WHO on GLP-1s for kids; long-term opioids and back pain; feds and Big Tech back AI biology — Morning Medical Update

Diet and exercise before GLP-1s, WHO says

New global guidance sets a high bar for weight-loss drugs in young patients.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Oct. 7 issued its first global guidelines on managing obesity in children and adolescents, recommending diets, physical activity and behavioral programs that involve caregivers. For children younger than 10, WHO advised against obesity medication, surgery and devices, citing doubts about their safety and long-term effectiveness. Weight-loss drugs may be considered for adolescents 10 to 19 only after supervised interventions fail.

Luz María De Regil, director of WHO's Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said evidence on glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs is currently insufficient but could be revisited as trial data emerge. In the U.S., Wegovy (semaglutide) and Saxenda (liraglutide) are approved for certain patients 12 and older. Obesity has overtaken underweight as the most common form of malnutrition among school-age children worldwide, according to UNICEF data. Reuters has more, including this special report on obesity in Indonesia.

Years on opioids, no less pain

Long-term users with chronic back pain fared no better than matched peers.

Patients with chronic back pain who took prescription opioids daily for an average of 7.8 years reported the same pain levels as closely matched patients who did not, according to a Northwestern University study published Oct. 1 in Brain. Both groups of 70 rated their pain at about 5.4 on a 10-point scale, and the opioid group scored slightly worse on physical function and mental health. Brain scans showed little change in anatomy but marked differences in activity in regions tied to reward and decision-making.

The study team "saw no sign that their pain had gotten any better by using this drug for so many years," said senior author A. Vania Apkarian, noting participants took low or moderate doses under medical supervision. The study was observational. Researchers identified serotonin-linked markers and plan to test whether an antidepressant can help treat chronic pain and opioid dependence. Here's the study and an accompanying news release.

Feds, tech giants back AI cell-mapping effort

Biohub says funding for its open biology datasets now totals $1.8 billion.

Meta, Google DeepMind and drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs will jointly invest $300 million in the Virtual Biology Initiative run by Biohub, the nonprofit backed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, M.D., the organization said Oct. 7. The Department of Energy is adding more than $500 million over five years, and the National Institutes of Health will coordinate datasets built with more than $500 million in earlier federal funding. Biohub committed $500 million when it launched the effort in April.

The project aims to measure how cells respond to changes across far more conditions than scientists have studied, then use that data to train artificial intelligence (AI) models that could shorten drug development. Commercial funders get an embargo period before data goes public, said Biohub head of science Alex Rives, who expects a first dataset in about a year. Reuters and CNBC have more.