one big number
1 in 6 young people will have obesity by 2050, analysis predicts
360 million. That's the number of children and adolescents around the world forecast to be living with obesity by 2050. Taken together, 1 in 3 young people age 5 to 24 will be considered overweight or obese by then, a new analysis published last night in the Lancet estimates. There's wide variation around the globe, including some countries battling both undernutrition and obesity. Half of the world's young people with obesity will be living in two regions: North Africa and the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean. The authors urge collective action to prevent the transition from overweight (a reversible risk exposure) to obesity (a complex chronic disease difficult to turn around). "While families and individuals can work to balance their physical activity, dietary intake, and sleep to uphold a healthy lifestyle, this lifestyle is difficult to maintain while living in obesogenic environments," the report says. "It is governments rather than individuals that are required to address population-level drivers of obesity, such as its commercial determinants (e.g., marketing, pricing, and food industry lobbying)."
health equity
Cervical cancer diverges along rural-urban divide
Here's another example of your ZIP code bearing more significance than just about any other health metric. Take cervical cancer, a disease that a vaccine can prevent and screening tests can flag at a precancerous stage. Those two forms of prevention help people only if they can get them, a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Network Open reports. Incidence and mortality rates have been climbing in rural counties in the U.S. since 2012. Cases were 25% higher and deaths were 42% higher in rural counties compared to urban counties through 2019.
That's sobering news after a CDC report last week that said among women 20 to 24 years old, the rates of precancerous lesions fell by 80%, a testament to a vaccine recommended before girls and boys enter their teens. But both HPV vaccination and screening are lower in rural countries compared to urban counties, study author Trisha Amboree told me. "If you do find a cancer case in a rural area, are they actually able to get into treatment in time to have effective treatment?" she asked. I have more here.
first opinion
Now's the time to track infectious diseases in pets, too
SERGEI GAPON/AFP via Getty Images
It's not quite man bites dog, to quote an old newsroom saw, but it's an echo. Four experts — veterinarians, flu scientists, and biosecurity experts — share their concerns about humans infecting cats with H5N1 avian influenza, instead of the reverse. Bird flu has killed more than 100 domesticated cats since 2022, from house cats to barn cats to feral cats. Even "great cats" like cougars and bobcats have fallen prey to the virus. Many likely were exposed to the virus in raw milk, raw meat pet foods, and wild birds. But a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Michigan health authorities tells us two indoor cats who lived with dairy workers died, despite no exposure to other infected animals.
It's hard to know the extent of the problem without public health oversight of pets. "Given the pandemic risk from H5N1, active surveillance of companion animals is needed to recognize the full scope of the problem and identify critical control points for intervention," STAT First Opinion authors Meghan Davis, Ellen Carlin, Erin Sorrell, and David Stiefel write. But here's the problem: coordinating government agencies to achieve this is like, well, herding cats. Read why.
No comments