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Tag: Diabetes

  • Is Fasting an Effective Treatment for Diabetes? | NutritionFacts.org

    By losing 15% of their body weight, nearly 90% of those who have had type 2 diabetes for less than four years may achieve remission.

    Currently, more than half a billion adults have diabetes, and about a 50% increase is expected in another generation. I’ve got tons of videos on the best diets for diabetes, but what about no diet at all?

    More than a century ago, fasting was said to cure diabetes, quickly halting its progression and eliminating all signs of the disease within days or weeks. Even so, starvation is guaranteed to lead to the complete disappearance of you if kept up long enough. What’s the point of fasting away the pounds if they’re just going to return as soon as you restart the diet that created them in the first place? Might it be useful to kickstart a healthier diet? Let’s see what the science says.

    Type 2 diabetes has long been recognized as a disease of excess, once thought to afflict only “the idle rich…anyone whose environment and self-support does not require of him some sustained vigorous bodily exertion every day, and whose earnings or income permit him, and whose inclination tempts him, to eat regularly more than he needs.” Diabetes is preventable, so might it also be treatable? If we’re dying from overeating, maybe we can be saved by undereating. Remarkably, this idea was proposed about 2,000 years ago in an Ayurvedic text:

    “Poor diabetic people’s medicine
    He should live like a saint (Munni);
    He should walk for 800–900 miles.
    Or he shall dig a pond;
    Or he shall live only on cow dung and cow urine.”

    That reminds me of the Rollo diet for diabetes proposed in 1797, which was composed of rancid meat. That was on top of the ipecac-like drugs he used to induce severe sickness and vomiting. Anything that makes people sick has only “a temporary effect in relieving diabetes” because it reduces the amount of food eaten. His diet plan—which included congealed blood for lunch and spoiled meat for dinner—certainly had that effect.

    Similar benefits were seen in people with diabetes during the siege of Paris in the Franco‐Prussian War, leading to the advice to mangez le moins possible, which translates to “eat as little as possible.” This was formalized into the Allen starvation treatment, considered to be “the greatest advance in the treatment of diabetes prior to the discovery of insulin.” Before insulin, there was “The Allen Era.”

    Dr. Allen noted that there are clinical reports of even severe diabetes cases clearing up after the onset of a “wasting condition” like tuberculosis or cancer, so he decided to put it to the test. He found that even in the most severe type of diabetes, he could clear sugar from people’s urine within ten days. Of course, that’s the easy part; it’s harder to maintain once they start eating again. To manage patients’ diabetes, he stuck to two principles: Keep them underweight and restrict the fat in their diet. A person with severe diabetes can be symptom-free for days or weeks, but eating butter or olive oil can make the disease come raging back.

    As I’ve said before, diabetes is a disease of fat toxicity. Infuse fat into people’s veins through an IV, and, by using a high-tech type of MRI scanner, you can show in real time the buildup of fat in muscle cells within hours, accompanied by an increase in insulin resistance. The same thing happens when you put people on a high-fat diet for three days. It can even happen in just one day. Even a single meal can increase insulin resistance within six hours. Acute dietary fat intake rapidly increases insulin resistance. Why do we care? Insulin resistance in our muscles, in the context of too many calories, can lead to a buildup of liver fat, followed by fat accumulation in the pancreas, and eventually full-blown diabetes. “Type 2 diabetes can now be understood as a state of excess fat in the liver and pancreas, and remains reversible for at least 10 years in most individuals.”

    When people are put on a very low-calorie diet—700 calories a day—fat can get pulled out of their muscle cells, accompanied by a corresponding boost in insulin sensitivity, as shown below and at 4:43 in my video Fasting to Reverse Diabetes.

    The fat buildup in the liver has then been shown to decrease substantially, and if the diet is continued, the excess fat in the pancreas also reduces. If caught early enough, reversing type 2 diabetes is possible, which would mean sustained healthy blood sugar levels on a healthy diet.

    With the loss of 15% of body weight, nearly 90% of individuals who have had type 2 diabetes for less than four years can achieve non-diabetic blood sugar levels, whereas it may only be reversible in 50% of those who’ve lived with the disease for longer than eight years. That’s better than bariatric surgery, where those losing even more weight had lower remission rates of 62% and 26%, respectively. Your forks are better than surgeons’ knives. Indeed, most people who have had their type 2 diabetes diagnosis for an average of three years can reverse their disease after losing about 30 pounds, as you can see below and at 5:37 in my video.

    Of course, an extended bout of physician-supervised, water-only fasting could also get you there, but you would have to maintain that weight loss. One of the things that has been said with “certainty” is that if you regain the weight, you regain your diabetes.

    To bring it full circle, “the initial euphoria about ‘medicine’s greatest miracle’”—the discovery of insulin in 1921—“soon gave way to the realisation” that, while it was literally life-saving for people with type 1 diabetes, insulin alone wasn’t enough to prevent such complications as blindness, kidney failure, stroke, and amputations in people with type 2 diabetes. That’s why one of the most renowned pioneers in diabetes care, Elliott Joslin, “argued that self-discipline on diet and exercise, as it was in the days prior to the availability of the drug [insulin], should be central to the management of diabetes….”

    Doctor’s Note

    Check out Diabetes as a Disease of Fat Toxicity for more on the underlying cause of the disease.

    For more on fasting for disease reversal, see:

    Fasting is not the best way to lose weight. To learn more, see related posts below.

    What is the best way to lose weight? See Friday Favorites: The Best Diet for Weight Loss and Disease Prevention.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • All About Allulose | NutritionFacts.org

    Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are the original industrial sweeteners—inexpensive, filled with empty calories, and contributing to diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cavities, and metabolic syndrome. Artificial sweeteners, like NutraSweet, Splenda, and Sweet’N Low, are the second-generation sweeteners. They are practically calorie-free, but cautions have been raised about their adverse effects. Sugar alcohols, such as sorbitol, xylitol, and erythritol, are the third-generation sweeteners. They’re low in calories but carry laxative effects or even worse. What about rare sugars like allulose?

     

    What Is Allulose?

    Allulose is a natural, so-called rare sugar, present in limited quantities in nature. “Recent technological advances, such as enzymatic engineering using genetically modified microorganisms, now allow [manufacturers] to produce otherwise rare sugars” like allulose in substantial quantities.

     

    Allulose and Weight Loss

    What happened when researchers evaluated the effect of allulose on fat mass reduction in people? As I discuss in my video Is Allulose a Healthy Sweetener?, more than a hundred individuals were randomized to a placebo control (0.012 grams of sucralose twice a day), a teaspoon (4 g) of allulose twice a day, or 1¾ teaspoons (7 g) of allulose twice a day for 12 weeks. Despite no changes in physical activity or calorie consumption in the groups, body fat significantly decreased following allulose supplementation. There weren’t any significant changes in LDL cholesterol levels in either of the allulose groups, though.

    What about the purported anti-diabetes effects?

     

    Does Allulose Help with Diabetes?

