Yoni Freedhoff
@yonifreedhoff.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Family Medicine @UOttawa/Exclusively obesity medicine since 2004/Bylines spanning from The Lancet to the NYTs/הנני
Decided I'm going to write an add-on for my book for the GLP1 era. Just as with dieting, so much misinformation around GLP1s and this addition very much inline with book's overarching aim to mythbust and to make ending traumatic dieting that much more doable. Hope to have available by January
Had a nice chat with @caitlinschiller about my now vintage book The Diet Fix. Book holds up imo, but needs a chapter on permission to use GLP1s and mythbusting around them. The title btw wasn't my choice. Mine was, "A Prescription for Chocolate: The End of Traumatic Dieting". Can have a listen here:
Eat chocolate and enjoy life: a practical diet framework
Dr. Yoni Freedhoff on what having a "best weight" actually means
simplify-show.beehiiv.com
My latest on @medscape.com on how even the insurance plans designed by and for physicians rarely cover GLP1 medications for obesity and the hypocrisy and short-sightedness therein. There's a backstory too. Had originally submitted as an opinion piece for @cmaj.ca /1
My latest in @medscape.com on how obesity is finally, truly, a choice. But no, not the choice of trying harder, but rather of therapeutics, where even our current generation of medications and surgeries, if accessible and affordable to all, would push 90% of obesity into remission
My latest in @medscape.com: Seems that one by one the fear mongered risks about GLP1s get disproven. No increased suicide risk, no thyroid cancer risk, no blindness risk. But the loudest these days is muscle loss risk. Well guess what? No meaningful risk there either www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
No Need to Worry About GLP-1-Induced Muscle Loss
Recent headlines have alarmingly stated dramatic muscle loss for patients on GLP-1s. Yoni Freedhoff, MD, explains why this is a manufactured controversy.
medscape.com
My latest for @medscape.com covers how the diet era is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet and why that's glorious www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
The Bell Tolls for the Diet Era
Does the new generation of weight-loss drugs mark the end for weight-loss diet researchers, fat-acceptance entrepreneurs, and others? Yoni Freedhoff, MD, thinks it does.
medscape.com
My latest on @medscape.com covers some thoughts on the new American Dietary Guidelines and why they actually matter a great deal even if it's true that virtually no one consciously follows or cares about them www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
Why Diet Guidelines Matter Even if Zero People Follow Them
medscape.com
My latest on @Medscape - can you successfully sue your employer for GLP1 coverage? Though plaintiffs have already tried and failed, two new developments have made a new potential case much, much stronger www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
Two New Developments May Help Future Plaintiffs Compel GLP-1 Coverage
Two recent developments may potentially increase GLP-1 coverage for more patients with obesity. The lack of coverage may be another failure of recognizing obesity as a chronic disease.
medscape.com
I double checked this and it's true. You teach clinicians that naming identity matters and that erasure is harm, yet when Jews are targeted you suddenly forget that lesson, which is not neutrality but a failure of your own stated ethics. 🛟 #medtwitter
My latest in @medscape.com covers two recently published studies. The first claimed black coffee would prevent cancer. The second, and hold onto your hats, that whole body vibration treatments don't help with weight loss
My latest on @medscape.com on how declining obesity rates are now almost certainly attributable to GLP-1 medications, but how new guidelines meant to be wiser than BMI in its diagnosis are apparently diagnosing 70% of the population with obesity www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
We’re Curing Obesity, But Far More People Apparently Have It
Recent reports show a decrease in obesity rates; however, a new proposed definition predicts a surge of people with obesity.
medscape.com
Yesterday, @standwithus.bsky.social Canada posted the podcast that Montreal's Dr. Lior Bibas and I recorded about antisemitism and antizionism in medicine in Canada. Among the topics, what legal liability has the CPSO exposed themselves to by not acting? www.youtube.com/watch?v=StMK...
Doctors Speak Out: The Reality of Antisemitism in Medicine
YouTube video by StandWithUs Canada
youtube.com
My review of @juliabelluz.bsky.social and @kevinh-phd.bsky.social's new book Food Intelligence finally published on @medscape.com. tl;dr? If you're looking for a detailing of our current understanding of the science of food, eating, and metabolism, this one's for you www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
What We Know and Don’t Know About Nutrition and Health
Yoni Freedhoff, MD, reviews the new book 'Food Intelligence,' which details the impact of food on nutrition, biochemistry, metabolism, and health.
medscape.com
My latest in @medscape.com on GLP1 meds and suicide: Did you hear GLP1 meds might increase the risk of suicide? I'd bet you did. It was all over the news consequent to just 3 case reports submitted by Iceland to the European Medicine Association who announced an investigation /1
@yonifreedhoff.com Here are violin plots showing distribution of the ww signal in Ottawa by year and by VOC. "wwlast30d" represents signal sampled over past 30 days. A 5-year, continuous public health dataset unaffected by policy changes--unlike clinical indicators--is a beautiful thing.
