India just hit a massive turning point in the fight against obesity and diabetes. As of March 21, 2026, the patent on Semaglutide—the magic ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy—has officially expired.

For years, Novo Nordisk held the “keys to the kingdom,” with weight-loss treatments costing up to ₹27,000 a month. But the game has changed. Indian drugmakers are now launching generic versions that could bring costs down to just ₹3,000. In this video, we break down how these GLP-1 receptor agonists work, which Indian companies are leading the “first-mover” race, and why experts are worried about the “cosmetic misuse” of these medical miracle drugs.

Highlights of the video:

The End of the Semaglutide Monopoly
What is Semaglutide? How GLP-1 Works
Massive Price Drop: ₹27,000 to ₹3,000?
The Generic Race: Sun Pharma, Cipla & Dr. Reddy’s
The Benefits: Democratizing Metabolic Health
The Dark Side: Misuse and Quality Concerns
India: The Global Model for Affordable Care

#semaglutide #ozempicIndia #weightlossdrug #semaglutideIndia #ObesityCrisis #healthnewsIndia #diabetesCare

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The post Cipla, Sun Pharma & Dr Reddy’s Join the Weight Loss Race| Diabetes & Obesity Drugs Get Cheaper. appeared first on MASSIVE News.

Until February 2025, Australian formula brands were under a voluntary agreement not to advertise formula products for babies aged 0 to 12 months, in order to support and protect breastfeeding.

With recent data revealing lower-than-desired rates of breastfeeding in Australia, the government has chosen not to renew the voluntary arrangement and is exploring tougher measures.

These moves don’t explicitly promote breastfeeding. Rather, they aim to curtail marketing practices that position formula as an equivalent or preferable alternative.

Our analysis of online formula ads targeting parents in Australia reveals how companies prey on parents’ anxiety – and the problems with having a voluntary agreement.

What’s wrong with advertising formula?

Breastfeeding has extensive health benefits for both mother and child. These include protection against gastrointestinal and respiratory infections for newborns, reduced risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes later in life, and reduced risk of mothers developing ovarian and breast cancer.

Because of this, Australian guidelines recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. The World Health Organization recommends continued breastfeeding for the first two years.

However, while breastfeeding rates are high at birth in Australia, they quickly drop. Only 37% of babies were reported to have been exclusively breastfed by six months in 2022.

There are various reasons why mothers choose not to breastfeed, but the advertising of formula products is a concern. It’s been shown to confuse parents about the nutritional benefits of formula versus breastmilk, reduce breastfeeding initiation and duration, and present formula as a more favourable solution in the face of breastfeeding challenges (many of which can be overcome with the right support).

Formula is valuable. It’s often an essential option for those unable to breastfeed. However, it’s also expensive and can financially strain families, particularly during the first year of a child’s life.

Online advertising also operates very differently from traditional ads. Online, ads target people based on their searches, browsing histories or life events. They can reach new or expecting parents precisely when they might be most uncertain or vulnerable to suggestion.

What do the ads for infant formula say?

The ADM+S Australian Ad Observatory, which we and our colleagues run, collects data on the ads Australians encounter online to better understand how digital advertising systems operate.

In 2022 we collected ads from 1,200 Australian adults who voluntarily installed a plug-in on their browser to scrape ads while they were scrolling Facebook. From 2025 we’ve been collecting ads from around 300 Australians. They use an app to share the ads that appear while they scroll Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube on their phones.

For this analysis, we examined ads collected in both years, and identified a total of 158 ads promoting formula products from local and international brands.

We found brands used various tactics to appeal to parents. Some highlighted positive customer reviews or offered free downloadable cookbooks and “house baby proofing” guides.

Other ads were in partnership with prominent retailers, directing people to online shopping interfaces through “buy now” buttons.

Most formula brands made some kind of claim regarding the nutritional or behavioural benefits of their products. These claims prey on the anxiety parents commonly feel to ensure their children are meeting nutritional, sleep and developmental milestones.

Some manufacturers claimed their product was fortified with vitamins and prebiotics that would “improve gut health” or help a toddler sleep longer at night.

Others claimed their formula would provide mothers with “a moment of calm” or strengthen their toddler’s immune system. This is despite scientific evidence that shows breastmilk can provide necessary antibodies to a sick child in real time.

Starting them young

Many of the ads used pictures of very young toddlers who could easily be mistaken for infants aged 12 months or under. In one instance we discovered an ad clearly promoting formula designed for babies under 12 months.

This, alongside the use of images of very young children to promote “toddler milk” (formula marketed for children aged 1–3 years), highlights some of the issues with a voluntary advertising agreement.

Since toddler milk marketing was exempt, brands could target parents of newborns. They’d gain brand awareness and consumer trust, which could then result in a parent choosing to start their child on formula instead – or earlier than they otherwise would.

