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A second injectable diabetes drug has been approved for weight loss in overweight and obese adults, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday. The weight-loss drug Zepbound contains the same active ingredient, tirzepatide, as the diabetes drug Mounjaro. Both medications are made by Eli Lilly and Co. “Obesity and overweight are serious conditions that can be associated with some of the leading causes of death such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes,” Dr. John Sharretts, director of the Division of Diabetes, Lipid Disorders, and Obesity in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in an agency news release. “In light of increasing rates of both obesity and overweight in the United States, today’s approval addresses an unmet medical need.” The approval mirrors the FDA’s earlier approval of Wegovy to treat obesity. That blockbuster drug contains the same active ingredient as the diabetes drug Ozempic. About 7 in 10 American adults are overweight or obese, the FDA said, and many of those folks have at least one weight-related health risk, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or elevated cholesterol levels. Losing 5% to 10% of body weight has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease in adults carrying excess weight, the FDA added. Zepbound works by activating hormone receptors in the body to reduce appetite and food intake, the… read on > read on >

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 8, 2023 (Healthday News) — A new drug to treat postpartum depression will cost nearly $16,000 for a 14-day course of treatment, a price tag that has doctors worried that some patients won’t be able to afford the medication. Zurzuvae (zuranolone) was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration back in August, and it carried the distinction of being the first postpartum depression (PPD) drug that can be taken as a pill. Despite Zurzuvae’s high cost, drugmaker Sage Therapeutics said Tuesday that the drug should hit the market by December, and that it and partner Biogen are now talking with insurers about coverage of the medication. The companies’ goal is “to enable broad and equitable access for women with PPD who are prescribed this drug,” Sage Chief Executive Officer Barry Greene said in a company news release. The hope is for patients to be able to get the medicine, “where possible, with little to no co-pay regardless of financial means.” He added that the two companies will also help cover costs or provide the drug free to certain patients. Mental health experts have welcomed the drug’s approval, not just because it presents a new way to treat postpartum depression but also because it “appears to be fast-acting,” Dr. Catherine Monk, chief of the Division of Women’s Mental Health in the Department of… read on > read on >

Everyone knows smoking to be a major cause of cancer. Now, exactly how tobacco smoke triggers tumor development just got a bit clearer, thanks to new Canadian research. According to a team at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) in Toronto, smoking appears to prevent the formation of proteins that work to keep runaway cell development in check. According to Nina Adler, a University of Toronto PhD student who led the study, smoking gives rise to what are known as “stop-gain” mutations in cellular DNA. In essence, the mutations tell the body to stop making these protective proteins. Without these proteins, tumors are more likely to occur. “Our study showed that smoking is associated with changes to DNA that disrupt the formation of tumor suppressors,” said Adler, who led the study during her postgraduate research in Dr. Jüri Reimand’s lab at OICR. “Without them, abnormal cells are allowed to keep growing unchecked by the cell’s defenses and cancer can develop more easily,” she explained in an OICR news release. The Toronto team already knew that a history of smoking leaves a unique imprint in a smoker’s DNA. In their research, they compared that genetic legacy to DNA collected from 12,000 tumor samples across 18 different types of cancer. They found that smoking appeared strongly connected to stop-gain mutations that leave people more vulnerable to… read on > read on >

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 8, 2023 (Healthday News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it plans to pull a veterinary drug used commonly in the pork industry because it might pose a cancer risk to humans who eat pig products. The antimicrobial, carbadox (Mecadox), is typically added to pig feed to fight infections and fatten up the animals. But pork contaminated with “carcinogenic residues” from the drug could wind up in foods like hot dogs and cold cuts, though the agency stressed in its notice that it isn’t telling people to change their food choices at the moment. The FDA’s concerns with carbadox date back decades: When it was first approved in 1998, the agency’s worries were abated by a strategy that involved testing edible parts of pigs that had been given carbadox. According to the agency, data now shows that those testing methods do not adequately measure the cancer risk posed by pork produced while using the drug. After issuing its first warning about pulling the drug in 2016, it isn’t clear why the agency didn’t move sooner to actually do so, CBS News reported. “This action itself arrived long overdue. The European Union and Canada prohibited use of carbadox in 1999 and 2006, respectively, due to concerns about residues and the safety of workers handling the drug,” advocacy groups wrote in… read on > read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received at least three reports of people being hospitalized after taking counterfeit versions of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs known as semaglutides. At least one of these reports includes mention of a counterfeit version of the Novo Nordisk medication Ozempic, CBS News reported. Ozempic and Wegovy, another semaglutide medication made by Novo Nordisk, have been tough to find for months as millions of Americans turn to them for weight loss. In total, 42 reports that mention the use of counterfeit semaglutide were submitted to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System through the end of September, CBS News reported. Of those, 28 were classified as “serious,” with outcomes that included deaths. All were submitted to the FDA by Novo Nordisk. However, the records do not prove the counterfeits directly caused the adverse events. An FDA spokesperson told CBS News that the agency has “no new information to share regarding reports of adverse events” linked to semaglutide counterfeits. “The FDA will investigate any report of suspect counterfeit drugs to determine the public health risks and the appropriate regulatory response. The FDA remains vigilant in protecting the U.S. drug supply from these threats,” agency spokesperson Jeremy Kahn told CBS News. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has said that it is working with the FDA to make consumers aware of the counterfeits and how they differ… read on > read on >