    In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover experiment, people with borderline diabetes consumed a cup of tea containing either 1¼ teaspoons (5 g) of allulose or no allulose (control) with a meal. There was a significant reduction in blood sugar levels 30 and 60 minutes after consumption, but it was only about 15% lower compared to the control group and didn’t last beyond the first hour. To test long-term safety, the same researchers then randomized healthy people to a little over a teaspoon (5 g) of allulose three times a day with meals for 12 weeks. There didn’t appear to be any adverse side effects, but there weren’t any effects on weight or blood sugar levels either. So, it turns out the body fat data are mixed, as are the sugar data.

    Another study found no effects of allulose on blood sugar levels in healthy participants tested up to two hours after consumption, though a similar study on individuals with diabetes did. And a systematic review and meta-analysis of all such controlled feeding trials suggested that the acute benefit on blood sugars was of “borderline significance.” It’s unclear whether this small and apparently inconsistent effect could translate into meaningful improvements in long-term blood sugar control. It may not be enough just to add allulose—you might also have to cut out junk food.

     

    Is Allulose Good or Bad for You?

    As I discuss in my video Does the Sweetener Allulose Have Side Effects?, unlike table sugar, allulose is safe for our teeth; it apparently isn’t metabolized by cavity-causing bacteria to produce acid and promote plaque buildup. It doesn’t raise blood sugar levels either, even in people with diabetes. Allulose is considered a “relatively nontoxic” sugar, but what does that mean?

     

    How Much Allulose Is Too Much?

    In one study, researchers gave healthy adults beverages containing gradually higher doses of allulose “to identify the maximum single dose for occasional ingestion.” No cases of severe gastrointestinal symptoms were noted until a dose of 0.4 g per kg of bodyweight was reached, which is about eight teaspoons for the average American. Severe symptoms of diarrhea were noted at a dose of 0.5 g per kg of bodyweight, or about ten teaspoons.

    In terms of a daily upper limit given in smaller doses throughout the day, once participants reached around 17 teaspoons (1.0 g/kg bodyweight) a day, depending on weight, some experienced severe nausea, abdominal pain, headache, or diarrhea. So, most adults in the United States should probably stay under single doses of about 8 teaspoons (0.4 g per kg of bodyweight) and not exceed about 18 teaspoons (0.9 g per kg of bodyweight) for the whole day.

     

    So, What’s the Verdict on Allulose?

    Are rare sugars like allulose a healthy alternative for traditional sweeteners? Well, considering the variety of potentially beneficial effects of allulose “without known disadvantages from metabolic and toxicological studies, allulose may currently be the most promising rare sugar.” But how much is that saying? We just don’t have a lot of good human data. “As a result of the absence of these studies, it may be too early to recommend rare sugars for human consumption.” This is especially true given the erythritol debacle.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Is Surgery Necessary to Reverse Diabetes? | NutritionFacts.org

    Losing weight without rearranging your gastrointestinal anatomy carries advantages beyond just the lack of surgical risk.

    The surgical community objects to the characterization of bariatric surgery as internal jaw wiring and cutting into healthy organs just to discipline people’s behavior. They’ve even renamed it “metabolic surgery,” suggesting the anatomical rearrangements cause changes in digestive hormones that offer unique physiological benefits. As evidence, they point to the remarkable remission rates for type 2 diabetes.

    After bariatric surgery, about 50% of obese people with diabetes and 75% of “super-obese” diabetics go into remission, meaning they have normal blood sugar levels on a regular diet without any diabetes medication. The normalization of blood sugar can happen within days after the surgery. And 15 years after the surgery, 30% remained free from their diabetes, compared to a 7% remission rate in a nonsurgical control group. Are we sure it was the surgery, though?

    One of the most challenging parts of bariatric surgery is lifting the liver. Since obese individuals tend to have such large, fatty livers, there is a risk of liver injury and bleeding. An enlarged liver is one of the most common reasons a less invasive laparoscopic surgery can turn into a fully invasive open surgery, leaving the patient with a large belly scar, along with an increased risk of wound infections, complications, and recovery time. But lose even just 5% of your body weight, and your fatty liver may shrink by 10%. That’s why those awaiting bariatric surgery are put on a diet. After surgery, patients are typically placed on an extremely low-calorie liquid diet for weeks. Could their improvement in blood sugar levels just be from the caloric restriction, rather than some sort of surgical metabolic magic? Researchers decided to put it to the test.

    At a bariatric surgery clinic at the University of Texas, patients with type 2 diabetes scheduled for a gastric bypass volunteered to stay in the hospital for 10 days to follow the same extremely low-calorie diet—less than 500 calories a day—that they would be placed on before and after surgery, but without undergoing the procedure itself. After a few months, once they had regained the weight, the same patients then had the actual surgery and repeated their diet, matched day to day. This allowed researchers to compare the effects of caloric restriction with and without the surgical procedure—the same patients, the same diet, just with or without the surgery. If there were some sort of metabolic benefit to the anatomical rearrangement, the patients would have done better after the surgery, but, in some ways, they actually did worse.

    The caloric restriction alone resulted in similar improvements in blood sugar levels, pancreatic function, and insulin sensitivity, but several measures of diabetic control improved significantly more without the surgery. The surgery seemed to put them at a metabolic disadvantage.

    Caloric restriction works by first mobilizing fat out of the liver. Type 2 diabetes is thought to be caused by fat building up in the liver and spilling over into the pancreas. Everyone may have a “personal fat threshold” for the safe storage of excess fat. When that limit is exceeded, fat gets deposited in the liver, where it can cause insulin resistance. The liver may then offload some of the fat (in the form of a fat transport molecule called VLDL), which can then accumulate in the pancreas and kill off the cells that produce insulin. By the time diabetes is diagnosed, half of our insulin-producing cells may have been destroyed, as seen below and at 3:36 in my video Bariatric Surgery vs. Diet to Reverse Diabetes. Put people on a low-calorie diet, though, and this entire process can be reversed.

    A large enough calorie deficit can cause a profound drop in liver fat sufficient to resurrect liver insulin sensitivity within seven days. Keep it up, and the calorie deficit can decrease liver fat enough to help normalize pancreatic fat levels and function within just eight weeks. Once you drop below your personal fat threshold, you should then be able to resume normal caloric intake and still keep your diabetes at bay, as seen below and at 4:05 in my video. 

    The bottom line: Type 2 diabetes is reversible with weight loss, if you catch it early enough.

    Lose more than 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms), and nearly 90% of those who have had type 2 diabetes for less than four years can achieve non-diabetic blood sugar levels (suggesting diabetes remission), whereas it may only be reversible in 50% of those who’ve lived with the disease for eight or more years. That’s by losing weight with diet alone, though. For people with diabetes, losing more than twice as much weight with bariatric surgery, diabetes remission may only be around 75% of those who’ve had the disease for up to six years and only about 40% for those who’ve had diabetes longer, as seen below and at 4:41 in my video.

    Losing weight without surgery may offer other benefits as well. Individuals with diabetes who lose weight with diet alone can significantly improve markers of systemic inflammation, such as tumor necrosis factor, whereas levels significantly worsened when about the same amount of weight was lost from a gastric bypass.

    What about diabetic complications? One reason to avoid diabetes is to avoid its associated conditions, like blindness or kidney failure requiring dialysis. Reversing diabetes with bariatric surgery can improve kidney function, but, surprisingly, it may not prevent the occurrence or progression of diabetic vision loss—perhaps because bariatric surgery affects quantity but not necessarily quality when it comes to diet. This reminds me of a famous study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that randomized thousands of people with diabetes to an intensive lifestyle program focused on weight loss. Ten years in, the study was stopped prematurely because the participants weren’t living any longer or having any fewer heart attacks. This may be because they remained on the same heart-clogging diet but just in smaller portions.

