EXCLUSIVE Common ADHD drug promised calm without unpleasant side effects of Ritalin - but patients now warn of a possible dark side
The dog groomer from Georgia, USA, admits she often couldn't keep on top of basic chores — dishes piled up in the sink and clothes were strewn across her bedroom floor.
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Reuters
39 minutes ago
- Reuters
FDA probes death of patient on Sarepta's Elevidys, partner Roche says death unrelated to therapy
July 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it was investigating the death of an eight-year-old boy who received Sarepta Therapeutics' (SRPT.O), opens new tab muscular disorder gene therapy Elevidys. The death occurred on June 7, the agency said, sending shares of the company down more than 3% in extended trading. The patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, who died in Brazil, was treated with Elevidys but was not a participant in a clinical trial, Roche, which partners with Sarepta outside the U.S., told Reuters in an email. The reporting physician has assessed the death as unrelated to treatment with the gene therapy, Roche said, adding that the death was reported to the health authorities as required per local regulations, and that it was continuing to gather and analyze the information from this event. Sarepta has come under intense regulatory scrutiny after two non-ambulatory teenage boys died due to acute liver failure associated with Elevidys, and a 51-year-old man who had received its experimental gene therapy SRP-9004 died from the same condition. Late on Monday, the company said it would comply with a request from the FDA to pause all shipments of Elevidys in the United States. Its partner Roche also paused Elevidys shipments in some countries outside the U.S. later. The FDA's request had come after the company disclosed the death of the patient on SRP-9004.
Times
40 minutes ago
- Times
Why is my generation so obsessed with being skinny?
I recently posted a picture of myself on social media, with one intention, but the outcome was unexpected. I put up a video on my Instagram of myself in the gym, wearing a sports bra and leggings and doing some physio exercises I'd been set in order to recover from a painful back injury. The caption read something like, 'Look, I can touch my toes again!', as I slowly bent forward with my arms outstretched towards the ground. I felt a sense of achievement, so why did the response send me into a complete spiral? 'You look incredible!', 'Skinny minny!', 'ABS!'. A flurry of messages about how good I was looking filled up my DMs. Messages that would have usually made me feel so happy, just made me cry. I couldn't understand why everyone thought I looked so good on the outside, when actually I was in the worst state I'd ever been in, physically and emotionally. It's true, I'd lost weight rapidly — 5kg in under two weeks, to be precise — thanks to a concoction of strong pain meds and an adverse gut reaction to them, meaning I hadn't been able to eat properly in weeks. Added to this I hadn't been able to work out for months and I was signed off work for a little while to try to get over the 'acute' phase of my injury. I'm someone who loves sport and fitness — I play netball, cycle long distances, play tennis and squash — as well as train in the gym. It keeps me in shape mentally as well as physically, so it was devastating to have to stop. I was in a dark place, temporarily stripped of my freedom, ability to do normal things — and my muscles were disappearing. I was miserable. And yet everyone was telling me how good I looked. • Is this new diet the secret to weight loss? I made light of it, joking that I'd gained bingo wings, waving my flabby underarms where toned triceps used to be. What people were calling 'abs' wasn't in fact the core I'd spent years building up, but rather a lack of muscles and the optical illusion of just a bit less fat around my waist. Granted, my legs looked slim for the first time ever and my cheekbones 'popped', but if you looked closely I was gaunt, grey, glassy-eyed and frankly quite sad. I might've looked good to outsiders, but I was the least healthy and happy I'd ever been. This reaction isn't a one-off. I've had similar comments over the past few months around how 'trim I'm looking these days'. A colleague at work asked me last month if I'd lost weight and most friends I see have been saying the same. One friend I went for a walk with recently even said I had 'Ozempic face … but in a good way'. These are the sorts of compliments some people dream of receiving, but I just brushed them off. I hadn't been trying to get a slimmer frame, I'd been spending most of my time lying flat on the floor, in pain and in a dark place. Is skinny back to being the new indicator of happiness? Whatever happened to 'strong is the new skinny' — a slogan that came about in the early 2010s and flooded through the fitness industry promoting body positivity? Now, seemingly, we're in a skinny jab-filled world where embracing all body types seems to have gone as quickly as any other wellness fad. • Ozempic side-effects: what weight-loss drugs do to your body As a child of the Nineties and Noughties I too have been on the body-insecurity rollercoaster. At 32 I'm part of a generation who grew up with 'burn books' and eating disorders. Going to an all-girls school helped to fuel the toxic body dysmorphia so many of us had. It was never the guys we were trying to impress, it was each other in the Topshop