Nestlé has Ozempic plans

Nestlé is so worried about the effect of new weight loss drugs on its bottom line, it’s developing ‘companion products’ to be sold to people taking Ozempic, Mounjaro, and their kin.

No, this isn’t candy or packaged food (“Now that you’re on Ozempic, you can eat what you want!”). These are supplements that can help with the “loss of lean muscle mass” from taking the drugs, and — if someone gives up the shots — can help deal with the “rapid regain of weight.”

Keep in mind that all this hubbub is because Walmart reported a slight downtick in grocery sales since GLP-1 drugs hit the market. There’s not necessarily any connection, but it’s got food companies in an uproar. Our bet: Could be a mountain, probably a molehill.

I can hear your diabetes

A US/Canadian company says its smartphone-based AI tool can detect type 2 diabetes from basic medical info and 6 to 10 seconds of voice. You read that correctly. (And it’s not just a press release — the study was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health.)

“Our research highlights significant vocal variations between individuals with and without Type 2 diabetes and could transform how the medical community screens for diabetes.”

Think about how much data Big Tech already has about you next time you ask Alexa, Google, or Siri a question … and start getting info about treatment centers near you….

Pfizer doubles the price of Paxlovid

The headline says it all. With the pandemic emergency over and no longer able to suckle on the government teat, the company has announced the new price of its Covid treatment: $1,390 for a five-day course, compared to the $529 the federal government was paying for it.

Of course, patients won’t pay that much — between insurance coverage and discount programs it’ll cost a lot less out of pocket… well, directly. Insurers will have to pick up the tab, even with discounts. And when insurers pay more, they pass that cost down.

Meanwhile

In unrelated news, “Employer Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums Grew by 7% in 2023”:

The average annual premium for employer-sponsored health insurance is $8,435 for single coverage and $23,968 for family coverage.

B12 and inflammation

It seems that 95% of what ails us is caused by either gut bacteria or inflammation, and when it comes to the latter, vitamin B12 deficiency could be a driver.

A new study out of Spain found that “Higher circulating vitamin B12 is associated with lower levels of inflammatory markers in individuals at high cardiovascular risk.”

They say that the lower someone’s vitamin B12 levels were, the more interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein they had, and those are both markers of inflammation. Exactly why that’s the case isn’t clear, but the correlation was enough to raise those Spanish eyebrows.

Side note: B12 deficiency is something vegetarians need to consider. Just FYI.

Speedier approvals

In case you’re curious, the FDA approves drugs a little bit faster than its European counterpart, the EMA. It’s even faster than the Swiss, and we know how efficient they are.

The re­searchers found that over­all, the me­di­an re­view time, from sub­mis­sion to ap­proval, was 39 weeks (about nine months) in the US com­pared with 44 weeks (about 10 months) in the EU and Switzer­land.

Part of the reason is the fact that the FDA, by law, “must re­view and and act on 90% of stan­dard ap­pli­ca­tions with­in 10 months of the 60-day fil­ing date,” whereas the EU doesn’t have such a rule.

They think this is uplifting but it sounds horrific

A Swedish nursing home has installed — inside its walls — a fake bus stop for its dementia patients. You might think the idea is to make them feel … I dunno. Like they have someplace to sit? (The Dutch have created an entire village for people with dementia — “a nursing home disguised to look like the outside world.”)

In Germany there are such fake bus stops outside of retirement homes “to give wandering patients a place where they would instinctively go to sit.” And that makes sense: “Rolf got out again.” “Did you check the bus stop?”

But that’s not exactly what’s going on in Sweden. The staff clearly cares about their patients, but the description sounds like some kind of freakish psychological torture:

Staff have installed a fake bus stop in a hallway to ease the minds of anxious dementia patients eager to leave. (Emphasis ours.)

Yeah, “Some have their bags packed” as they wait on the bench.

For the bus

that

never

ever

comes.