Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
For obese people with a type of heart failure where the heart pumps normally but is stiff, semaglutide helps them feel less short of breath, move easier, and reduces heart inflammation.
Quantitative
For people with obesity and heart disease, a weekly semaglutide injection lowers the chance of having a heart attack, stroke, or dying from heart problems by 20%, even if their blood sugar doesn’t change.
When people stop taking the semaglutide injection, they quickly gain back most of the weight they lost—only about 13 pounds of the original 40-pound loss stays off after a year.
A daily pill version of semaglutide at a high dose (50 mg) helps people lose about 34 pounds in a year—just as much as the weekly injection.
People with obesity and another health issue who got a weekly shot of semaglutide plus behavioral therapy lost about 17 kg on average after a year and a half — way more than those who got a placebo.
Causal
Taking a weekly shot of a drug called retatrutide might help lower blood pressure in people who are overweight, obese, or have type 2 diabetes — and this benefit might happen even if they don’t lose much weight.
Correlational
Taking a weekly shot of retatrutide might make you feel more nauseous, throw up, get constipated, or have allergic reactions than if you took a fake shot — but these side effects aren’t life-threatening and are kind of expected.
A once-a-week shot called retatrutide may help lower blood sugar levels in people who are overweight, obese, or have type 2 diabetes—even if they don’t lose weight.
People who get a weekly shot of a new medicine called retatrutide are about 18 times more likely to lose at least 15% of their body weight than those who get a placebo, which could mean a lot of them reach a weight loss level that really improves their health.
Taking a weekly injection called retatrutide might help people who are overweight or have type 2 diabetes lose around 10-11 pounds, shrink their waistline, and lower their BMI — which could mean real, helpful weight loss.
If someone is severely overweight and diets and exercise haven’t worked, surgery to shrink the stomach can be a next step to help them lose weight and feel better.
Descriptive
We don’t really know if these weight loss pills are safe to take for years and years—scientists haven’t figured it out yet.
The older weight loss pills people used to take don’t do more good than harm, and none of them have been proven to help people live longer.
The best way to treat obesity is by eating better and moving more, but most people can’t stick with these changes for long, so they don’t work well over time.
Being overweight or obese puts as much strain on the healthcare system as smoking does, which means it’s a really big problem for public health.
When people take medicine to lose weight, their body inflammation goes down and their metabolism gets better, which helps lower their chance of heart problems.
Carrying extra weight makes it more likely you'll have a heart attack or stroke because it pushes up your blood pressure, messes up your cholesterol, and causes body-wide inflammation.
Mechanistic
Semaglutide helps people who are overweight or obese lose weight by making them feel less hungry and slowing down how fast food leaves their stomach.
People got seriously sick from vaping THC oil, and scientists found that a common food ingredient called vitamin E acetate—safe to eat—was to blame when breathed in. So just because something is safe to eat doesn’t mean it’s safe to vape.
Most college students in the U.S. think the FDA says e-cigarette flavors are safe to breathe in, but the FDA actually said that’s not true—they never said flavorings are safe for vaping.
The tasty flavors in e-cigarettes, safe to eat, can turn into harmful substances when mixed with the liquid inside the vape, and these new substances might be more toxic to your cells than the original flavors.
When people vape, the liquid in e-cigarettes heats up and turns into a mist, but this process can create harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and acrolein—things that can hurt your lungs—even though these same liquids are considered safe to eat.
The FDA says something is safe to eat only if you’re going to swallow it — but e-cigarettes spray chemicals into your lungs, so those chemicals aren’t covered by the same safety rules as food.
Just because a chemical is safe to eat doesn’t mean it’s safe to breathe in — things like flavorings in e-cigarettes can hurt your lungs even if they’re okay in food.