GLP-1 Drugs: Safe For Pregnancy Or Not?

…and other items from this week’s health news:

Beyond “Ozempic babies”

Briefly heralded as a potential boon to fertility (and advised against because of potential risks), GLP-1 receptor agonists have been re-examined in the context of pregnancy.

In this most recent study of 10,781 women, 232 pregnancies occurred within six months of starting treatment. Being on contraception reduced the risk of pregnancy by 40%, which is also the approximate percentage of pregnancies overall that were unplanned (though doubtlessly it is not a perfect overlap).

In terms of safety: animal studies show risks like fetal growth restriction, while limited human data (including a 2024 study of 938 pregnancies) found no higher risk of major birth defects compared with insulin (bearing in mind, GLP-1 RAs were initially most widely prescribed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, before truly taking off as weight loss drugs).

Read in full: Are GLP-1 drugs safe for women planning pregnancy?

Related: What are “Ozempic babies”? Can the drug really increase your chance of pregnancy?

When the temperature goes up, so does sugar consumption

It’s not about food! No, not even about ice creams (mostly, anyway).

Rather, hot weather especially drives consumption of chilled, sugary drinks, which in turn raises risks of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers.

This most recent research analyzed food purchase data from 60,000 US households between 2004–2019 to measure added sugar intake in relation to weather conditions over time.

What they found: added sugar intake rises as temperatures increase, especially between 12–30℃ (54–86℉). After that, sugar intake still continues to rise with temperature rises, but the rise becomes less sharp. Outdoor workers were most affected, and higher-income groups were less affected, possibly due to access to air-conditioned environments.

Read in full: Climate change is fueling unhealthy sugar consumption in the US

Related: 4 surprising ways climate change is hurting your lungs

Fast food making a fast exit?

In recent years, one-third of US adults ate fast food on any given day. Which sounds like a lot, and it is, but 11.7% of daily calories came from fast food, which is a reduction from the 14.1% of the previous decade.

But, this wasn’t the same across of the population as whole, because intake fell most sharply in younger adults (19.0% in 2013–14 to 15.2% in 2021–23), whereas there was negligible change in the numbers for older age brackets.

And when it comes to body types, there were differences, but perhaps not so big as many might imagine: adults in the “obesity” category of BMI consumed 13.7% of daily calories from fast food, compared with 10.8% in the “overweight” category and 9.8% in the “normal” category.

Now, BMI’s a woeful system and it’s likely that BMI’s many flaws will have confounded that data somewhat, but the overall picture is not unreasonable (and the age-related data was unaffected by this).

Read in full: Fast food’s grip on American diets weakens as younger adults cut back

Related: How Likely Is It That Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) Will Kill You?

Take care!