A record number of doctors applied to be certified to treat obesity this year amid the soaring popularity of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Nearly 1,900 doctors signed up for the annual exam this October, the medical board behind the test said, which was a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year.

Passing the exam distinguishes doctors as competent in treating obese patients and could set them on A path to rake in higher salaries.

It comes after official data showed a record 40 percent of adults are now obese in three states — West Virginia, Louisiana and Oklahoma — while every state had seen a rise in rates compared to just a decade ago.

Weight loss drug prescriptions have surged in the US with five million written last year, up 2,000 percent in 2019. 

Analysts suggest this market will be worth $56billion by 2030, with doctors who have specialized in obesity medicine likely able to charge more to patients. 

Data from the American Board of Obesity Medicine revealed a record number of doctors had signed up to take the exam this year.

Back in 2012 — when the accreditation scheme was set up — barely 200 doctors applied.

Healthcare workers do not need the obesity certificate in order to treat obese patients, but it can make them more competent in caring for the patients. 

It can also serve as a stepping stone to doctors signing up for further training as bariatric surgeons — or a doctor who has specialized in performing weight loss surgeries such as a gastric bypass.

This would require another one to two years of training on top of the initial four required to become a doctor plus the three-to-seven-year residency.

Bariatric doctors earn about $450,000 per year on average, statistics suggest, compared to $412,000 for general surgeons. In some cases, they can be paid upward of $700,000.

The ABOM says doctors are expected to become certified by them in order to become a bariatric surgeon. 

Modules taught to doctors in the course look at the causes of the disease and how to help patients lose weight through diet changes and exercise.

They may also be taught about ‘pharmacotherapy’ for helping patients reduce their waistlines, which may include being taught about popular weight-loss drugs.

Dr Kimberly Gudzune, the medical director for the ABOM, told Insider: ‘As there’s more awareness of both obesity as a chronic disease and all of the effective treatment options, patients are coming into their physicians and saying: “I want to be treated”.

‘And I think that that is oftentimes the trigger for a lot of busy practitioners to say, “I really need to know how to do this”.’

She added: ‘We’re working to address that gap [on obesity knowledge among doctors].

‘But it does take time, and I think that the growth does speak to us working in that direction.’

There are more than one million doctors in the US, of which nearly 7,000 — or 0.007 percent — have the board certification to treat obesity.

The specialization is not needed in order to be allowed to treat obese patients, but it will give doctors advanced knowledge.

As well as their busy schedules, doctors will also need to complete at least 30 hours of lectures and another 30 of studying before taking the exam.

A gold rush is currently on among pharmaceutical giants to tap into the nascent weight-loss medications market.

Novo Nordisk — which is behind semaglutide used in Wegovy and Ozempic — raked in a record $5.5billion last year after investing in factories to manufacture the drug in the United States.

It is also behind a number of drugs for diabetes patients and some medicines for hemophilia patients.

Eli Lilly has also cashed in on the market with its obesity treatment tirzepatide, projected to make $48billion once approved.

Pfizer — which made billions with its Covid vaccine — is also developing its own class of weight-loss drugs in order to access the market.

Fury as Harvard University encourages students to apply for food stamps from government despite $53bn endowment

• At an event earlier this year hosted by the university’s student health center, graduate students were encouraged to sign up for food stamps 
• The graduate school union at the school has gone on strike twice in recent years over livable wage disputes 

By Sophie Mann For Dailymail.Com

Published: 23:38 EDT, 14 August 2023 | Updated: 08:55 EDT, 15 August 2023

Altering a gene in mice allows them to live up to 20 per cent longer and protects them against cancer, scientists have discovered. 

Researchers today hailed the findings as a ‘big surprise’, saying they’ve yet to find any negative side effects.

And the team, from Taiwan, think the benefits could one day apply to humans, too.

Rodents were genetically-engineered in a lab to have a mutated version of the KLF1 gene.

These mice ended up living longer, were unusually active in middle-age and did not go grey as early, experts claimed.

Pushing their age-defying experiment further, researchers at Academia Sinica then decided to inject a group of unmodified mice with blood from the rodents found to live longer.

Mice given the modified protein ‘typically’ lived for five months longer, an increase of around 20 per cent.

Two-month-old mice are very roughly equivalent to 18-year-old people, according to New Scientist, which first reported the findings.

They also remained healthier for longer, with their physical and mental performance starting to decline later than unmodified mice.

All humans already carry the KLF1 gene, which regulates the production of new red blood cells. 

The findings, published on pre-print website, bioRxiv, also found the mice given the mutated KLF1 via a single bone marrow cell transplant, ‘appeared to have significantly higher anti-cancer capability’ than normal mice. 

They showed ‘reduced tumour growth’ and lower rate of ‘spontaneous cancer incidence’, researchers said, at 12.5 per cent compared to 75 per cent in mice who did not undergo the procedure. 

The cancer resistance of KLF1-mutated mice was not dependent on their age, gender or genetic background, scientists also found. 

Overall, the findings have ‘demonstrated the feasibility’ of a new approach to blood cell production ‘for anti-disease and anti-ageing’, the researchers said.

One of the scientists, Che-Kun James Shen, said: ‘So far, we have not found any negative side effects.’ 

Researchers also later injected modified cells, which show similarities to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) into the mice. 

ALS, a common form of the incurable motor neurone disease, is a rare condition that progressively damages parts of the nervous system. 

This leads to muscle weakness, often with visible wasting.

Mice with the mutated KLF1 genes were found to have significantly slower progress of the condition, researchers said.  

Responding to the researchers findings, Professor Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, a molecular biogerontologist at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘I am convinced of the life-extending properties of this mutation.’ 

Gene editing blood stem cells could also have ‘great potential as a therapy for ageing’, he added.

It comes as previous studies have also found infusions of young blood plasma could reinvigorate ageing organs and tissues, leading researchers to rush to produce and trial therapies based on the plasma. 

But while studies have found benefits for rodents, there is no evidence to date that this approach to youthfulness will help humans dodge the passage of time.