
Chief @YaleHF + Researcher @YaleCardiology | Father, Married to @Treeny_ahmed | Dedicated to Using Data to Enhance the Art of Doctoring
Guilford, CT
Joined November 2009
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Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
A real world digital GLP-1 structured treatment program achieved marked weight loss, high retention, metabolic improvement, and no serious adverse events in over 8,000 women. Suggests scalability with minimal need for clinician support.
nature.com/articles/s41591-0…
This is fascinating and confirms what I’ve been seeing clinically…
The Wegovy pill may be doing something more important than taking market share from injectable GLP-1s: expanding the obesity treatment market.
A new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine examined the early uptake of oral semaglutide following its January 2026 launch.
The numbers are pretty remarkable:
🔹100,000 new monthly prescriptions by month 2**, compared with month 4 for Zepbound and month 20 for injectable Wegovy.
🔹4.4x faster early adoption** than Zepbound and 7.4x faster than injectable Wegovy, based on launch-aligned prescription growth.
🔹Injectable Wegovy prescriptions did NOT decline following the pill's introduction.
🔹Total Wegovy prescriptions (oral + injectable) increased substantially, although Zepbound continued to lead in overall prescription volume.
Here's what I find most interesting:
The introduction of an oral GLP-1 appears to be expanding the market rather than simply cannibalizing injectable therapies. This makes intuitive sense. Some patients don't want injections. Others may find a pill more approachable, even with the inconvenience of daily fasting administration. Of course, these are aggregate prescription data, so we can't definitively establish how many new patients entered treatment versus switched therapies.
But the broader implication is exciting.
We may have substantially underestimated the number of people willing to pursue pharmacotherapy for obesity once we offer them more choices.
And with additional oral obesity medications in development, this market could look very different in a few years.
Source: acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/…
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
Two souls are dead because they self administered something purporting to be the most powerful metabolic agent ever developed - without medical supervision, before the inventor has asked for approval and sourced from a Chinese “lab” seeking to make a quick buck.
Peptide World - “Lilly made this up”.
Two deaths were reported to the FDA from research-grade retatrutide (illegal for human use). cbsnews.com/news/deaths-repo…
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
Just as mathematicians are now learning how many insights lie in the "convex hull" of existing ideas, the rest of science is about to learn this lesson at even more dramatic scale. Few realize the ridiculous inefficiency of the pipeline from theoretical innovation to practical use.
Early versions of GPT made it easier to find existing knowledge. But finding a theorem is not the same as recognizing that it offers a radically different way to conceptualize a problem. Doing the latter requires expertise across fields that almost nobody possesses.
Most of the people doing applied work are completely unaware of the conceptual tools that are being developed in more theoretical fields, and the people doing high-level theory do not understand the practical problems applied researchers are trying to solve. Almost no one doing practical work of any importance has an operational understanding of the web of ideas underlying the langlands conjecture or condensed mathematics, and virtually no one doing biology, chemistry or economics is knows anything about 90% of the math used in theoretical physics.
And for good reason! Most of these ideas would be completely useless. But the scope for possible innovation from drawing the rare useful connections is immense.
Think of Paul Samuelson borrowing ideas from thermodynamics to model equilibrium in economics, or Ed Witten using quantum field theory to revolutionize geometry. A few startling successes, not feasible to most: trying to venture into a more theoretical or more practical discipline to find insights of use is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
What I suspect we will see in the next few years is a scientific revolution brought on by models that combine deep theoretical insight with deep practical knowledge and judgment. Existing publicly available models are lacking in all three departments, but getting better. When searching for useful connections between distant fields becomes cheap, even a low hit rate could produce an explosion of innovation. Even without new ideas (which will also be forthcoming...), the convex hull of existing science would push far beyond the status quo.
An excellent talk on the economics of obesity therapies by @Jabaluck @YaleCCI #rocheyaleobesity symposium: could anti obesity therapies pay for themselves or does health spending go up?
