the biggest health breakthroughs of 2024

Our country may be divided about many things, but when it comes to our health, there is plenty for all of us to celebrate. Here, new tests, promising treatments, and important conversations (hello, menopause!) to cheer for in the new year.

- MERYL DAVIDS LANDAU

1 Encouraging news about GLP-1s

WHY WE'RE CELEBRATING: The diabetes drugs that help people shed pounds may do a lot more.

In recent years, GLP-1 agonist drugs (Ozempic is one) have proven crazily successful at controlling diabetes and helping people drop weight. This year it became clear that GLP-1s have many other health benefits too. The medicine, usually injected, has been so effective in lowering risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from heart disease that the FDA granted treatment approval of Wegovy for obese or overweight people with cardiovascular disease. The drugs may also reduce high LDL cholesterol, and a stream of studies out this year suggest possible benefits with regard to other conditions including kidney disease; ovarian, colorectal, and other cancers; depression; and tobacco addiction. The maker of Ozempic has recently begun to study whether it helps reduce alcohol consumption too.

Researchers are still teasing out how these drugs affect so many parts of the body. Some benefits undoubtedly come from reduction of obesity, says Chun-Su Yuan, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of anesthesia and critical care at the University of Chicago who has researched the medicines. "The drugs don't have widespread effects on different organs, but organs need to work harder in people who are overweight," he says. Others point to their lessening of dangerous systemic inflammation, a phenomenon documented in studies using mice. There may be other mechanisms of action for the drugs that are not yet known.

2 $35 drugs are finally here

WHY WE'RE CELEBRATING:

No one should have to choose between paying for food and getting needed medicines.