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Apr 6

Downside of weight loss drugs, women and student debt: 5 Things … – USA TODAY

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On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast:US urges Moscow to free 2 Americans

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is urgingRussiato release two Americans. Plus, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub urges caution around new weight lossmedications, the death toll rises astornadoescontinue to slam the nation, USA TODAY Education Reporter Alia Wong explains howwomenmake up most of the country's student loan debt, and theLSU Tigersare national champions.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here.

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilsonand this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 3rd of April 2023. Today, the latest push to free a US journalist in Russia. Plus, what's the downside to recent weight loss drugs, and more tornadoes sweep across the country.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday urged his Russian counterpart to immediately release two Americans, including a Wall Street Journal reporter detained last week on espionage charges. Blinken expressed grave concern to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over Russia's detention of journalist Evan Gershkovich, according to a statement from the state department. And he also made a request for Paul Whelan, the corporate security executive imprisoned in Russia since 2018. Lavrov, though, dismissed Blinken's requests and said Gershkovich had received state secrets. A Russian court has ordered him held until May 29th pending an investigation. If convicted, he could face 20 years in a Russian prison.

Effective weight loss drugs are here, bringing a potential solution that many have been waiting on for years. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy can help someone lose up to 20% of their body weight, but some doctors and other experts worry that these drugs could become a problem long term. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to learn more. Hi Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Hi.

Taylor Wilson:

So before we get to the downside of these weight loss drugs, what's the upside? Why do people take them in the first place?

Karen Weintraub:

For really the first time ever, these drugs are effective at helping people lose weight. So studies have shown people can lose 15 to 20% of their weight depending on the drug and depending on their own biology. Not everybody's going to lose that much, but they're quite effective.

Taylor Wilson:

So then what are the medical challenges of these drugs?

Karen Weintraub:

As far as I can tell, the main challenge isthat it's hard to stay on them, both for financial and physical reasons. Some people feel nauseous. It's sort of a feature, not a bug, that in order to stop eating, it makes you feel kind of gross and so you don't eat as much. Not everybody is as bothered by that, but some people really can't tolerate it. Not every drug works for everybody, so they won't work for everyone. And then the cost is quite expensive right now. Wegovy runs about $1,300 a month and most insurance will not cover that. And so I've talked to several people who are private paying. I've seen articles about people going to Mexico or Canada, but realistically, are you going to keep doing that every month for the rest of your life? $900, $600 a month? And it's what happens afterwards that is the question.

There's no question that people will regain the weight once they go off the drugs. There is a question whether long-term, if they stay on the drugs, they'll keep losing weight or they'll maintain the weight. There's almost no long-term data beyond about a year and a half. And so it's not clear what will happen to people in terms of their weight over the long term.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, you wrote that there can also be psychological challenges associated with these drugs. What are we talking about here?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, so eating disorder folks are very concerned what's going to happen to people if they do lose weight, if they don't lose weight, if they obsess over their weight. The concern is if people lose weight on these drugs, go off the drugs and gain it back, that that could really carry a psychological toll for people. Also, several eating disorder specialists said to me, if somebody came to them and said, "I feel nauseous all the time, I can't eat and I'm really happy that I can't eat," they would say, "Oh, you have an eating disorder." So these drugs in a sense mimic, at least to some degree, an eating disorder. So there's concern that it could cause some psychological distress and also all the attention. Suddenly this problem that you thought was intractable, now people are telling you, you can fix it, you can lose weight. And with all that attention, how are people going to respond to that?

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, absolutely. So there have been reports of shortages associated with these drugs for people who might really need them. What are you hearing about this?