    Doctor’s Note

    This is the third blog in a four-part series on bariatric surgery. If you missed the first two, check out The Mortality Rate of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery and The Complications of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery.

    My book How Not to Diet is focused exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Check it out from your local library, or pick it up from wherever you get your books. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Trump administration declares ‘war on added sugar’ in overhaul of food guidelines

    The Trump administration announced a major overhaul of American nutrition guidelines Wednesday, replacing the old, carbohydrate-heavy food pyramid with one that prioritizes protein, healthy fats and whole grains.

    “Our government declares war on added sugar,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a White House news conference announcing the changes. “We are ending the war on saturated fats.”

    “If a foreign adversary sought to destroy the health of our children, to cripple our economy, to weaken our national security, there would be no better strategy than to addict us to ultra-processed foods,” Kennedy said.

    Improving U.S. eating habits and the availability of nutritious foods is an issue with broad bipartisan support, and has been a long-standing goal of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.

    During the news conference, he acknowledged both the American Medical Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics for partnering on the new guidelines — two organizations that earlier this week condemned the administration’s decision to slash the number of diseases that U.S. children are vaccinated against.

    “The American Medical Association applauds the administration’s new Dietary Guidelines for spotlighting the highly processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, and excess sodium that fuel heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other chronic illnesses,” AMA President Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement.

    Corinne Purtill

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  • Can Vegan Fecal Transplants Lower TMAO Levels? | NutritionFacts.org

    If the microbiome of those eating plant-based diets protects against the toxic effects of TMAO, what about swapping gut flora?

    “Almost 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates stated that ‘All disease begins in the gut.’” When we feed our gut bacteria right with whole plant foods, they feed us right back with beneficial compounds like butyrate, which our gut bugs make from fiber. On the other hand, if we feed them wrong, they can produce detrimental compounds like TMAO, which they make from cheese, eggs, seafood, and other meat.

    We used to think that TMAO only contributed to cardiovascular diseases, like heart disease and stroke, but, more recently, it has been linked to psoriatic arthritis, associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, and everything in between. I’m most concerned about our leading killers, though. Of the top ten causes of death in the United States, we’ve known about its association with increased risk of heart disease and stroke, killers number one and five, but recently, an association has also been found between blood levels of TMAO and the risks of various cancers, which are our killer number two. The link between TMAO and cancer could be attributed to the inflammation caused by TMAO, but it could also be oxidative stress (free radicals), DNA damage, or a disruption in protein folding.

    What about our fourth leading killer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), like emphysema? TMAO is associated with premature death in patients with exacerbated COPD, though it’s suspected that it’s due to them dying from more cardiovascular disease.

    The link to stroke is a no-brainer—no pun intended. It is due to the higher blood pressure associated with higher TMAO levels, as well as the greater likelihood of clots forming in those with atrial fibrillation. Those with higher TMAO levels also appear to have worse strokes and four times the odds of death.

    Killer number six is Alzheimer’s disease. Can TMAO even get up into our brains? Yes, TMAO is present in human cerebrospinal fluid, which bathes the brain, and TMAO levels are higher in those with mild cognitive dysfunction and those with Alzheimer’s disease dementia. “In the brain, TMAO has been shown to induce neuronal senescence [meaning, deterioration with age], increase oxidative stress, impair mitochondrial function, and inhibit mTOR signaling, all of which contribute to brain aging and cognitive impairment.”

    Killer number seven is diabetes, and people with higher TMAO levels are about 50% more likely to have diabetes. Killer number eight is pneumonia, and TMAO predicts fatal outcomes in pneumonia patients even without evident heart disease. Kidney disease is killer number nine, and TMAO is strongly related to kidney function and predicts fatal outcomes there as well. Over a period of five years, more than half of chronic kidney disease patients who started out with average or higher TMAO levels were dead, whereas among those in the lowest third of levels, nearly 90% remained alive.

    How can we lower the TMAO levels in our blood? Because TMAO originates from dietary sources, we could limit our intake of choline- and carnitine-rich foods. They’re so widespread in foods,” though we’re talking about meat, eggs, and dairy. “Therefore, restriction of foods rich in TMA-containing nutrients may not be practical.” Can we just get a vegan fecal transplant? “Vegan donors provided the investigators with a fresh morning fecal sample…”

    If you remember, if you give a vegan a steak, despite all that carnitine, they make almost no TMAO compared to a meat-eater, presumably because the vegan hasn’t been fostering steak-eating bugs in their gut. See below and at 3:40 in my video Can Vegan Fecal Transplants Lower TMAO Levels?.

    Remarkably, even if you give plant-based eaters the equivalent of a 20-ounce steak every day for two months, only about half start ramping up production of TMAO, showing just how far their gut flora has to change. The capacity of veggie feces to churn out TMAO is almost nonexistent. Instead of eating healthier, what about getting some vegan poop?

    In a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, research subjects either got vegan poop or their own poop back through a hose snaked down their nose, and it didn’t work.

    First of all, the vegans recruited for the study started out making TMAO themselves, in contrast to the other study, where they didn’t make any at all. This may be because the earlier study required the vegans to have been vegan for at least a year, and this study didn’t. So, there wasn’t much of a change in TMAO running through their bodies two weeks after getting the vegan poop, but the vegan poop they got seemed to start out with some capacity to produce TMAO in the first place.

    So, the failure to improve after the vegan fecal transplant “could be related to limited baseline microbiome differences and continuation of an omnivorous diet” after the vegan-donor transplant. What’s the point of trying to reset your microbiome if you’re just going to eat meat? Well, the researchers didn’t want to switch people to a plant-based diet since they knew that alone can change our microbiome, and they didn’t want to introduce any extra factors. The bottom line is that it seems there may not be any shortcuts. We may just have to eat a healthier diet.

    Doctor’s Note

    Want to become a donor? Find out How to Become a Fecal Transplant Super Donor.

    For more on TMAO, check out related posts below. 

    See the microbiome topic page for even more.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Slovak Lawmakers Scuffle as Parliament Revises Laws on Whistleblowers, Witnesses

    Dec 12 (Reuters) – Slovakia’s parliament passed legislation on whistleblowers and ‌crown ​witnesses late on Thursday and Friday, ‌in moves which the opposition warned threaten the rule of law, and ​which led to scuffles and angry exchanges between politicians.

    Critics of pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government say his ‍changes, backed by leftist-nationalist lawmakers, are ​hurting the rule of law in the country of 5.4 million.

    Video footage posted by a lawmaker showed ​opposition politicians ⁠whistling and jeering and heated one-on-one arguments in a Thursday evening vote over criminal codes, including the status of crown witnesses.

    One government deputy threw a plastic bottle at an opponent, while news website Dennik N said journalists heard another deputy screaming he was being choked in the melee.

    On Friday, lawmakers ‌returned to their benches and ruling parties approved a revamp of the country’s whistleblower office, even ​though ‌President Peter Pellegrini had vetoed ‍the law ⁠on Thursday, which he said risked halting EU subsidies, and did not need to be rushed.

