The new class of weight loss drugs, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1), were originally developed to treat diabetes. Along the way something curious began to happen. People lost weight and lost their desire to gorge on food.
Category: Doctors & Hospitals
Saturday Links – 15 August 2026
- AI is beating human doctors in medical tests.
- Caffeine at 5 pm; sleep by 10 pm.
- Immigration is a problem all over the world.
- Yglesias: good comparison of Medicare in Canada vs. Medicare in Australia.
- Burritos actually haven’t gotten more expensive.
- Surveys: men are not lonelier than women. (Slate)
- Why obtaining more health data on otherwise healthy people can be harmful. (NYT)
- “Moving from the highest tax stats – California and New York – with income tax rates as high as 14% – to a no-income tax state like Florida, Tennessee or Texas, a family with $5 million or more in income can increase annual take-home pay by 30%.”
Friday Links – 14 August 2026
- The case for data centers.
- A woman freezing her eggs (as AOC plans to do) can expect to spend $10,000 or more.
- “The fraction of women who undergo this procedure who go on to bear a child with the frozen eggs is around 2%.” HT Tyler
- Hooper: Where the left goes wrong.
- Where the left goes wrong, Part II
- Where the left goes wrong, Part III
Patients Using AI for Second Opinions, but They Still Want Doctors
The Internet has done more to increase the average person’s medical knowledge than anything else I can imagine. Health information is popular. There are more than 1 billion medical searches per day on Google. Before the Internet most patients got medical information directly from their doctors or perhaps turned to medical encyclopedias if they wanted to know more. A few minutes spent on the Internet can convey more information about your condition than your doctor would ever have time to teach you.