You might remember my blog on how Lilly effectively levied a fat tax on obesity whereby they were charging more for tirzepatide prescribed for obesity than for diabetes in 🇨🇦. Well they've cancelled that and launched a financial assistance program for Zepbound open.substack.com/pub/yonifree...
Lilly Cancels Its Tirzepatide Fat Tax
Lilly announces the pending launch of their MyZepbound.ca financial assistance program for patients prescribed tirzepatide for obesity
open.substack.com
Do front-of-package food warnings change behaviour? Do they increase stigma vs. obesity? How about if the warnings don't reference obesity at all but simply, as they should, reference nutrients? My latest for @medscape.com explores new research that found /1
Good news for Canadians looking to start Zepbound (tirzepatide) for obesity. Lilly will be introducing a program to help defray costs. Medication should be on shelves mid summer. I'll blog about this in more detail but wanted to briefly mention
Just read a rare piece that rather than demonize weight loss drugs, instead highlighted the use of Wegovy in teens by emphasizing the teens' joy for the benefits the drug provided them with /1
My latest for @Medscape asking why, despite robust evidence demonstrating sustained weight loss significantly decreases both cancer incidence and recurrence that both patient and doctor facing literature on same nearly never mention it? /1
I had a small role to play in this @dougmanuel.bsky.social led publication which hopefully will help to pave the way for the development of a multinational, multidisciplinary evaluation framework for public health environmental surveillance (including wastewater) journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Developing an evaluation framework for public health environmental surveillance: Protocol for an international, multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study
Introduction Public health environmental surveillance has evolved, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, with wastewater-based surveillance being a prominent example. As surveillance methods exp...
journals.plos.org
My latest in @medscape.com - remember that recent ginormous The Lancet paper that among other things was highly critical of the use of BMI to diagnose obesity that instead recommended either the use of BMI along with a secondary marker of excess adiposity /1
Her name is Leah, and I am her father (as promised - father/daughter tattoos for getting into her University of choice)
It seems it's now official. Lilly has effectively levied a fat tax on Canadian prescriptions of its diabetes and obesity medication tirzepatide (aka Mounjaro/Zepbound) whereby if prescribed for obesity, you'll pay nearly double what you'd pay if prescribed for diabetes. More in my Substack
Despite Assurances To The Contrary, Lilly Has Effectively Levied A Fat Tax In Canada For Mounjaro
If You Have Obesity, You'll Pay Nearly Double For Mounjaro Than If You Have Diabetes
open.substack.com
My latest on Medscape covers a recently published study that both traditional media and social media reported as being proof that Splenda increases hunger (and of course as a consequence, increases weight). Sounds scary. Unless you actually read the paper 🧵
My latest in Medscape discusses 3 recent examples of how studies regarding obesity that ignore obesity medications, despite their being our current standard of care in obesity's treatment, do a disservice to readers, reporters, and the public. www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
Don’t Bash the Usefulness of Obesity Medicines
Recent studies offer a grim view of obesity treatment, however, they fail to acknowledge the current generation of obesity medications. Yoni Freedhoff, MD, explains why this is problematic.
medscape.com
Ottawa WAVE (Wastewater Analytics for Viral Epidemiology) as of Mar 16. LEFT IMAGE: 7d trendline of SARS-CoV-2 signal since spring 2020 (A); Past year (B), and 2 months (C), inferred case incidence (D), and Reff (E) determined with ern (PMID: 38905266). RIGHT IMAGE: other viral traces
My latest, published ahead of print in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology looks at the historic failure of public health to move the needle on chronic non-communicable diseases like obesity, and its historic opportunity now to find some success /🧵
Recorded a podcast about antisemitism in medicine in Canada and other relatedly depressing topics open.substack.com/pub/awakefro...
How can we respond to an epidemic of hate? A conversation w/ Dr Yoni Freedhoff
Jewish doctors are quitting the profession in Canada, as racist hate has overtaken hospitals & universities since October 7. What can be done to stop blackballing--& restore decency in health care?
open.substack.com