changing rooms, hoping to achieve the perfect 'thigh gap'. As a child I had chubby thighs that I've never really been able to shake. My mother congratulates me on inheriting the 'family thunder thighs'. But aside from the odd family jibe about a few extra pounds I put on at university I'm lucky that I've mostly been brought up in a healthy and sport-obsessed family. When strong bodies were supposedly in vogue I was in my twenties. Everybody was banging on about body positivity — society told us to look up to celebs (JLo, Beyoncé and plus-sized models such as Ashley Graham) who were celebrated for their big, healthy thighs and fit bodies. For someone who has always struggled with their weight, wanting to be smaller than my size 12-14, I gladly rode the wave. I became happy with my fit womanly physique. I've never been able to slim down, but I do so much sport I'm happy that I can always be toned. It doesn't matter that I'm not naturally a size 8. When I'm injury-free I work out at least five times a week, flitting from HIIT class to weights in the gym, spinning and reformer Pilates and running, as well as my weekly matches. I love the endorphins working out gives me, but also how much more confident it has made me feel about how my body looks in — or out of — clothes. I've come to love my muscles. I've worked hard for them. I've always been able to bat away any temptations towards eating disorders. While the girls around me lived on a diet of frozen grapes or ordered diet pills from dark corners of the internet like some of my friends at school did, I've never really even been on a diet. I think this comes more from a position of mental strength than body confidence. I won't pretend that my broad arms and stumpy thighs haven't ever bothered me. I'm just not someone who will obsess over skinniness, as so many seem to be doing again. • Weight-loss drugs shrink supermarket sales I don't judge people for having weight-loss jabs for non-medical reasons, but it makes me sad that it's fast becoming as common to discuss over the dinner table among my peers as other injectables already are. It's not even slightly unusual for women my age to have Botox — I have resisted. Since weight-loss drugs came on the scene a couple of years ago I've managed to drown out the noise with my usual coping mechanism: sport. I am still firmly in the camp that strong is better than skinny and, for now, the goal is to get my pre-injury body back and have muscly arms and abs. But it's hard to ignore what's going on around us — body positivity is a nice idea, but I'm not convinced society ever really believed in it. For a brief moment I achieved the skinny version of me I always wondered and hoped existed, and everyone else noticed her. I admit that despite my initial shock, a bit of me liked this validation, if only for a few weeks. For the first time in my life I started weighing myself every day. I even considered continuing to not eat. The people who messaged me on Instagram had good intent, but my insecurities about my body were feasting on it. It's hard to ignore what other people see, but I knew I had to start eating again in order to regain my strength to start my physical recovery, to get back to the things that make me tick; to work and to life and to be the healthy version of me, even if that did mean putting on weight. Skinny might feel good — but it leaves a bitter taste.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Kennedy to oust care task force, WSJ reports; HHS says no decision yet
WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to remove all the members of an advisory panel that determines what cancer screenings and other preventive health measures insurers must cover, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said on Friday that Kennedy had not yet made a decision regarding the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. "No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS' mandate to Make America Healthy Again," the HHS spokesperson said. The Journal said Kennedy planned to dismiss all 16 panel members in what would be the latest in a series of far-reaching actions by Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic, to reshape U.S. regulation of vaccines, food and medicine. In June he fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of vaccine experts, replacing them with seven handpicked members, including known vaccine skeptics. The USPSTF includes medical experts serving staggered four-year terms on a volunteer basis. Its role in choosing what services will be covered by insurers was established under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The 40-year-old group, whose recommendations provide guidance to doctors, looks at everything from routine breast cancer screening to drugs to prevent HIV infection. The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the constitution of the task force and ruled in favor of its recommendation to cover preventive care. Though made up of an independent group of volunteer experts, members are selected by the health secretary without Senate confirmation and it relies on support from the department's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. A group of 104 health organizations, opens new tab, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, in early July sent a letter to Congressional health committees, urging them "to protect the integrity" of the task force. The task force has been criticized by some conservatives, opens new tab as too left-leaning.
