Weight & obesity
Liver stiffness readings used to judge fatty liver treatment were checked against biopsy for the first time
Guidelines already accept a 30% drop in liver stiffness as evidence a treatment is working. In 160 patients who had both the scan and the biopsy, someone finally tested whether that holds.
Sep 7, 2026
Losing a tenth of body weight tracked seven times the odds of cirrhosis recovering
Decompensated cirrhosis is treated as one-way: once the liver fails, the list is transplant or palliation. Among 344 patients, 64 climbed back out, and weight loss was the strongest thing separating them.
Sep 6, 2026
Sitting at the top of the 'normal' BMI range carried 78% more type 2 diabetes across 1.8 million people
Guidelines draw the risk line at a BMI of 25 and treat everything below it as fine. Pooling 11 cohorts, researchers found people at 22.5 to 24.9 already carried substantially more diabetes than people lower in the same band.
Aug 31, 2026
A third of people with 'preclinical' obesity crossed into the clinical kind within five years
A Lancet commission split obesity into two conditions: one that is only a body measurement, one that has started causing harm. Nobody had counted how often people move between them. In 92,396 US adults, 26% did in under three years.
Aug 31, 2026
Lean people with fatty liver and no risk factors still faced 2.5 times the liver death rate
Fatty liver is treated as a consequence of obesity and metabolic problems. A Gut analysis of 30,847 MRI-scanned UK Biobank participants found a slim group with none of those markers, and followed it to a higher rate of liver-related death.
Aug 30, 2026
Probiotics trimmed waist size in adults with metabolic syndrome, but left blood pressure alone
An Obesity Reviews analysis of 19 randomized trials in adults with metabolic syndrome found probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics reduced waist circumference and body weight. Blood pressure did not move, and neither did body mass index.
Aug 26, 2026
Weight lost early in prediabetes still counted 34 years on
The Da Qing study followed 540 Chinese adults with impaired glucose tolerance for 34 years. Those who lost at least 5% of their weight in the first six years later had a third fewer deaths and half as many heart failure admissions.
Aug 14, 2026
An oral GLP-1 pill cut weight 9% in a phase 2 trial
A trial in Nature Communications tested a once-daily GLP-1 tablet in 235 Chinese adults with obesity. The top dose beat placebo by about 7 percentage points over 26 weeks, with the usual gut side effects.
Aug 4, 2026
Adding family coaching to GP care worked for child obesity
A randomized trial across 41 US primary care practices gave 730 children either enhanced usual care or that plus family behavioral treatment. The families who got the coaching saw more than double the reduction in relative weight.
Aug 3, 2026
Heart deaths halved since 1990. The causes swapped places.
A JAMA Cardiology analysis of US deaths from 1990 to 2023 found the heart disease death rate down 58.7%, with smoking and air pollution receding as causes while high body weight and blood sugar climbed.
Aug 3, 2026
Mazdutide took off 16.7% of body weight in a phase 3 trial
A JAMA phase 3 trial of 461 Chinese adults with obesity found the dual glucagon and GLP-1 drug mazdutide cut body weight by 16.65% over 60 weeks against 1.50% on placebo.
Jul 29, 2026
The weight came back. The visceral fat loss didn't.
A Circulation follow-up scanned 366 people 5 and 10 years after two diet trials and found that despite complete weight regain, visceral fat stayed partly down, and 10% less of it cut diabetes risk 28%.
Jul 29, 2026
Weight-loss drugs worked better with lifestyle, not without
A JAMA Pediatrics network meta-analysis of 42 trials in 3,835 adolescents found every obesity drug performed better paired with lifestyle treatment than on its own.
Jul 28, 2026
Semaglutide led the field for antipsychotic weight gain
A JAMA Psychiatry network meta-analysis of 95 trials ranked 39 drugs for reversing antipsychotic weight gain, and semaglutide came out well ahead at nearly 11 kg.
Jul 27, 2026
Bariatric surgery cost less downstream than GLP-1 drugs
A JAMA Network Open study matched 2,721 pairs of Israeli patients over up to 12.5 years and found those on GLP-1 drugs ran up $109 more per month in other health costs than surgery patients.
Jul 27, 2026
Survodutide cleared liver fat in 84% of patients
A Nature Medicine phase 3 trial of 216 adults found survodutide cut liver fat by at least 30% in 84.2% of those treated, against 24.3% on placebo, alongside 12.2% weight loss.
Jul 27, 2026
Losing 15% early after a diabetes diagnosis cut complications
A Diabetes Care study of 72,480 UK patients found those who lost at least 15% of their weight within two years of a type 2 diabetes diagnosis had fewer heart and kidney complications later.
Jul 26, 2026
Obesity's metabolic risk gap has narrowed in older adults
A Lancet analysis of 978,425 people across seven countries found blood pressure and cholesterol in older adults with obesity now often match those at normal weight, largely because more of them are medicated.
Jul 26, 2026
Oral GLP-1 pill elecoglipron hit 10% weight loss in a trial
A Lancet phase 2 trial of 310 adults found the oral GLP-1 drug elecoglipron produced up to 10.5% weight loss in 26 weeks against 0.6% on placebo, with no injections and no food restrictions.
Jul 26, 2026
Sarcopenic obesity tripled type 2 diabetes risk
A Diabetes Care analysis of 479,607 UK Biobank participants found people with both low muscle strength and high body fat had over three times the type 2 diabetes risk, far above either problem alone.
Jul 26, 2026
Childhood fruit juice tracks with high blood pressure at 36
A Circulation study followed 25,749 Americans from age 12 to age 36 and found daily sugary drinks and daily fruit juice both tracked with higher rates of high blood pressure, while whole fruit did not.
Jul 25, 2026
Apitegromab kept muscle on during tirzepatide weight loss
A Nature Medicine trial of 102 adults found adding the antibody apitegromab to tirzepatide cut lean-mass loss by 1.9 kilograms over 24 weeks, without slowing total weight loss.
Jul 25, 2026
Yo-yo dieting was tied to muscle loss on body scans
Researchers at UC San Francisco tracked 1,433 middle-aged adults with repeat MRI scans and found that people whose weight kept swinging lost more thigh muscle than those who stayed stable.
Jul 23, 2026