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
Replying to @serenawilliams
@serenawilliams speaking with @Oprah and me on the Oprah Podcast about the book we wrote. Together we can all change the narrative from shame and blame to compassion and care for people living with obesity✨ youtube.com/watch?app=deskto…
Perhaps the world expert on diabetes care Dr Silvio Inzucchi @yalediscovers talking about the role of obesity Rx in patients with CKM Roche-Yale obesity symposium @YaleCCI @YaleSOM
The @YaleSOM @YaleCCI @YaleMed Yale-Roche symposium has started with an absolutely incredible talk by @AniaJastreboff!!! We’re in the midst of one of the greatest revolutions in modern medicine
Great podcast on “The Revolution in Heart Care with Eric Velazquez” @ericjvelazquez @thehowie @hmkyale @yalediscovers @YaleMed @YaleSOM
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
STAGE C2D Definition and Management- Critical Stage with Unmet Need! jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jchf.… @ShannonMDunlay @preventfailure @FinnGustafsson @SJGreene_md @lamcardio @akshaydesaimd @MG_Crespo_Leiro @dranulala @TheresaMcDonag3 @colleenkmac @NMHheartdoc @spinneymd @laurentrubymd
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
Digoxin: An Opportunity to Investigate Utility in Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiogenic Shock | JACC: Heart Failure jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jchf.…
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
As an outpatient physician, this is the most misunderstood conflict between patients and doctors.
From the patient perspective, it’s inconsiderate, especially when many offices will reschedule if you are more than 10 minutes late. Traffic, child care, finding a ride, time off work. So many factors go into just getting to a doctor’s appointment on time.
From the physician perspective, there is a giant machine behind the doctor dictating how we run our clinics. Administration, reimbursement, regulatory hurdles like prior authorizations, balancing wait times with patient demand. If you asked most physicians how many patients they would like to see in a vacuum, most would choose a number that is far fewer than their current volume, but the healthcare system has other ideas.
I wish we had an empathy contraption. Two people wear it and you instantly understand the other person’s experience. In lieu of that, these types of complaints and disagreements can be remedied with better communication. Give patients updates on the status of the clinic. Vast majority of people are reasonable, just communicate. Have a system for it.
The Four TV Shows That Heralded America’s Fall nytimes.com/2026/09/26/opini… via @NYTOpinion
In a trial of a blood-based multicancer early-detection test added to usual care, the incidence of stage III or IV cancer after three rounds of screening did not differ significantly from that with usual care alone. Full NHS-Galleri trial results: nej.md/4xRZN5L
Editorial: A Step in the Search for the Elusive Holy Grail of Early Detection of Cancer nej.md/4cK3UIy

ALT A bar chart from an Original Article published in the New England Journal of Medicine article titled "Effect of Screening with Multicancer Early-Detection Test on Late-Stage Cancer Diagnosis." The chart shows the distribution of the route to cancer diagnosis according to trial group after three annual screening rounds. The trial name, NHS-Galleri, is in parentheses after the title. The NEJM identity sits at the bottom.
Quite an excellent discussion. Psychiatry, Insane Asylums, Mental Illness, ECT, Lobotomies, Freud & Jun... youtu.be/s7d2d8FhevU?si=6h4i… via @YouTube
Tariq Ahmad MD MPH retweeted
Following a recommendation from the DMD Boehringer Ingelheim has decided to discontinue the EASi-KIDNEY trial (NCT06531824)
Testing vicadrostat (BI 690517), in combination with empagliflozin vs empagliflozin alone, could slow CKD and ⬇️ CV events
boehringer-ingelheim.com/hum…
Can’t wait for my autographed copy!
Why did I write The Moral Alibi?
In this new interview with @pminemyer at @FierceHealth, I discuss why healthcare needs a moral renewal—and why The Moral Alibi is also a self-indictment.
As I told Paige, many of us entered healthcare and started our careers with a sincere desire to help people.
Over time, we can become co-opted by its culture of quiet complicity.
Read the Fierce Healthcare interview:
fiercehealthcare.com/payers/…
Learn more about The Moral Alibi:
themoralalibi.com
Why do almost all therapies developed for heart failure fail? We make the case that there is an urgent need to question our most basic assumptions and use the examples of omecamtiv mecarbil and vericiguat @JACCJournals @YaleCardiology @YaleHF @hfcollaboratory @yalediscovers





