    Fico’s government, in power since 2023, had previously weakened criminal codes for financial crime, revamped the public broadcaster and pushed constitutional changes asserting national sovereignty over some EU laws, prompting criticism.

    The government argues the current whistleblower agency UOO had been politically abused in the past – the same reasoning Fico has used for previous legislative changes.

    The European Commission has ​said parts of the legislation raised concerns related to EU law, including the early termination of the office chief’s mandate.

    The ruling parties have said concerns had been addressed by modifications, although the change of leadership remained.

    OPPOSITION CALLS SESSION ‘MAFIA NIGHT’

    Slovakia has become more politically charged since Fico – a four-time prime minister – returned to power. He survived being shot in May 2024 by a man upset over his policies, including a pullback of military aid to Ukraine.

    Opposition says the whistleblower bill is “revenge” after the UOO fined the Interior Ministry in cases involving police officers who were reassigned during corruption investigations without the office’s consent.

    Separate criminal code changes ​fast-tracked on Thursday evening tightened rules for “crown witness” testimony. Critics say this will help a senior Fico ally who is under an ongoing investigation.

    Michal Simecka, leader of the biggest opposition party Progressive Slovakia, called the parliament session “mafia night”.

    “We are following a massacre of the rule ​of law in Slovakia,” he said in a statement.

    (Reporting by Jason Hovet and Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – December 2025

    Reuters

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  • 4 Healthy Cat Diet Tips to Prevent Obesity | Animal Wellness Magazine

    These four key healthy cat diet tips will help you understand how to use food to keep your feline friend lean and full of energy!

    Obesity is a common health issue in cats. In fact, it’s estimated that over 60% of cats are overweight or obese. Luckily, it’s easy to prevent, and there are plenty of reasons you should take steps to do so. Excess weight can shorten their lifespan, reduce their quality of life, and cause health conditions like diabetes, joint problems, and heart and liver disease. Regular play and exercise are essential components for a healthy lifestyle, but the real key to preventing obesity in cats lies in their food bowl. Here are four healthy cat diet tips that will help you keep your kitty lean, happy, and healthy!

    1. Practice Portion Control

    Overfeeding is one of the biggest contributors to cat obesity. The easiest way to combat it is by feeding your cat twice daily instead of allowing them to free feed, which can easily lead to constant snacking, overeating, and weight gain. And be sure to measure the proper amount of food for your cat based on the feeding guidelines provided by your vet or the food manufacturer.

    2. Adjust Calories Based on Life Stage and Activity Level

    Cats have different caloric needs depending on their age and how active they are. Kittens need more calories and nutrients to support growth, while adults and seniors typically require fewer calories. Spayed or neutered cats also have slower metabolisms and may gain weight more easily. Similarly, indoor cats who aren’t as active as outdoor cats may need a weight-maintenance formula. Regular checkups with your veterinarian will help you stay on track with a healthy cat diet.

    3. Prioritize Nutrient-Rich Cat Foods

    While it is important to pay attention to the number of calories your cat consumes, it’s just as important to make sure they’re getting the right nutrients. Cats are obligate carnivores, and they thrive on meat-rich diets. Look for foods with real animal protein as the first ingredient, minimal carbohydrates, and no artificial additives. High-quality foods ensure your cat gets the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients they need while also helping them feel satisfied with smaller portions.

    4. Keep Treats and Human Food to a Minimum

    Treats are okay, as long as they’re just that—treats. They shouldn’t make up more than 10% of your cat’s daily calories. And that includes human food. Even though some human foods are safe for cats (like lean meats, salmon, tuna, and even some vegetables), you must be careful not to overfeed. When you do feed treats, prioritize nutrient-dense ones. Here are some things to look for:

    • Single- or minimal-ingredient treats
    • Meat as the first ingredient
    • No added salt or sugar
    • Real-food ingredients

    A Healthy Cat Diet Starts with NutriSource Recipes!

    NutriSource has been nourishing cats for over 60 years with nutrient-dense foods, prioritizing high-quality ingredients and meat-rich recipes that supply cats with the calories and nutrients they need to maintain energy and a healthy body condition. They have a variety of options for cats of all ages in their NutriSource, Element, and PureVita lines, including grain-inclusive options, grain-free recipes, and weight management formulations, all of which feature animal protein as the first ingredient.

    Visit NutriSource to learn more and find the purrfect healthy cat diet for your feline friend!

    Post Views: 230


    Animal Wellness is North America’s top natural health and lifestyle magazine for dogs and cats, with a readership of over one million every year. AW features articles by some of the most renowned experts in the pet industry, with topics ranging from diet and health related issues, to articles on training, fitness and emotional well being.

    Animal Wellness

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  • Tears at what senior dog still tries to do after losing vision to diabetes

    A TikTok video showing a senior dog waking up confused and unable to see has moved people to tears, as it has drawn attention to the common complication of canine diabetes.

    Pet parent Joe LaMancuso began managing his senior dog’s diabetes over the summer, he shared in the comment section of his September 30 TikTok video. This includes giving his 12-year-old dog, Oreo, two daily insulin shots, using a glucose reader and having him eat a special diet.

    Diabetes is a chronic disease caused by high blood sugar due to insulin problems, affecting humans and animals alike. In dogs, the most common form is diabetes mellitus, or sugar diabetes, according to an article from the American Kennel Club. Most dogs are diagnosed after age five, though it can occur at any age. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial, as uncontrolled diabetes can lead to cataracts, liver enlargement, urinary tract infections, seizures, kidney failure and ketoacidosis.

    Oreo’s blindness seemed “sudden” to LaMancuso, as if it happened overnight. In the heartbreaking video, Oreo sits by his food bowl, unsure where to go or what to do. His head hung down in defeat. Trying to stay positive, LaMancuso wrote in the caption: “Hang in there, my lil prince, there’s still so much to smell and hear!!!”

    Eye problems are common in dogs with diabetes. According to an article from South Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology, 75 percent of dogs will develop cataracts within 12 months of a diabetes mellitus diagnosis, and blindness can progress quickly when severe or left untreated.

    Oreo is now learning how to navigate this new normal. A separate video shows LaMancuso taking his dog on a walk, and how Oreo is gradually adjusting and becoming more cautious. Pet parents are advised to maintain routines and avoid moving household items, including food bowls, to help blind dogs orient themselves.

    And while some canines can use their other senses to help them through, LaMancuso shared in a comment that Oreo’s hearing has started to go, too, making adaptation even more challenging.

    With over 101,400 views, 8,811 likes and 214 comments, TikTok users flooded the video with their heartbreak for how scary it must be for not only the owner, but Oreo.

    “That’s so sad. Please give him a cuddle and belly rub from me,” wrote one person.

    Another added: “So sorry. It’s so hard watching them get older. Hugs, stay strong for your baby!!”

    LaMancuso said Oreo became cuddly for the first time after his vision went. He slept next to LaMancuso that night.

    Newsweek reached out to LaMancuso via email for additional information and comment.

    Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup. 

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  • A Virginia Tech researcher explains the dangers behind ultra-processed foods – WTOP News

    A professor who helped conduct a new study showing harms from ultra-processed foods explains what they are and why we should avoid them.

