat. Some of that is actually lean mass, which is everything in the body that isn’t fat, including your bones, organs and, importantly, muscle. (Sullivan, 5/20)
Stat: Novo Pauses Ads For Weight Loss Drug Wegovy Amid Demand
Novo Nordisk is pausing ads for its obesity drug Wegovy as it struggles to keep up with surging demand, the latest hurdle in its rollout of the weight loss drug. “To avoid stimulating further demand for this medicine, we’re pausing some key Wegovy promotional efforts,” the Danish drugmaker said in an emailed statement. (Chen, 5/19)
