Clinical trial

A popular class of weight loss drugs may offer more lasting success than assumed, new data from Epic Research suggests. The study of medical records found that a slight majority of people who took GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide either maintained or improved their weight loss in the year after they stopped using the medication. More than a third of former users did substantially regain much or all of their original weight, however.Alex Winter on the Most Important Modern Horror Movie Semaglutide mimics the natural GLP-1…

New clinical trial data released by Eli Lilly on Wednesday has provided the most promising results of any potential Alzheimer’s disease treatment yet. In a randomized, double-blinded, controlled phase III trial, the experimental drug donanemab significantly slowed cognitive decline in patients compared to placebo, with nearly half of those on the drug experiencing no decline at all a year later. The findings will likely pave the way for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, though the drug appears to carry a risk…

Image: myskin (Getty Images)Weight loss drugs are becoming more accessible to Americans as doctors combat rising obesity rates in the country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the weight loss drug Wegovy, in 2021, prompting an upsurge in access to a quick and efficient way to shed pounds.Celebrities and other influencers on social media have posted about using the drug including Twitter CEO Elon Musk.The two primary GLP-1s drug injections currently on the market are Ozempic, which is typically used for…

Senate staff members and their dogs look on as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks at a press conference on his FDA Modernization Act on Capitol Hill on October 07, 2021 in Washington, DC. Photo: Anna Moneymaker (Getty Images)Animal testing will no longer be a mandated part of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for all new drugs. Since 1938, pharmaceutical makers seeking FDA approval have had to successfully put their medications through multiple animals trials before proceeding to human tests. Now, though, drug…

Image: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted the conditional approval of a new treatment for people with early Alzheimer’s disease: the antibody-based drug lecanemab, jointly developed by the pharmaceutical companies Biogen and Eisai. In a large trial, lecanemab appeared to slow down patients’ cognitive decline relative to those on placebo. But some experts and consumer advocates have questioned the drug’s safety and real-world value.Lecanemab works by targeting amyloid beta, a…

Metformin pills.Photo: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)Preliminary data from a randomized clinical trial may point to a potential way to prevent long covid. The trial found that covid-19 patients who took metformin, a commonly prescribed diabetes drug, were noticeably less likely to be diagnosed with long covid up to 10 months later than people in the control group. More research will be needed to confirm the implications of this study, however.In late 2020, a large group of researchers at various universities across the U.S.…