    Consuming ultra-processed foods can cause harm to major organs, in addition to a host of other health problems, a new study published Tuesday in the medical journal the Lancet revealed.

    Another report released Thursday from researchers at Virginia Tech shows that young adults are more vulnerable to indulging in ultra-processed foods, according to Brenda Davy, a professor in the school’s Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, who helped conduct the study.

    Davy told WTOP that people need to pay attention to what they’re buying to avoid ultra-processed food, which are dangerous to our health.

    “An ultra-processed food is most easily recognized by having ingredients that would not be used in home cooking,” Davy said.

    Her study tested young adults who were put on diets with ultra-processed foods. After two weeks, the adults aged 18 to 21 ate more calories using a diet that was high in ultra-processed food even though they weren’t hungry. But this wasn’t true for adults in the 22-25 age group, Davy said.

    The study’s results suggest that adolescents may be more vulnerable to ultra-processed foods, which can be addictive.

    Some examples of ultra-processed foods include “things like Sunny Delight, rather than 100% fresh orange juice,” she said. “A Pop-Tart, which would be an ultra-processed food, compared to a homemade banana nut muffin.”

    “When you’re shopping at the grocery store, if you pick up an item and look at the ingredient list, if you see things like ‘fat, flour, oil, salt, sugar,’ those are things that are typically used in home cooking,” she said. “Those would not be considered ultra-processed ingredients.”

    “On the other hand, if you saw very long-sounding chemical names that you do not recognize, that’s one tip off of an item considered an ultra-processed food,” she added.

    She said the research released this week shows that these ingredients could be more dangerous than you think.

    “Ultra-processed foods are linked to increased risks of obesity and weight gain and a whole host of chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases,” Davy said.

    She said in order to avoid ultra-processed foods, people should “prepare as many of their meals as possible at home.”

    “That might help folks reduce their risk of some of these chronic diseases related to their diet,” she said.

    Davy said that there are some advantages to food processing by manufacturers.

    “One of the biggest advantages for using processed foods is that they do have a longer shelf life,” she said. “That is an important benefit of ultra-processed foods.”

    But she said that one of the big drawbacks is how addictive they can be.

    “They may drive us to overeat them,” she said.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    Valerie Bonk

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  • Plant-Based Hospital Menus | NutritionFacts.org

    The American Medical Association passed a resolution encouraging hospitals to offer healthy plant-based food options.

    “Globally, 11 million deaths annually are attributable to dietary factors, placing poor diet ahead of any other risk factor for death in the world.” Given that diet is our leading killer, you’d think that nutrition education would be emphasized during medical school and training, but there is a deficiency. A systematic review found that, “despite the centrality of nutrition to a healthy lifestyle, graduating medical students are not supported through their education to provide high-quality, effective nutrition care to patients…”

    It could start in undergrad. What’s more important? Learning about humanity’s leading killer or organic chemistry?

    In medical school, students may average only 19 hours of nutrition out of thousands of hours of instruction, and they aren’t even being taught what’s most useful. How many cases of scurvy and beriberi, diseases of dietary deficiency, will they encounter in clinical practice? In contrast, how many of their future patients will be suffering from dietary excesses—obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease? Those are probably a little more common than scurvy or beriberi. “Nevertheless, fully 95% of cardiologists [surveyed] believe that their role includes personally providing patients with at least basic nutrition information,” yet not even one in ten feels they have an “expert” grasp on the subject.

    If you look at the clinical guidelines for what we should do for our patients with regard to our number one killer, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, all treatment begins with a healthy lifestyle, as shown below and at 1:50 in my video Hospitals with 100-Percent Plant-Based Menus.

    “Yet, how can clinicians put these guidelines into practice without adequate training in nutrition?”

    Less than half of medical schools report teaching any nutrition in clinical practice. In fact, they may be effectively teaching anti-nutrition, as “students typically begin medical school with a greater appreciation for the role of nutrition in health than when they leave.” Below and at 2:36 in my video is a figure entitled “Percentage of Medical Students Indicating that Nutrition is Important to Their Careers.” Upon entry to different medical schools, about three-quarters on average felt that nutrition is important to their careers. Smart bunch. Then, after two years of instruction, they were asked the same question, and the numbers plummeted. In fact, at most schools, it fell to 0%. Instead of being educated, they got de-educated. They had the notion that nutrition is important washed right out of their brains. “Thus, preclinical teaching”— the first two years of medical school—“engenders a loss of a sense of the relevance of the applied discipline of nutrition.”

    Following medical school, during residency, nutrition education is “minimal or, more typically, absent.” “Major updates” were released in 2018 for residency and fellowship training requirements, and there were zero requirements for nutrition. “So you could have an internal medicine graduate who comes out of a terrific program and has learned nothing—literally nothing—about nutrition.”

    “Why is diet not routinely addressed in both medical education and practice already, and what should be done about that?” One of the “reasons for the medical silence in nutrition” is that, “sadly…nutrition takes a back seat…because there are few financial incentives to support it.” What can we do about that? The Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School identified a dozen different policy levers at all stages of medical education and the kinds of policy recommendations there could be for the decision-makers, as you can see here and at 3:48 in my video.

    For instance, the government could require doctors working for Veterans Affairs (VA) to get at least some courses in nutrition, or we could put questions about nutrition on the board exams so schools would be pressured to teach it. As we are now, even patients who have just had a heart attack aren’t changing their diet. Doctors may not be telling them to do so, and hospitals may be actively undermining their future with the food they serve.

    The good news is that the American Medical Association (AMA) has passed a resolution encouraging hospitals to offer healthy food options. What a concept! “Our AMA hereby calls on [U.S.] Health Care Facilities to improve the health of patients, staff, and visitors by: (a) providing a variety of healthy food, including plant-based meals, and meals that are low in saturated and trans fat, sodium, and added sugars; (b) eliminating processed meats from menus; and (c) providing and promoting healthy beverages.” Nice!

    “Similarly, in 2018, the State of California mandated the availability of plant-based meals for hospital patients,” and there are hospitals in Gainesville (FL), the Bronx, Manhattan, Denver, and Tampa (FL) that “all provide 100% plant-based meals to their patients on a separate menu and provide educational materials to inpatients to improve education on the role of diet, especially plant-based diets, in chronic illness.”

    Let’s check out some of their menu offerings: How about some lentil Bolognese? Or a cauliflower scramble with baked hash browns for breakfast, mushroom ragu for lunch, and, for supper, white bean stew, salad, and fruit for dessert. (This is the first time a hospital menu has ever made me hungry!)

    The key to these transformations was “having a physician advocate and increasing education of staff and patients on the benefits of eating more plant-based foods.” A single clinician can spark change in a whole system, because science is on their side. “Doctors have a unique position in society” to influence policy at all levels; it’s about time we used it.

    For more on the ingrained ignorance of basic clinical nutrition in medicine, see the related posts below.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • After years of dialysis, pancreas transplant gives DC man a new lease on life – WTOP News

    World Diabetes Day is the leading global campaign dedicated to raising awareness about diabetes mellitus. It takes place annually Nov. 14.

    Durrell Becton was just 17 years old when he found out he had Type 1 diabetes.

