This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! In part 1 we examined the massively misleading opening claim of the abstract of the new study “Long-term weight loss effects of semaglutide in obesity without diabetes in the SELECT trial” by Ryan et al, published in the journal naturemedicine, and we looked at the magnitude of the conflicts of the authors. Today I’ll dig into the rest of the study.
Great analysis- thanks. As a recovering data scientist with a particular interest in data visualization, your "Participants vs Time" graph made me laugh out loud, Way to make a point!
You have an amazing ability to translate all the research babble into clearly understandable language for us mortals — thank you!! It still baffles and angers me that diet culture can get away with this nonsense.
That data that starts with 16k people and ends 4 years later with THREE HUNDRED is the same kind of data manipulation they've pulled with WL surgery -- and WL proponents still fall for the same tricks.
WLS data always looked the same way. People lost weight at first ('cause they couldn't EAT) but by the 3-ish yr mark, they'd have 1/10th or less of the participants left. And people who were skeptical if not against WLS asked -- where did all the participants go? Did they drop out because they regained? Did they become seriously ill or worse because of what WLS can do to a human body?
At the time, people who died during or immediately after WLS or from follow-up surgeries were noted as "dying from ob*sity."
We know that these drugs can have serious, life-threatening side-effects and complications, and I really wonder how many of those missing 15.7k people didn't survive the drugs, but it was swept away again with "dying from ob*sity."
I am dying to know what happens at about 100 weeks that causes participation to tank like that. Maybe it's just "I've been doing this for 2 years, it's not working, I quit"? Something about "2 years" that makes participants think "Oh, screw this"?
I strongly disagree with your dismissal of the study authors ability as expressed in this paragraph.
"Let me just say this: if a 6th grader was studying whether ...... they would not be in contention to win the 6th grade science fair ...."
In the 6th grade one is just beginning to learn about the scientific method. They are learning how to formulate a question, how to test that question, how to collect data, how to collate data, how to graph that data and how to make conclusions from that data. Remember they are only 11 years old. Their brains have probably not developed to the point of having the ability to ask nuanced questions and make logical conclusions. So I believe, to give credit where credit is due, if these authors submitted their work to any 6th grade science fair they would definitely be top contenders. /s
Thank you for communicating this complex information once again!
Seeing the health sheets link reminded me to ask if you might be able to talk more about those in a future newsletter? I recently heard a podcast where someone said that ASDAH leadership is essentially disavowing those health sheets and said "they weren't reviewed by a medical professional"!?!
Do you mind sharing the podcast? That's odd on a bunch of levels since the sheets were all co-written by medical doctors and the sheets are not an ASDAH project (though we received a grant from ASDAH prior to their launch that paid our initial start-up and web design costs, for which we are super grateful!)
So interesting! I knew you would know more. If I'm remembering correctly, these statements were made by the journalist who wrote the recent hit piece on anti-diet dietitians for the WaPo. He was a guest on Jessica Wilson's "Making It Awkward" podcast. It's possible she has already followed up on that part of the conversation (I'm behind on the most recent episodes).
That's so weird. I actually gave that dude and hour interview during which we talked about the Health Sheets so he knows they were co-written by doctors! I actually have a two-parter about the Washington Post piece starting tomorrow.
Great analysis- thanks. As a recovering data scientist with a particular interest in data visualization, your "Participants vs Time" graph made me laugh out loud, Way to make a point!
I’m an aspiring data science and I too laughed out loud!
You have an amazing ability to translate all the research babble into clearly understandable language for us mortals — thank you!! It still baffles and angers me that diet culture can get away with this nonsense.
That data that starts with 16k people and ends 4 years later with THREE HUNDRED is the same kind of data manipulation they've pulled with WL surgery -- and WL proponents still fall for the same tricks.
WLS data always looked the same way. People lost weight at first ('cause they couldn't EAT) but by the 3-ish yr mark, they'd have 1/10th or less of the participants left. And people who were skeptical if not against WLS asked -- where did all the participants go? Did they drop out because they regained? Did they become seriously ill or worse because of what WLS can do to a human body?
At the time, people who died during or immediately after WLS or from follow-up surgeries were noted as "dying from ob*sity."
We know that these drugs can have serious, life-threatening side-effects and complications, and I really wonder how many of those missing 15.7k people didn't survive the drugs, but it was swept away again with "dying from ob*sity."
🔥🔥🔥
Thank you. If nothing else it made me laugh!
Oh and it was super helpful understanding this stuff!
Thank you so much Ragen!!
I am dying to know what happens at about 100 weeks that causes participation to tank like that. Maybe it's just "I've been doing this for 2 years, it's not working, I quit"? Something about "2 years" that makes participants think "Oh, screw this"?
I strongly disagree with your dismissal of the study authors ability as expressed in this paragraph.
"Let me just say this: if a 6th grader was studying whether ...... they would not be in contention to win the 6th grade science fair ...."
In the 6th grade one is just beginning to learn about the scientific method. They are learning how to formulate a question, how to test that question, how to collect data, how to collate data, how to graph that data and how to make conclusions from that data. Remember they are only 11 years old. Their brains have probably not developed to the point of having the ability to ask nuanced questions and make logical conclusions. So I believe, to give credit where credit is due, if these authors submitted their work to any 6th grade science fair they would definitely be top contenders. /s
The Oh Noooooo slide took me OUT.
Thank you for communicating this complex information once again!
Seeing the health sheets link reminded me to ask if you might be able to talk more about those in a future newsletter? I recently heard a podcast where someone said that ASDAH leadership is essentially disavowing those health sheets and said "they weren't reviewed by a medical professional"!?!
Do you mind sharing the podcast? That's odd on a bunch of levels since the sheets were all co-written by medical doctors and the sheets are not an ASDAH project (though we received a grant from ASDAH prior to their launch that paid our initial start-up and web design costs, for which we are super grateful!)
So interesting! I knew you would know more. If I'm remembering correctly, these statements were made by the journalist who wrote the recent hit piece on anti-diet dietitians for the WaPo. He was a guest on Jessica Wilson's "Making It Awkward" podcast. It's possible she has already followed up on that part of the conversation (I'm behind on the most recent episodes).
It's possible I'm mis-remembering his exact words, but that was the gist!
That's so weird. I actually gave that dude and hour interview during which we talked about the Health Sheets so he knows they were co-written by doctors! I actually have a two-parter about the Washington Post piece starting tomorrow.
Oh, wow. I hope we can get to the bottom of this.