Karen Weintraub:

Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, has told me that they have almost all doses of their drugs available and should have all of them by the end of the month. They have been saying that for several months, so I can't promise, but they say that the days of shortages are largely over. Again, so Wegovy is for weight loss specifically, while Ozempic, which is generally in lower doses is for people with diabetes. There's no question that these drugs can be effective for diabetes. The real issue here is whether people who are overweight, obese, but don't have health issues should be taking these drugs, what it can do for them.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen Weintraub always with some great info for us. Thanks so much.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

The death toll has risen to 32 after devastating tornadoes continue to swirl in central parts of the US. 15 deaths have been recorded in Tennessee, with most in and around Memphis, and five deaths each were reported in Arkansas and Indiana. Nearly 200,000 homes were also still without power yesterday.

Elsewhere, five people remain in critical condition after a roof collapsed at a theater in Belvedere, Illinois, killing at least one person. And deadly weather isn't just hitting the south and Midwest. At least one death was reported in Delaware and suspected tornadoes touched down as far north as New Jersey.

Student loan debt is burying Americans across the country, and that's particularly true for women. USA TODAY Education Reporter Alia Wong explains. Hi Alia.

Alia Wong:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for coming back on the podcast. You report that women owe most of the country's student loan debt. What do the numbers say here?

Alia Wong:

Women actually account for nearly two thirds of the country's $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. That is a staggering amount. They also take an average of two years longer to pay off their loans. By the time they graduate, they already have thousands more in debt than men on average.

Taylor Wilson:

And why do women have more student loan debt than men?

Alia Wong:

Well, one simple reason is that there are more women going to college. The core reasons and the most insidious reasons have been once they graduate, they face a workforce that tends to pay men more for similar jobs. The gender wage gap really contributes to women's inability to both pay off their debt, but also prompts them to return to school to go back and level up and advance their higher education.

Taylor Wilson:

And what kind of disparities do we see with women of color?

Alia Wong:

The average cost of attending a college has nearly tripled since 1980. And the Pell Grant and other forms of financial aid have not kept pace with that. Neither has state funding. So basically state funding for colleges has really declined. All that means, some students who just don't naturally or don't readily have the ability to pay for college, will have to take out loans. And that tends to be a burden suffered mostly by people of color, and in particular, women of color who are far more likely to attend college than their male counterparts. One particularly staggering disparity from some of the research is that for a woman of color to make as much as a white man without a college degree, she needs to have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Taylor Wilson:

You touched on this a little bit, but folks obviously take on this debt for a reason. It's to get better jobs, to get higher salaries. Did you find in your reporting and in these numbers that more debt typically means a higher salary?

Alia Wong:

More debt does not necessarily mean a higher salary, and that tension is particularly evident among women of color. Women of color go back to school to increase their credentials, yet they're not necessarily getting higher salaries. However, when I talk with students, particularly female students of color, they are quick to say that they never for once have questioned or doubted theirhigher education pursuits. At the end of the day, they still feel like the economic mobility that these degrees have provided them wouldn't have occurred had they not attended college. So really this isn't a story about the worth of college degree for women and women of color. It's a story about how do we bring down the cost of college for these populations to ensure it is indeed the path to the middle class that it has, or at least at one point was purported to be.

Taylor Wilson:

Alia Wong covers education for USA TODAY. Thanks so much.

Alia Wong:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

LSU are national champions. The three seed Tigers won the Women's College Basketball Championship yesterday, defeating the two seed University of IowaHawkeyes 102 to 85. They were led by transfer bench player Jasmine Carson, who scored 22 points in just 22 minutes as players on both teams found themselves in foul trouble. That included Iowa Star Caitlin Clark, who despite that, still led the game with 30 points. LSU's 102 points were the most ever in a women's national title game. The championship was the school's first ever in basketball and its head coach Kim Mulkey's fourth after winning her previous championships at Baylor. Tonight, it's the men's turn to crown a champion as San Diego State takes on Connecticut. It's San Diego State's first appearance ever in the national championship game while UConn has won it all four times, but not since 2014. You can tune in just after 9:00 PM Eastern time on CBS.

And you can find 5 Things every morning right here wherever you get your podcasts. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

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Downside of weight loss drugs, women and student debt: 5 Things ... - USA TODAY

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