California banned menthol cigarettes and flavored vaping products in late 2022, based on concerns the flavors encouraged teens to get hooked on nicotine. But a new study finds many smokers simply shrugged and turned to online shopping for their flavored vapes. Online shopping for flavored cigarettes and vapes increased significantly in the weeks following the implementation of the ban, according to findings published Nov. 7 in the journal Tobacco Control. Researchers discovered that shopping queries were 194% higher than expected for cigarettes and 162% higher than expected for vape products after the law went into effect. “Retailer licensing programs have proven to be effective in enforcing tobacco control laws. However, the exclusion of e-commerce retailers from these programs can undermine their impact,” said lead researcher Eric Leas, an assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Tobacco E-commerce Lab. Web searches revealed that at least two and as many as 36 online retailers continue to offer access to flavored vapes or menthol cigarettes, researchers found. “The absence of explicit regulations on e-commerce sales can create loopholes in enforcing tobacco control laws, allowing consumers to easily access restricted products online,” Leas explained in a university news release. “By including e-commerce in the definition of ‘tobacco retailer’ and ensuring strict… read on > read on >

Forget “Jaws”: The remarkable wound-healing power of shark skin could end up helping humans, new research claims. Shark skin is coated with a special film of mucus that more closely resembles mucus generated by people than that generated by other types of fish, noted researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm. They conducted their investigation at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Wood’s Hole, Mass., and reported their findings recently in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. It’s long been known that sharks have an unusual ability to quickly heal and recover from wounds, explained researchers Jakob Wikström, an associate professor of dermatology and principal investigator at Karolinska, and his colleague, senior study author Etty Bachar-Wikström. However, “much more is known about fish biology than shark biology, for obvious reasons,” Wikström explained in an MBL news release. “Fish are easier to handle, and there’s a bigger commercial interest in them.” Sharks are cartilaginous and, along with skates, make up just 1% of fish species, while bony fishes comprise the other 99%. “Our aim in this paper was to characterize shark skin at the molecular level, which hasn’t been done in depth,” Bachar-Wikström said. How do sharks heal so quickly from wounds? To try to find out, the researchers focused on the thin layer of mucus that overlies a shark’s rough-textured skin. They found its chemical… read on > read on >

An old scourge, syphilis, is returning with a vengeance in the United States, affecting not only adults but also the most vulnerable — newborns. Rates of congenital syphilis soared 10-fold between 2012 and 2022, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The congenital syphilis crisis in the United States has skyrocketed at a heartbreaking rate,” CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry said in a statement. “New actions are needed to prevent more family tragedies. We’re calling on healthcare providers, public health systems and communities to take additional steps to connect mothers and babies with the care they need.” Congenital syphilis occurs when the illness is passed from the mother to her newborn. According to the March of Dimes, “If not treated right away, congenital syphilis can cause problems for your baby later in life,” including deformities of the bones and teeth, paralysis or seizures, problems with vision and hearing and developmental delays. In 2022, more than 3,700 babies across the United States were born with syphilis, a rate that’s 10 times that of the previous decade. The CDC blames the steep rise in cases among women of childbearing years on restrictions in access to good prenatal care, among other factors. “Almost 9 in 10 cases of newborn syphilis in 2022 might have been prevented with timely testing and… read on > read on >

When doctors advise patients to lose weight, an optimistic approach is more likely to get results. Researchers found that patients were more likely to participate in the recommended program and shed pounds if doctors presented obesity treatments as an “opportunity.” They compared that upbeat approach to emphasizing the negative consequences of obesity or using neutral language. International guidelines recommend that primary care doctors screen patients and offer treatment for those who are overweight or obese. Patients have said that clinicians’ words and tone matter to them. For this study, a University of Oxford team analyzed recordings of doctor-patient conversations at 38 primary care clinics about a free, 12-week behavioral weight-loss intervention. The researchers were looking for relationships between language used in the visit and patient behaviors, such as participation in the program and weight loss outcomes. The authors characterized these interactions in three ways. The “good news” approach was the least common. It communicated positivity and optimism, focused on the benefits of weight loss and presented the program as an opportunity. In that approach, doctors made little mention of obesity, weight or body mass index (an estimate of body fat based on height and weight) as a problem. The information was presently smoothly and quickly, and conveyed excitement. The “bad news” approach emphasized the “problem” of obesity. Physicians asserted themselves as experts. They focused on… read on > read on >

Many people with type 2 diabetes also struggle with depression, and this combination can lead to premature death, researchers say. “More than 35 million Americans have diabetes, and more than 95 million have prediabetes, making diabetes one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.,” said study co-author Jagdish Khubchandani. He is a professor of public health sciences at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces. “Unfortunately, a large proportion of these people struggle with depression, anxiety or poor mental health,” Khubchandani said in a university news release. To explore this association, the researchers used data on nearly 15,000 people from the 2005 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The research team then linked the data to death records from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The investigators found that more than 10% of American adults suffer from depression or diabetes. Overall, participants with diabetes were 1.7 times more likely to die prematurely than those without diabetes, the data showed. The risk of death more than quadrupled for participants with both diabetes and depression compared to those without diabetes or depression. “Diabetes alone is a debilitating disease, and the co-occurrence of depression makes it worse,” Khubchandani said. “Unfortunately, many Americans with diabetes continue to struggle financially and emotionally, making it difficult to manage the disease.” Many demographic, psychosocial and biological… read on > read on >

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FDA Approves New Diet Drug Zepbound, a Version of the Diabetes Med Mounjaro

New Postpartum Depression Drug Comes With Hefty Price Tag

Smoking Undermines Human DNA That Would Normally Prevent Cancer

FDA Will Pull Vet Drug Used in Pork Industry Over Cancer Concerns for Humans

FDA Investigating Hospitalizations Linked to Counterfeit Ozempic

When California Banned Flavored Vapes, Many Just Shopped Online

Sharks’ Amazing Ability to Heal From Wounds Might Help Humans

U.S. Syphilis Cases in Newborns Rose 10-fold Over a Decade

Doctors: Want Patients to Lose Weight? Stay Upbeat

Depression Can Be a Killer for People With Diabetes