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Extend success of UK sugar tax to cakes, biscuits and chocolate, experts urge

✇The Guardian
Denis Campbell Health policy editor

Exclusive: Co-author of analysis for WHO calls on government to control the food industry rather than being subservient to it

The sugar tax has been so successful in improving people’s diets that it should be extended to cakes, biscuits and chocolate, health experts say.

The World Health Organization wants the next UK government to expand coverage of the levy to help tackle tooth decay, obesity, diabetes and other illnesses.

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© Photograph: Peter Jordan_F/Alamy

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© Photograph: Peter Jordan_F/Alamy

Modern lives are messing up menstrual cycles—earlier starts, more irregularity

✇Ars Technica
Beth Mole
Panty liners, hygienic tampons, and sanitary pads.

Enlarge / Panty liners, hygienic tampons, and sanitary pads. (credit: Getty | LOU BENOIST)

People in the US are starting their menstrual cycles earlier and experiencing more irregularities, both of which raise the risk of a host of health problems later in life, according to an Apple women’s health study looking at data from over 70,000 menstruating iPhone users born between 1950 and 2005.

The mean age of people's first period fell from 12.5 years in participants born between 1950 and 1969 to 11.9 years in participants born between 2000 and 2005, with a steady decline in between, the study found. There were also notable changes in the extremes—between 1950 and 2005, the percentage of people who started their periods before age 11 rose from 8.6 percent to 15.5 percent. And the percentage of people who started their periods late (at age 16 or above) dropped from 5.5 percent to 1.7 percent.

In addition to periods shifting to earlier starting ages, menstrual cycles also appeared to become more irregular. For this, researchers looked at how quickly people settled into a regular cycle after the start of their period. Between 1950 and 2005, the percentage of people obtaining regularity within two years fell from 76.3 percent to 56 percent.

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Morgan Spurlock obituary

✇The Guardian
Phil Hoad

American film-maker best known for his acclaimed 2004 documentary Super Size Me

Few film-makers can say that their work has made a change to the real world, but Morgan Spurlock had a stronger claim than most. His 2004 documentary Super Size Me, an exposé of how the fast food industry was fuelling America’s obesity epidemic, appeared to have direct repercussions for the world’s largest fast food chain, McDonald’s.

Shortly before the film came out in May that year, the company introduced its Go Active! menu, which included salad items; six weeks after its release, the company abolished its supersize portions entirely.

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© Photograph: Mark J Terrill/AP

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© Photograph: Mark J Terrill/AP

Women advised to pair effective contraception with ‘skinny jabs’

✇The Guardian
Nicola Davis Science correspondent

Amid baby boom reports linked to drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic, experts say it would be ‘wise’ to take extra precautions

Claims that “skinny jabs” are fuelling an unexpected baby boom have led experts to warn women to pair their use with effective contraception.

Medications such as Wegovy and Ozempic, both of which contain semaglutide, have become hugely popular, not least because they can help people lose more than 10% of their body weight.

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© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

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© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

Weight-loss jabs shouldn’t be quick-fix solution for governments, says expert

✇The Guardian
Nicola DavisScience correspondent

Obesity prevention is cheaper long-term option, says Cambridge professor, with focus on dietary advice and exercise plans

Skinny jabs risk being used as a cop-out by governments to avoid making hard policy choices to prevent obesity, a leading expert has warned.

Prof Giles Yeo, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge and expert on obesity and the brain control of food intake, said drugs such as semaglutide – the active ingredient in the weight-loss jab Wegovy – were remarkable and worked for a majority of people.

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© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

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© Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

My wife has put on weight and I’m no longer attracted to her. What should I do? | Leading questions

✇The Guardian
Eleanor Gordon-Smith

It’s one thing to struggle with finding your partner attractive, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. It’s another to feel contempt for them

I’m in my early 50s and am starting to find my wife not sexually attractive any more. Over the years she has gradually put on weight to the point she now weighs more than me; I’m 6ft and normal weight for an athletic, active man. I’ve got mixed, conflicted feelings about it. On a physical basis I don’t like it, but she’s now started walking with a different gait and I find myself disgusted and pitying her. On a medical basis, it can’t be good long term.

I have mentioned it in the past and asked her to make lifestyle changes, which last three to four weeks. It’s making me feel resentful and not respected. I feel as if I shouldn’t have to ask my wife to be a reasonable weight. But I’m simultaneously avoiding the issue because I don’t want to humiliate and upset her. How to address this?

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© Photograph: piemags/PMN/Alamy

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© Photograph: piemags/PMN/Alamy

Sharp rise in type 2 diabetes among people under 40 in UK

✇The Guardian
Andrew Gregory Health editor

Diagnoses up 39% in six years, with condition fuelled by obesity, health inequalities and junk food, study finds

The number of people under 40 being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the UK has risen 39% in six years, fuelled by soaring obesity levels and cheap junk food.

Britain has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe. Two in three adults are overweight or obese and the NHS spends £6bn a year treating obesity-related ill-health. That is forecast to rise to £10bn a year by 2050.

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© Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

Weight loss from Wegovy sustained for up to four years, trial shows

✇Ars Technica
Beth Mole
Wegovy is an injectable prescription weight-loss medicine that has helped people with obesity.

Enlarge / Wegovy is an injectable prescription weight-loss medicine that has helped people with obesity. (credit: Getty | Michael Siluk)

A large, long-term trial of the weight-loss medication Wegovy (semaglutide) found that people tended to lose weight over the first 65 weeks on the drug—about one year and three months—but then hit a plateau or "set point." But that early weight loss was generally maintained for up to four years while people continued taking the weekly injections.

The findings, published Monday in Nature Medicine, come from a fresh analysis of data from the SELECT trial, which was designed to look at the drug's effects on cardiovascular health. The trial—a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial—specifically enrolled people with existing cardiovascular disease who also were overweight or obese but did not have diabetes. In all, the trial included 17,604 people from 41 countries. Seventy-two percent of them were male, 84 percent were white, and the average age was about 62 years old.

Last year, researchers published the trial's primary results, which showed that semaglutide reduced participants' risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular-related deaths by 20 percent over the span of a little over three years.

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