    He said he was having a number of health problems, including constant weakness, nausea, continual thirst and urination.

    “I was diagnosed maybe a month before I went off to college,” Becton told WTOP. “Come to find out that my blood sugar was over 1,000.”

    The normal range for healthy blood sugar is 60 to 120.

    That began years worth of treatments with insulin and, ultimately, dialysis when his kidneys failed.

    Becton is 38 now and has had a kidney and pancreas transplant from MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

    “It’s life-changing,” Becton said. “As of right now, I’m totally (diabetes) and kidney disease free.”

    “There is (an epidemic) of diabetes in this country,” said Dr. Steven Potter, director of pancreas transplant surgery at MedStar Georgetown School of Medicine. “There are about 38 million people in the United States right now with diabetes.”

    Potter said that diabetes can be managed effectively with insulin treatments, proper diet and exercise. But severe cases, those in which a person’s kidneys have failed and they need to be on dialysis, can have a devastating effect on someone.

    “The cost of that, in terms of lives lost, is unbelievable,” Potter said. “Pancreas transplantation is an incredible intervention because it’s the only way to cure diabetes.”

    World Diabetes Day is the leading global campaign dedicated to raising awareness about diabetes. It takes place annually Nov. 14 and is organized by the International Diabetes Federation.

    “I feel great! I feel way more inspired than I was before,” Becton said.

    To learn more about diabetes and strategies to manage it, visit the federation’s website.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    Alan Etter

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  • Pfizer clinches deal for obesity drug developer Metsea after a bidding war with Novo Nordisk

    Pfizer has signed a deal to purchase Metsera Inc., an obesity drugmaker in the development stage, after winning a bidding war against Novo Nordisk

    NEW YORK — U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer signed a deal to purchase development-stage obesity drugmaker Metsera Inc., winning a bidding war against Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind weight-loss treatments Ozempic and Wegovy.

    Metsera, based in New York, has no products on the market, but it is developing oral and injectable treatments. That includes some potential treatments that could target lucrative fields for obesity and diabetes.

    The deal comes as Pfizer is attempting to develop its own stake in that market, several months after ending development of a potential pill treatment for obesity.

    In a statement issued Friday, Metsera said Pfizer will acquire the company for up to $86.25 per share, consisting of $65.60 per share in cash and a contingent value right entitling holders to additional payments of up to $20.65 per share in cash.

    Metsera cited U.S. antitrust risks in Novo’s bid, saying in its statement that the board has determined Pfizer’s revised terms represent “the best transaction for shareholders, both from the perspective of value and certainty of closing.”

    The deal comes three days after Novo Nordisk raised the stakes in its push to outbid Pfizer, saying Tuesday it would offer to pay as much as $10 billion for Metsera. That was higher than its previous bid of up to $9 billion which sparked a lawsuit from Pfizer.

    Pfizer had also altered the offer it made in September of nearly $4.9 billion to provide more cash up front, Metsera had said.

    New York-based Pfizer said in an email that it was happy with the terms of the deal, and expects to close the transaction shortly following the Metsera shareholder meeting on Nov. 13.

    Novo Nordisk said Saturday it would not increase its offer and would leave the race to acquire Metsera.

    Novo’s proposed deal had involved paying $62.20 in cash for each Metsera share, up from its previous bid of $56.50. The Danish drugmaker planned to tack on a contingent value right payment of $24, another improvement from its previous bid, if certain development and regulatory milestones were met.

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  • Pfizer Clinches Deal for Obesity Drug Developer Metsea After a Bidding War With Novo Nordisk

    NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer signed a deal to purchase development-stage obesity drugmaker Metsera Inc., winning a bidding war against Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind weight-loss treatments Ozempic and Wegovy.

    Metsera, based in New York, has no products on the market, but it is developing oral and injectable treatments. That includes some potential treatments that could target lucrative fields for obesity and diabetes.

    The deal comes as Phizer is attempting to develop its own stake in that market, several months after ending development of a potential pill treatment for obesity.

    In a statement issued Friday, Metsera said Pfizer will acquire the company for up to $86.25 per share, consisting of $65.60 per share in cash and a contingent value right entitling holders to additional payments of up to $20.65 per share in cash.

    Metsera cited U.S. antitrust risks in Novo’s bid, saying in its statement that the board has determined Pfizer’s revised terms represent “the best transaction for shareholders, both from the perspective of value and certainty of closing.”

    Pfizer had also altered the offer it made in September of nearly $4.9 billion to provide more cash up front, Metsera had said.

    New York-based Pfizer said in an email that it was happy with the terms of the deal, and expects to close the transaction shortly following the Metsera shareholder meeting on Nov. 13.

    Novo’s proposed deal had involved paying $62.20 in cash for each Metsera share, up from its previous bid of $56.50. The Danish drugmaker planned to tack on a contingent value right payment of $24, another improvement from its previous bid, if certain development and regulatory milestones were met.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    Associated Press

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  • Treat the Cause | NutritionFacts.org

    Treat the underlying cause of chronic lifestyle diseases.

    It’s been said that more than 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates declared, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” In actuality, it appears that he never actually said those words, but there’s “no doubt about the relevance of food…and its role in health and disease states” in his writings. Regardless, 2,000 years ago, disease was thought to arise from a bad sense of “humors,” as you can see here and at 0:32 in my video Lifestyle and Disease Prevention: Your DNA Is Not Your Destiny.

    Now, we have science, and there is “an overwhelming body of clinical and epidemiological evidence illustrating the dramatic impact of a healthy lifestyle on reducing all-cause mortality”—meaning death from all causes put together—“and preventing chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.” But don’t those diseases just run in our family? What if we just have bad genes?

    According to the esteemed former chair of nutrition at Harvard, for most of the diseases that have contributed “importantly” to mortality in Western peoples, we’ve long known that non-genetic factors often account for at least 80% to 90% of risk. We know this because rates of the leading killers, like major cancers and cardiovascular diseases, vary up to 100-fold around the world, and, “when groups migrate from low- to high-risk countries, their disease rates almost always change to those of the new environment.” Modifiable behavioral factors have been identified, “including specific aspects of diet, overweight, inactivity, and smoking that account for over 70% of stroke and colon cancer, over 80% of coronary heart disease, and over 90% of adult-onset [type 2] diabetes”—diseases that can largely be prevented by our own actions.

    If most of the power is in our own hands, why do we allocate massively more resources to treatment than prevention? And speaking of prevention, “even preventive strategies are heavily biased towards pharmacology rather than supporting improvements in diet and lifestyle that could be more cost-effective. For example, treatment of [high] serum cholesterol with statins alone could cost approximately 30 billion dollars per year in the United States and would have only a modest impact on coronary heart disease incidence. The inherent problem is that most pharmacologic strategies don’t address the underlying causes of ill health in Western countries, which are not drug deficiencies.”

    Ironically, the chronic diseases that are most amenable to lifestyle treatment are the same ones most profitably treated by drugs. Why? If you don’t change your diet, you have to pop the pills every day for the rest of your life. So, the cash-cow drugs are the very drugs we need the least. “Even though the most widely accepted, well-established chronic disease practice guidelines uniformly call for lifestyle change as the first line of therapy, physicians often do not follow these recommendations.” “By ignoring the root causes of disease and neglecting to prioritize lifestyle measures for prevention, the medical community is placing people at harm.”

