Health

As a new generation of highly effective weight loss drugs hits the market, doctors are still trying to figure out how long people will need to take them for the best results.A new study offers a clue. Writing in JAMA, researchers report on what happens when people stop taking the weight loss drug tirzepatide, known as Zepbound. Tirzepatide can help people lose double digit percentages of their body weight, compared to single digit percentages with diet and exercise. The study, sponsored by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, included 670 people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, or with a BMI of at least 27 and one weight-related health complication other than diabetes. Everyone took tirzepatide for nine months, and then were randomly and blindly assigned to continue taking the ...

It was only 11 years ago that scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier first described a new way to edit genes, called CRISPR, in a scientific paper. The discovery is so game-changing that the pair earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for how it could transform the way genetic diseases are treated. Now, on Dec. 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the very first treatment in the country based on the technology. In the medical world, that’s lightning speed. “It’s incredible,” says Doudna, professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s so exciting to see how fast, and frankly how safely and effectively, this therapy is being rolled out in humans.”The U.K. had already approved the CRISPR treatment, ...

Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion investing in the research and development of new technologies, with pharmaceutical companies being among the chief beneficiaries of this research. These public-private partnerships have led to some of the most important pharmaceutical developments of our time, including the COVID-19 vaccine. But with that partnership, however, there comes a catch. According to the Bayh–Dole Act, if a business organization takes funding from the federal government in order to develop a new product, the U.S. government has the right to “march in” and control who licenses the product. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, this means that the government can give the license to manufacture a patent-protected drug to a generic company, significantly brin...

Respiratory disease season is in full swing, with influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 case counts rising in various parts of the U.S. Hospitals in some states are also reporting upticks in pediatric pneumonia diagnoses, which experts say seems to be unrelated to the recent spike of pneumonias reported in China.On the heels of last year’s severe flu and RSV reason, all this contagion has some people wondering if SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be to blame. Some studies suggest the virus leaves its mark on the immune system even after an acute illness passes, raising an important question: does having COVID-19 increase your risk of getting sick from other viruses in the future?“Any time that we get an infection, it changes us,” says Dr. David Smith, chief of infectious diseases and ...

WASHINGTON — White House officials will take more time to review a sweeping plan from U.S. health regulators to ban menthol cigarettes, an unexpected delay that anti-tobacco groups fear could scuttle the long-awaited rule.Administration officials indicated Wednesday the process will continue into next year, targeting March to implement the rule, according to an updated regulatory agenda posted online. Previously, the rule was widely expected to be published in late 2023 or early January.The Food and Drug Administration has spent years developing the plan to eliminate menthol, estimating it could prevent 300,000 to 650,000 smoking deaths over several decades. Most of those preventable deaths would be among Black Americans, who disproportionately smoke menthols.Previous FDA efforts on mentho...

Every COVID-19 vaccine is a step behind the virus. In the time it takes companies to make the shot, SARS-CoV-2 is already busy mutating into different versions that can evade the immune response produced by it.But even though the latest vaccine targets XBB.1.5, a variant no longer dominant in the U.S., it seems to be doing a decent job at warding off some of the emerging variants. In a study published on the preprint server bioRxiv, scientists led by Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University, report that the vaccine can generate strong antibodies that can neutralize not just XBB but variants such as HV.1, which now accounts for 31% of U.S. infections, and HK.3, which contributes to half of new infections in Asia (and about 7% in the U.S.).The t...

Panera Bread is confronting a second wrongful death lawsuit after a customer allegedly died from consuming its popular caffeinated “charged lemonade” beverage. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, details the death of Dennis Brown, a 46-year-old Florida man who passed away in October after consuming three servings of the drink.According to the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Brown's family in Superior Court in Delaware, Brown suffered a "cardiac event" while walking home from a Panera Bread in Fleming Island, Fla. on Oct. 9. The lawsuit alleges that Panera "knew or should have known" that the charged lemonade could pose risks, particularly to children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and individuals sensitive to caffeine.Charged lemonade, which has more caffeine in its large size than a 12-ounc...

As we head into winter, health experts expect that cases of flu and COVID-19 will start to creep up. One piece of good news: if you do get sick, there’s a way to get tests and treatments for both—without paying a cent.The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have teamed up with digital health company eMed to create an at-home test-to-treat program that offers free tests for both flu and COVID-19, and, if you are positive, free telehealth visits and antiviral treatments that are sent to your home.For now, there are some restrictions about who can enroll and receive the free tests. After the program officially launched last month, following a flood of requests from people eager to s...

There’s a long-enduring idea in the media that suicide rates peak in the winter months, when days get darker earlier, stress levels seem to rise, and the so-called “holiday blues” set in. The sentiment is so prevalent that 40% of stories published by news organizations about suicide during the 2022-2023 holiday season made this claim. There’s just one problem with these stories: no such seasonal trend exists in actual suicide data. In fact, December often sees a lull in suicide numbers worldwide. Dan Romer, a research director at Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent decades chasing the origins of this myth and working to correct it. In a new report out Dec. 4, he shares the results of worldwide survey data that shows the extent of the myth and new evi...

Hospitals are such important places in our lives. It's where we are born, where we go for help when we’re not well, and where we turn to when cancer, a heart attack, or major injury leaves us hanging by a thread. It’s also where our loved ones spend their time anxiously waiting for us to get better, to hear good or bad news.So then, why are hospitals such miserable places?Most hospitals are so poorly designed, you feel their negative effects the moment you walk through the front door. The unintuitive layout immediately disorients you. The stark, cold lighting and hard surfaces create a feeling of sterility. There’s no soothing music to put you at ease, just the beeping of machines and rushing of hospital staff. It always feels like something is wrong. Like the worst is about to happen—whic...