trendcasting
Inside the peptide craze
Alex Hogan/STAT
You’ve probably heard of peptides — in certain corners of the internet, they’re the answer to all your health and wellness concerns. Want to lose weight? There are GLP-1s, of course. Would you like to have a year-round tan? You could give melanotan a shot. Have a nagging sports injury? Try BPC-157!
But what is a peptide, and how safe is it to use them? In his latest video, STAT’s Alex Hogan explains what’s driving some people to experiment with unregulated peptides and why that’s so risky. Watch now.
chronic disease
Long Covid’s neurological symptoms tied to obesity
Here’s another clue to who might be more vulnerable than others to long Covid. A new study published Wednesday in PLOS has identified neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms — headaches, vertigo, sleep problems, smell and taste disorder, depression — as more likely to occur in people with what the authors term “excess weight” based on BMI.
The systematic review and meta-analysis combed through data on nearly 140,000 people to conclude that being overweight or having obesity was significantly associated with neurological symptoms following Covid-19 that lasted for more than three months. Obesity is already recognized as increasing the odds of more severe Covid-19 illness, making hospital admissions, intensive care admissions, and deaths more common than for other people. The authors say it’s unclear whether long Covid symptoms come from the virus or the body’s response to infection. They do note that fat tissue may enhance virus replication and suggest it could form reservoirs for the virus.
Some of these infection-linked chronic symptoms overlap or exacerbate ones caused by conditions that can come with obesity, such as depression. Until more is known, the authors write, “individuals with these conditions urgently need enhanced personalized care management in current post-pandemic context.” — Liz Cooney
politics
Republicans are running out of ways to cut Medicaid
With a looming deadline from President Trump to find hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to fund tax cut extensions, some lawmakers are hinting at a potentially fraught approach to reducing Medicaid spending: rethinking who should be eligible in the first place. They say the program has grown to encompass coverage beyond its original intent and are taking aim at the inclusion of healthy adults with lower incomes in the program. How politically viable is that, you might ask? Read more from STAT’s Daniel Payne and John Wilkerson on the latest.
Meanwhile, primary care physician Sanjay Basu has some other ideas. Basu argues in a new First Opinion essay that tactics like accelerating value-based payment models, incorporating predictive technology, and supporting community health worker programs are clear opportunities for improvement. Read more on what this could look like.
