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After spiking to record highs during the pandemic, the number of drug overdose deaths in the US has recently declined.

Between 2023 and 2024, the CDC reported that the age-adjusted overdose death rate dropped by 26.2%.

Evan Gumas, a senior research associate at the nonprofit health policy research firm Commonwealth Fund, wrote in an analysis published Sept. 3 there “is no single explanation” for the decline in overdose deaths. However, five factors have contributed to the trend.

Read up on those trends here.—MA

      

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Thinness has long been synonymous with status, and while it may be uncomfortable to admit, “pretty privilege” is real, even in the workplace.

A new paper from Harvard University shows that after years of body positivity efforts, unemployed women who use GLP-1 medications for weight loss are more likely to return to work faster than those who are considering the drug.

“Their employment rate rises 13 percentage points overall and 27 percentage points after six or more quarters, and their weekly hours rise by nearly ten hours at the longer horizon,” Rebecca Diamond, economics professor at Harvard who authored the study, wrote. “Much of the employment gain is movement out of unemployment rather than out of retirement or disability.”

The study, however, did not find that employed women who use GLP-1s for weight loss enjoy a professional advantage. “For people who have been in a job a long time, the employer knows whether you’re good at the job; they don’t care about your weight at that point anymore,” Diamond told Harvard’s The FAS Current.

Keep reading on HR Brew.—CV

      

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Morning Brew Inc, Photos: Unsplash

A multinational coalition of medical societies voted in May to change the name of polycystic ovary syndrome—a condition that affects 1 in 8 women across the globe—to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). Experts say the new name is intended to reflect a more accurate picture of what the condition entails, and is expected to increase research funding for the diagnosis and potentially improve patient care.

The primary inaccuracy in the former name, PCOS, is that there are actually no cysts in patients with the diagnosis, Melanie Cree, a professor of pediatrics-endocrinology at the University of Colorado Anschutz medical school, told Healthcare Brew. Instead, there are antral follicles, which are half-matured eggs. The follicles are round and filled with fluid, similar to a cyst, but actual ovarian cysts are much larger, she explained.

“There are no cysts in PCOS—none,” Cree said. “The name was leading to overdiagnosis in inappropriate patients and underdiagnosis in appropriate patients, and misdiagnosis can lead to patient harm.”

Keep reading here.—MA

      

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Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: 88%. That’s the percentage of women who said more should be done to make childbirth safer in the US. (Harris Poll)

Quote: “I’m a lot like an evangelical preacher man. They hire me to sell the science.”—Carlos Campos, a Texas physician, on making nearly $1 million to spread the word on GLP-1s (the Washington Post)

Read: Patients are traveling to China for CAR-T cell therapy cancer treatment, drawn to innovations and cheaper options. (the Wall Street Journal)