    “Traditional medical care relies primarily on the application of pharmacologic and surgical interventions after the development of illness,” whereas lifestyle medicine relies primarily on “the use of optimal nutrition (a whole foods, plant-based diet) and exercise in the prevention, arrest, and reversal of chronic conditions leading to premature disability and death. It looks in a holistic way at the underlying causes of illness.”

    Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, director of PharmedOut, a wonderful organization I’m proud to support, wrote a great editorial entitled “Doctors Must Not Be Lapdogs to Drug Firms.” “The illusion that the relationship between medicine and the drug industry is collegial, professional, and personal is carefully maintained by the drug industry, which actually views all transactions with physicians in finely calculated financial terms…The drug industry is happy to play the generous and genial uncle until physicians want to discuss subjects that are off limits, such as the benefits of diet or exercise, or the relationship between medicine and pharmaceutical companies…Let us not be a lapdog to Big Pharma. Rather than sitting contentedly in our master’s lap, let us turn around and bite something tender.”

    Doctor’s Note

    The organization I mentioned, PharmedOut, is a project of Georgetown University Medical Center.

    For more on Lifestyle Medicine, see related videos below.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Pfizer sues to stop rival bid for drugmaker Metsera by Denmark’s Novo Nordisk

    Pfizer is suing over some unsolicited competition in its nearly $5 billion bid to buy the drugmaker Metsera.

    New York-based Pfizer said Friday after markets closed that it was suing Metsera and a third drugmaker, Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, over a bid for Metsera that Novo announced Thursday.

    Novo said it planned to buy Metsera in a deal that could be worth up to $9 billion, and Metsera said the offer appeared to be superior to Pfizer’s bid, which was announced in September.

    Metsera Inc. has no products on the market, but it is developing potential oral and injectable treatments. That includes some potential treatments that could target lucrative fields for obesity and diabetes.

    Novo already has the treatments Wegovy and Ozempic on the market in those respective categories.

    Pfizer said the offer from Novo cannot be considered superior to its bid because it carries significant regulatory risk that makes it unlikely to be completed.

    Pfizer, which ended development of a potential pill to treat obesity this spring, also said Novo’s offer represents “an illegal attempt by a company with a dominant market position to suppress competition.”

    Representatives of both Novo and Metsera did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

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  • Obesity, Diabetes Treatments Fuel Eli Lilly Growth and Spark Bidding War

    The market for obesity and diabetes treatments remains scorching hot, funneling billions in sales to Eli Lilly and fueling a bidding war over another drugmaker.

    Lilly said Thursday that its top-selling drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, brought in more than $10 billion combined during the recently completed third quarter. That made up over half of the drugmaker’s $17.6 billion in total sales.

    Separately, Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced plans to buy Metsera Inc. in a deal that could be worth up to $9 billion.

    Popular treatments labeled GLP-1 receptor agonists are fueling the soaring sales and deal interest. They work by mimicking hormones in the gut and the brain to regulate appetite and feelings of fullness. But they don’t work for everyone and can produce side effects that include nausea and stomach pain.

    Supplies of the drugs have improved this year, and some insurance coverage is growing. That helps improve access to drugs that can cost around $500 a month without coverage. That can put them out of reach for many patients.

    U.S. sales of Lilly’s weight-loss treatment Zepbound nearly tripled to $3.57 billion in the third quarter. Meanwhile, revenue from the diabetes drug Mounjaro, which has been on the market longer, doubled to $6.52 billion thanks to growth outside the U.S.

    Combined, the drugs have brought in nearly $25 billion in sales so far this year for Indianapolis-based Lilly. That surpasses the entire company’s revenue total from 2020.

    The drugs helped Eli Lilly and Co. record a $5.58 billion profit in the third quarter and deliver a better performance than Wall Street expected.

    Novo Nordisk said it will pay $56.50 in cash for each Metsera share and could pay an extra $21.25 if the company meets some drug development milestones. The drugmaker already has the obesity and diabetes treatments Wegovy and Ozempic on the market.

    That combined total of $77.75 more than doubles the closing price of Metsera shares on Sept. 19, the last trading day before Pfizer made its offer.

    Pfizer Inc. is known for the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the treatment Paxlovid, among other drugs. But the New York drugmaker decided to take another stab at obesity treatments months after ending development of its own drug.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    Associated Press

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  • Costco is selling weight-loss drugs Ozempic, Wegovy at discounted prices

    Costco now is selling Ozempic and Wegovy at discounted prices, a move that expands access to the popular weight-loss drugs.

    Costco members with prescriptions can purchase the drugs out-of-pocket for $499 per month, a cost that is well below list prices. For members with health insurance, the price will depend on their plans. The sticker price for Ozempic is about $1,000; Wegovy costs $1,350.

    MORE: Long-term study on HPV vaccinations finds evidence of herd immunity

    Novo Nordisk, the Danish company that manufacturers Ozempic and Wegovy, already offers the drugs at $499 on its website, and also at CVS and Walmart. 

    “We want to make sure we offer the real, authentic Wegovy and Ozempic where patients seek care,” David Moore, executive vice president of Novo Nordisk’s U.S. Operations, told NBC News on Friday. “We know that Costco is a trusted brand.

    “Those patients that have coverage will receive the medicine on average for $25 a month,” Moore added. “But that doesn’t cover everyone, so we wanted to make sure there’s a self-pay option available as well.” 

    A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said Monday that Costo’s executive members and customers with a Costco Citibank Visa credit card also will receive a cash back reward and an additional 2% discount when purchasing the drugs. 

    Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

    Ozempic and Wegovy are GLP-1 drugs, a classification that also includes Zepbound, a medication made by Eli Lilly. They help people lose weight by mimicking a hormone known as glucagon-like peptide 1 that slows digestion, regulates blood sugar and signals fullness to the brain. 

    Ozempic was approved as a diabetes drug; Wegovy and Zepbound were approved to treat obesity. But they have been used off label to help people lose weight. Studies also have suggested they may have additional health benefits, including reducing risk of heart disease, dementia and addiction to alcohol or nicotine.

    The demand for the drugs has skyrocketed in recent years ago. A 2024 survey found 1 in 8 adults said they have used a GLP-1 drugs. With so many people using the drugs, insurers say they have struggled to cover the costs, because the drugs must be taken indefinitely to maintain weight loss and other health benefits. 

    The Trump administration plans to roll out a five-year, experimental program that would allow state Medicaid programs and Medicare Part D plans to cover GLP-1 agonists for weight loss. Some state Medicaid programs, including those in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, cover the drugs for obesity, and Medicare covers them for diabetes. 

    Molly McVety

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  • Trio Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discoveries on Immune System

    Immunologists Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that spurred the development of new treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases and laid the foundation for a new field of research.

    The trio identified a core feature of how the immune system functions and keeps itself in-check: regulatory T-cells. They prevent other immune cells from attacking our own bodies and developing autoimmune conditions including Type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Based on this fundamental knowledge, clinical trials are ongoing to test therapies for autoimmune diseases, cancer and following organ transplantation.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

    Brianna Abbott

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  • Should You Take Statins?  | NutritionFacts.org

    How can you calculate your own personal heart disease risk to help you determine if you should start on a cholesterol-lowering statin drug?

