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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Vegas teachers are getting lapband surgery paid for if they don't put weight back on
Las Vegas teachers can undergo weight loss surgery completely covered — as long as they keep the weight off. Over 50 teachers in the Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas, have gotten bariatric surgery through their health insurance plan, which will reimburse the $5,000 cost of the surgery if they can keep the weight off for five years, Fox 5 Vegas reported. Educators facing health challenges due to morbid obesity can opt for the surgery, also known as lapband surgery. Each year they keep the weight off, they will receive $1,000 back from their insurer, Teachers Health Trust. 'This used to be tight on me. These are 48'. I used to wear 50' and now I'm down to a 36,' special education teacher and coach Dean Goldhammer said. Goldhammer had bariatric surgery 18 months ago and said it completely changed his life. 'Going from 319 pounds to today 205 pounds, and hopefully 175 pounds by next year… It's the best thing I did in my life,' he said. 'I play pickleball. Tennis every single day, I go to the gym... Before, when I was heavy, I kind of like I hid out in my own house by myself.' While Goldhammer is a lifelong tennis player, he started gaining weight after an ankle surgery. 'I've had a hip replacement because of my weight… they told me if I don't lose weight, my knees were going to have to be replaced and my other hip,' he said. Goldhammer knew he had to take action after receiving a grave warning from his doctor. 'My doctor, I think I had him on his last day of his career, he was 80 years old. He says, 'You're younger than I am by 20 years, but your insides are a lot older than me because of the weight you're carrying. You're not going to be here very long.' And that's when I said, 'I got to do something,'' Goldhammer said. Teachers Health Trust says the program, now in its second year, is unique to Clark County, but has already changed countless lives. 'I've received emails and phone calls from members saying, 'Hey, it's really impacted not just myself, but my family. I'm able to do activities with my kids and with my grandkids that I wasn't able to do before the surgery,'' the company's Chief Operating Officer, Rory Wright, said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
After heart surgery, flag football champ Sophie Guitron is chasing L.A. Olympics bid
At age 10, Sophie Guitron began to suspect that something was wrong. For two weeks, her high fever and rashes did not respond to any treatment. 'I went to the hospital and they couldn't find what was wrong with me. I had very high fevers, rashes all over my body and nothing controlled the symptoms,' Guitron recalled. She was initially diagnosed with arthritis, but after a series of tests, doctors detected something much more serious: a rare congenital heart disease that required open-heart surgery. 'The final diagnosis was systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Instead of my joints becoming inflamed, my organs were inflamed, and that's how they discovered the heart disease I was born with,' explained the Mira Costa High graduate. Guitron was born with an anomaly in the aortic portion of the left coronary artery, an extremely rare condition. Read more: L.A. names coveted five provisional sports it wants to add for 2028 Olympics Her father, José, recalls that despite the pain, his daughter never lost her composure. 'She has always had a very high pain tolerance,' he said. In August 2018, Sophie Guitron underwent successful surgery at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. Although her recovery was long and emotionally difficult, especially because she couldn't immediately return to soccer, her sport since the age of 6, that moment marked the beginning of a new chapter. During school breaks, while watching her classmates play flag football, something awakened in her. She learned the rules, decided to give it a try and fell in love with this new sport. She joined a recreational team and won a championship in a local league, as well as the respect of her teammates, being the only girl on the team. The title was especially meaningful: Guitron scored the winning touchdown and was named most valuable player of the tournament. With her passion for this new sport growing, she joined a co-ed club where she continued to develop. In high school, she realized that Mira Costa did not have a women's team. So she wrote directly to the Chargers for help. The NFL franchise responded by sponsoring the creation of the first women's flag football team in the school's history. The effort paid off. During her senior year, Guitron and Mira Costa won the Bay League championship and achieved the school's first playoff victory. Playing various positions, but excelling mainly as a wide receiver, Guitron was recognized as the league's most valuable player and received Division 2 All-CIF honors. Her development was partly thanks to the Conquer Chargers club in Irvine. Her parents supported her by driving her to practice, a trip that took more than an hour each way to and from Orange County. Guitron's Conquer Chargers coach, Justin Schulman, highlighted not only her skill but also her mindset: 'She knew what she wanted, she sought us out on social media, and she earned her spot. She's a very talented runner, but above all, she's determined.' In 2024, she represented the United States in the Junior International Flag Football Cup, winning the gold medal against teams from Canada, Japan, Panama and Mexico. Her growth did not go unnoticed. The NFL recently chose her to be part of the 'Chase Something' campaign, alongside quarterback Jayden Daniels and Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles. The campaign urges young athletes to pursue their dreams. She had previously been awarded the NFL Latino Youth Honors 2024 in New Orleans, an event that celebrates Latino seniors with athletic and academic achievements. With a 4.2 GPA and nominated by the Rams, she received $25,000 for her college education. Guitron, 18, will play flag football for Keiser University in Florida, alongside other emerging stars of the sport such as Janasia Wilson and Ashlea Klam. She plans to study sports management and has already represented the United States at the U17 level. But her biggest dream is clear: to make it to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where flag football will make its debut in the Olympic program. 