Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! As many as 1 BILLION adults worldwide are estimated to have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and 70% of people with OSA have obesity. OSA causes sleepiness, decreases cognitive (brain) functioning, reduces quality of life, and is associated with many health risks including cardiovascular events, car accidents, and weight gain, to name a few. For people with OSA and elevated weight, weight loss is recommended. With weight management medications or bariatric surgery, just how much does OSA improve? A recent review article strives to answer this questio ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! As blogged previously, semaglutide 2.4mg (Wegovy) has been shown to markedly improve symptoms of heart failure in people with obesity (without diabetes) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF for short), in a trial called the STEP HFpEF study. A new study was just published, showing similar results in people with obesity and diabetes and HFpEF. What do these new data teach us? The STEP HFpEF DM study included 616 adults with type 2 diabetes, HFpEF (left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≥45%), and a body mass index of 30 or h ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! Older data have shown that obesity medications are prescribed far less frequently than medications for other chronic medical conditions like type 2 diabetes, with only about 2% of people with obesity receiving treatment with medication. Much has changed in recent years in the weight management world. How has this impacted prescribing of weight management medication? A recent retrospective study looked at American electronic health records from a large health system in Florida and Ohio. They evaluated data from January 2015 until June 2023 on peopl ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! Articles have gone viral this week regarding women getting pregnant on diabetes/weight management GLP1-based medications, particularly semaglutide (Ozempic for diabetes, Wegovy for weight management) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro for diabetes, Zepbound for weight management). What do you need to know? Many women with elevated weight struggle with difficulty getting pregnant. This is most often related to polycystic ovary sydrome (PCOS), which can affect women of all shapes and sizes, is common in women with obesity, and is exacerbated by weight gain ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! Fatty liver disease is very common, affecting about 70% of people with obesity or type 2 diabetes. Resmetirom (trade name Rezdiffra), a thyroid hormone receptor beta-selective agonist, is the first medication ever approved to treat fatty liver disease (approved a few days ago by the American FDA). Many other treatments are being investigated for fatty liver disease, including GLP1-based medications that are approved or in develoment for obesity and/or diabetes. Resmetirom is currently under investigation in the MAESTRO-NASH phase 3 trial, with the ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! As blogged previously, with the emergence of medications that are very powerful for weight loss, some people may lose too much weight. The defintion of excessive weight loss goes beyond the numbers on the scale, and can include excessive loss of muscle mass, a condition called sarcopenia. Currently, there is no standardized guidance or consensus on how to screen or diagnose sarcopenia, leaving health care providers in the dark as to how to look for or diagnose this condition. A recent article proposes a screening and diagnostic protocol for sarcop ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here!   In follow up to my blog post a few days ago, the DiRECT trial 5 year results have now been published, and the global diabetes and obesity communities are in heated debate about its implications. The DiRECT study was a 2 year randomized controlled trial, assessing the efficacy of an intensive lifestyle program to induce remission of type 2 diabetes. The 5 year obeservational extension results were published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. (coincidentally, within hours of my blog post about whether diabetes remission with lifestyle ..read more

It’s official – I’ve launched my new podcast channnel, called Dishing The Science with DrSue ! It’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Player FM, RSS Feed, and many more! Each podcast is an audio recording of a blog post – remember to loop back to this website to check out the links in each post for references to the science discussed and related topics. Enjoy! Subscribe to my blog (upper right) and follow me on X/twitter @drsuepedersen ! Share this blog post using your favorite social media link below! www.drsu ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my podcast here! As blogged previously, innovative new weight management medications are being explored at a frenetic pace. Many of these new approaches are adding on additional hormone-based strategies to the GLP1 receptor agonist backbone that has become well established as an effective weight management strategy. Glucagon receptor agonism is one of these avenues being explored. At first blush, this seems counterintuitive, as glucagon is known to increase blood sugars, and people with elevated weight often have diabetes, prediabetes, or are at high risk of devel ..read more

Prefer to listen? Check out my audio recording of this post here: Type 2 diabetes and elevated weight carry many health risks, with both being independently associated with a higher risk of kidney disease (read on obesity and kidney disease here). There are many important strategies to protect the kidneys of people with type 2 diabetes, including good long term blood sugar control and blood pressure control.  Can a longer time at a target weight loss protect kidney function and protect against kidney failure in people with type 2 diabetes? A recent study addressed this question using d ..read more