    The muscle-related side effects from cholesterol-lowering statins “are often severe enough for patients to stop taking the drug. Of course, these side effects could be coincidental or psychosomatic and have nothing to do with the drug,” given that many clinical trials show such side effects are rare. “It is also possible that previous clinical trials”—funded by the drug companies themselves—“under-recorded the side effects of statins.” The bottom line is that there’s an urgent need to establish the true incidence of statin side effects.

    “What proportion of symptomatic side effects in patients taking statins are genuinely caused by the drug?” That’s the title of a journal article that reports that, even in trials funded by Big Pharma, “only a small minority of symptoms reported on statins are genuinely due to the statins,” and those taking statins are significantly more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those randomized to placebo sugar pills. Why? We’re still not exactly sure, but statins may have the double-whammy effect of impairing insulin secretion from the pancreas while also diminishing insulin’s effectiveness by increasing insulin resistance.

    Even short-term use of statins may “approximately double the odds of developing diabetes and diabetic complications.” As shown below and at 1:49 in my video Who Should Take Statins?, fewer people develop diabetes and diabetic complications off statins over a period of about five years than those who do develop diabetes while on statins. “Of more concern, this increased risk persisted for at least 5 years after statin use stopped.”

    “In view of the overwhelming benefit of statins in the reduction of cardiovascular events,” the number one killer of men and women, any increase in risk of diabetes, our seventh leading cause of death, would be outweighed by any cardiovascular benefits, right? That’s a false dichotomy. We don’t have to choose between heart disease and diabetes. We can treat the cause of both with the same diet and lifestyle changes. The diet that can not only stop heart disease, but also reverse it, is the same one that can reverse type 2 diabetes. But what if, for whatever reason, you refuse to change your diet and lifestyle? In that case, what are the risks and benefits of starting statins? Don’t expect to get the full scoop from your doctor, as most seemed clueless about statins’ causal link with diabetes, so only a small fraction even bring it up with their patients.

    “Overall, in patients for whom statin treatment is recommended by current guidelines, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.” But that’s for you to decide. Before we quantify exactly what the risks and benefits are, what exactly are the recommendations of current guidelines?

    How should you decide if a statin is right for you? “If you have a history of heart disease or stroke, taking a statin medication is recommended, without considering your cholesterol levels.” Period. Full stop. No discussion needed. “If you do not yet have any known cardiovascular disease,” then the decision should be based on calculating your own personal risk. If you know your cholesterol and blood pressure numbers, it’s easy to do that online with the American College of Cardiology risk estimator or the Framingham risk profiler.

    My favorite is the American College of Cardiology’s estimator because it gives you your current ten-year risk and also your lifetime risk. So, for a person with a 5.8 percent risk of having a heart attack or stroke within the next decade, if they don’t clean up their act, that lifetime risk jumps to 46 percent, nearly a flip of the coin. If they improved their cholesterol and blood pressure, though, they could reduce that risk by more than tenfold, down to 3.9 percent, as shown below and at 4:11 in my video.

    Since the statin decision is based on your ten-year risk, what do you do with that number? As you can see here and at 4:48 in my video, under the current guidelines, if your ten-year risk is under 5 percent, then, unless there are extenuating circumstances, you should just stick to diet, exercise, and smoking cessation to bring down your numbers. In contrast, if your ten-year risk hits 20 percent, then the recommendation is to add a statin drug on top of making lifestyle modifications. Unless there are risk-enhancing factors, the tendency is to stick with lifestyle changes if risk is less than 7.5 percent and to move towards adding drugs if above 7.5 percent.

    Risk-enhancing factors that your doctor should take into account when helping you make the decision include a bad family history, really high LDL cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, chronic kidney or inflammatory conditions, or persistently high triglycerides, C-reactive protein, or LP(a). You can see the whole list here and at 4:54 in my video.

    If you’re still uncertain, guidelines suggest you consider getting a coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, but even though the radiation exposure from that test is relatively low these days, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has explicitly concluded that the current evidence is insufficient to conclude that the benefits outweigh the harms.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Ozempic May Be Less Effective for Emotional Eaters, Study Suggests

    GLP-1 agonists—so-called “wonder drugs” like Ozempic or Wegovy that help individuals lower blood sugar levels and lose weight, among other things—yield significant results for some patients, but not all. People’s motivations to overeat may play a role in this, according to a new study.

    To investigate why some people don’t benefit from GLP-1 agonists as much as others, researchers observed 92 participants with type 2 diabetes in Japan during their first year of taking GLP-1 drugs. Their results, published today in Frontiers in Clinical Diabetes and Healthcare, suggest that people who overeat due to external reasons—such as the sight or smell of delicious food—had greater chances of responding well to the drugs in the long term than people who overeat for emotional reasons.

    Who will benefit most from GLP-1 drugs?

    “Pre-treatment assessment of eating behavior patterns may help predict who will benefit most from GLP-1 receptor agonist therapy,” Daisuke Yabe, senior author of the study and a professor of diabetes, endocrinology, and nutrition at Kyoto University, said in a Frontiers statement. “GLP-1 receptor agonists are effective for individuals who experience weight gain or elevated blood glucose levels due to overeating triggered by external stimuli. However, their effectiveness is less expected in cases where emotional eating is the primary cause.”

    The team revealed this by gathering data on the participants’ body weight and composition, diet, and information such as blood glucose, cholesterol levels, and relationship with food at the beginning of the treatment, three months after, and one year after. They focused on emotional eating (eating in response to negative emotions), external eating (eating because the food looks good), and restrained eating (controlling one’s diet to lose weight). While it might seem contradictory, excessive restrained eating can actually result in disordered eating, according to the researchers.

    Over the year, the participants experienced a statistically significant loss of body weight and lowered cholesterol levels and body fat percentage without changing skeletal muscle mass. While blood glucose levels ameliorated, the improvement wasn’t statistically significant. There were, however, some variations depending on eating behaviors. Three months after the start of the treatment, participants reported more restrained eating and less external or emotional eating. By the end of the year, though, participants had returned to their original restrained and emotional eating habits.

    “One possible explanation is that emotional eating is more strongly influenced by psychological factors which may not be directly addressed by GLP-1 receptor agonist therapy,” said Takehiro Kato, second author of the article and a researcher from Gifu University, “Individuals with prominent emotional eating tendencies may require additional behavioral or psychological support.”

    External eating lessened over the year of treatment

    Participants reported decreased external eating throughout the entire year, and individuals that claimed high levels of external eating at the beginning of the treatment saw the greatest benefits in blood glucose levels and weight loss. On the other hand, the team didn’t identify any association between emotional or restrained eating scores at the beginning and drug benefits by the 12-month mark.

    “While our study suggests a potential association between external eating behavior and treatment response to GLP-1 receptor agonists, these findings remain preliminary,” explained Yabe. What’s more, the team’s study was observational, and participants self-reported information, meaning the researchers revealed a potential association, not a causation.

    “Further evidence is necessary before they can be implemented in clinical practice. Should future large-scale or randomized controlled trials validate this relationship, incorporating simple behavioral assessments could become a valuable component in optimizing treatment strategies,” Yabe concluded.

    Margherita Bassi

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