New daily weight-loss pill shows success at clinical trial

A significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes. People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday. The trial, which enrolled 559 obese people with type 2 diabetes from the US, China,…

Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive worked wonders on his bureaucrats’ waistlines | Torsten Bell

There’s lots of chat about slimming down the UK’s civil service – it’s grown by 25% since the Brexit referendum (albeit only back to its pre-austerity size). In the UK, this trimming talk doesn’t usually refer to helping Whitehall mandarins drop a dress size. In contrast, a recent study finds that the Chinese government’s anti-corruption campaign is slimming not only bureaucrat’s wallets, but their waistlines. This got at a longstanding problem: in China more than 40% of public sector officials were overweight, according to a 2009 study. The more senior…

AstraZeneca makes bigger push into weight-loss market with new drug deal

AstraZeneca is making a bigger push into the weight-loss drug market, striking an exclusive licence agreement with a Chinese company for an obesity and type 2 diabetes pill that is in early stage development. Britain’s biggest drugmaker said it had agreed a deal with Eccogene, based in Shanghai, for an experimental drug named ECC5004 that would also treat other cardiometabolic conditions such as heart disease and stroke. It is in phase 1 development but AstraZeneca hopes it will enter phase 2 clinical studies by the end of next year. If…

Scientists Find No Benefit to Time-Restricted Eating

The weight-loss idea is quite appealing: Limit your eating to a period of six to eight hours each day, during which you can have whatever you want. Studies in mice seemed to support so-called time-restricted eating, a form of the popular intermittent fasting diet. Small studies of people with obesity suggested it might help shed pounds. But now, a rigorous one-year study in which people followed a low-calorie diet between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. or consumed the same number of calories anytime during the day has…