'I'm working very hard to be at the 2028 Games, but my career won't end there. I'm young and I also want to make it to the 2032 Olympics,' said Guitron, who is 5-foot-5. Schulman, Guitron's coach, says there is no doubt that she will succeed. 'She is so dedicated to the sport," he said. "... I've already asked her to save me tickets to see her in Los Angeles.' With deep Latino roots, the daughter of Lilia, born in Mexico, and José, a Californian with Mexican parents, Guitron is also aware she is a role model. 'I am proud to be American, but also Mexican American. It is an honor to represent Latinas in sports. I love being that person,' Guitron said. Her father agrees: 'I remind her that she is a pioneer. She is part of a movement that, in the future, will be history.' Although her arthritis is still present, in remission but with occasional flares of pain, Guitron believes that her experiences have made her stronger. 'I am very grateful for everything I have been through, even though it has been difficult," Guitron said. "It has made me who I am." This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español. Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
1 Beaten-Down Stock That Could Soar by the End of the Year
Key Points Viking's leading weight management candidate is being investigated in two formulations. The stock could soar later this year, provided the oral version aces phase 2 studies. Viking Therapeutics is somewhat risky, but it also has significant upside potential. 10 stocks we like better than Viking Therapeutics › Some smaller drugmakers choose to develop medicines for diseases for which there are no therapeutic options. This allows them to avoid direct competition from larger pharmaceutical companies. That's not exactly the strategy Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) chose. The mid-cap biotech is working on weight loss therapies, an increasingly competitive market dominated by Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Novo Nordisk, as well as numerous other well-established players in the industry seeking to enter the space. Going up against these giants is no small challenge, but Viking is, so far, holding its own. And if it can play its cards right, its stock could soar by the end of the year and go on to generate strong returns from then on out. Here's more on Viking Therapeutics. Eli Lilly's setback creates an opportunity Viking Therapeutics' shares soared last year following the release of strong phase 2 data for its subcutaneous weight management candidate, VK2735. The stock has declined significantly since that milestone, although it's not due to anything Viking did wrong. Broader market volatility, combined with long-term shareholders taking some profits, is likely responsible for the stock's 40% drop over the trailing-12-month period. VK2735 is currently in phase 3 studies, but Viking is also developing an oral version of the medicine, which is in phase 2 clinical trials. There is a race to develop a highly effective oral GLP-1 anti-obesity therapy, since the current market leaders are administered via subcutaneous injection. If Viking Therapeutics' oral candidate can impress in mid-stage studies, the stock could soar. That's especially the case since Eli Lilly's investigational oral GLP-1 medicine, orforglipron, failed to perform as well as expected in a phase 3 study in obese or overweight patients who didn't have diabetes. Orforglipron led to a mean weight loss of 12.4% in a 72-week study, which wasn't as impressive as the market wanted. This result paled in comparison to Lilly's injectable Zepbound, which led to an average weight loss of 20.2% in a phase 3 study. Viking Therapeutics' shares jumped on the pharmaceutical giant's bad news, but there's plenty of upside left if its oral weight loss candidate meets Wall Street's expectations. It's best to start small Eli Lilly is perceived as the leader in the weight management market. The company's continued dominance in this field was likely somewhat baked into investor expectations, requiring it to deliver outstanding clinical trial results to justify its share price. Viking is a much smaller drugmaker than Lilly, so the market will likely have lower expectations for its data readouts for VK2735. Viking also has several other exciting candidates. The company is working on a drug called VK2809, a potential therapy for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), which produced solid results in phase 2 studies. There is a vast unmet need in MASH, considering several million people have the disease, yet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved just a single medication for it. Elsewhere, Viking has a next-gen anti-obesity candidate that could soon start human clinical trials. The company has a lot going on, and if VK2735-related developments remain strong through the end of the year, the stock could soar. However, Viking -- like any clinical-stage biotech company -- is a somewhat risky bet. On the one hand, it has generated strong mid-stage data for two separate medicines that address high unmet needs. Its leading candidate, VK2735, has the potential to become a blockbuster; that's impressive. Even so, the stock will plummet if VK2735 encounters clinical setbacks. So, should you buy shares? In my view, it depends on your level of risk tolerance. Risk-averse investors should look elsewhere. If you're comfortable with a bit of volatility, you should seriously consider the stock; however, it would be wise to start by initiating a small position. If the data from the ongoing phase 2 study for oral VK2735 is good, it might be worth adding even more shares thereafter. Should you buy stock in Viking Therapeutics right now? Before you buy stock in Viking Therapeutics, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Viking Therapeutics wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $668,155!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,106,071!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,070% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 184% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2025 Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 1 Beaten-Down Stock That Could Soar by the End of the Year was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