Enforcement has also been an issue. The consequences for breaching the agreement – publishing the breach on the Department of Health website – are not considered meaningful enough by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

At the same time, the digital advertising environment provides very little visibility into what marketing is actually circulating or who is exposed to it.

Outside of specialised research tools, such as our Ad Observatory and the Australian Internet Observatory, there’s no systematic way to observe infant formula ads that appear on personalised social media feeds.

What might the government end up doing about it?

The government is considering the following options:

1. keep the status quo – no regulation

2. introduce legislation that mirrors the former voluntary agreement, preventing infant formula (0–12 months) from being promoted

3. introduce legislation that also limits toddler milk marketing (1–3 years).

We’ve provided all our data to the government to aid the decision-making process. However, while the ads we found are a peek behind the curtain, they likely underrepresent the scale of formula marketing happening online.

Infant formula can be an essential and sometimes life-saving intervention for families who need it. But health interventions don’t depend on persuasive advertising to fulfil their purpose.

The real policy question is whether a product designed to support infants should be promoted through the same marketing systems that sell snack foods, cosmetics and financial products.

Acknowlegement: The Australian Ad Observatory is a team effort. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Khanh Luong, Giselle Newton, Phoebe Price-Barker, Lara Skinner, Abdul Obeid and Dan Tran.

The post Australia may ban infant formula advertising. Here’s what the online ads actually say appeared first on MASSIVE News.

We know this extra CO₂ is contributing to climate change, but could it also be changing the chemistry of our bodies?

In our recently published research we looked at two decades of information from one of the biggest health datasets in the world to start answering this question. We found some concerning trends.

What we found

We analysed blood chemistry data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which collected samples from about 7,000 Americans every two years between 1999 and 2020. We looked at three markers: CO₂, calcium and phosphorus.

CO₂ is mainly carried in blood in the form of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻).

When CO₂ enters the blood, it is converted to bicarbonate. This process largely occurs inside red blood cells, and also produces hydrogen ions.

During short-term exposure to increased CO₂, this can make blood more acidic, and result in a modest increase in bicarbonate levels in the blood (to reduce acidity).

If the exposure continues for a long time the kidneys reduce the amount of bicarbonate lost in urine and also produce more bicarbonate. This has the net effect of higher bicarbonate levels in the blood, to counteract the persistent acidity.

Levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood may also be affected, as they too play a role in regulating acidity in the blood. These processes are completely normal.

Over the 21 years from 1999 to 2020, we found that average blood bicarbonate levels rose by about 7%. Over the same period, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations rose by a similar proportion.

Meanwhile, blood calcium levels dropped by about 2% and phosphorus by around 7%.

If these trends continue, blood bicarbonate levels may exceed healthy levels in around 50 years. Calcium and phosphorus levels may fall below healthy levels, too, by the end of the century.

Our hypothesis is that rising CO₂ exposure could be contributing to these trends.

What’s causing the changes?

It’s important to be clear about what this study does and doesn’t show. It identifies population-level trends in blood chemistry that parallel rising atmospheric CO₂.

But correlation is not causation. The study does not adjust for factors such as diet, kidney function, diuretic use or obesity, which can influence the measurements and should be considered in future analyses.

There are other plausible contributors. One important consideration is indoor air.

Participants in the NHANES study likely spend most of their time indoors, where CO₂ concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm in poorly ventilated spaces. Other studies show time spent indoors has increased over the past two decades.

The NHANES dataset doesn’t capture this parameter, so we can’t directly assess this contribution. However, if more time indoors is contributing, it means total CO₂ exposure is rising even faster than atmospheric trends suggest. This arguably reinforces rather than alleviates the concern.

Other factors, such as shifting dietary patterns, changing rates of obesity, differences in physical activity and even variations in sample collection or processing across survey cycles, could also be important.

Can our bodies cope?

Some critics have argued that, based on what we know about how our bodies manage blood chemistry, we should have no trouble compensating for future increases in atmospheric CO₂, even under worst-case climate scenarios. For example, the lungs can increase ventilation and the kidneys can adjust to produce more bicarbonate.

For most healthy individuals, small long-term increases in outdoor CO₂ are not expected to meaningfully change the levels of bicarbonate, calcium or phosphorus in the blood.

This makes the population-level trends we observed puzzling. They could reflect a confounding rather than a direct CO₂ effect, but they do highlight how little data we have on long-term, real-world exposure.

A lack of long-term data

The argument that we can cope easily with higher CO₂ is based on short-term responses. Whether the same reasoning applies when CO₂ levels are higher across a person’s entire life remains largely untested.

There is, however, a growing body of evidence across many species which shows that even modest, environmentally relevant increases in CO₂ can produce subtle but measurable physiological effects.

In humans, short-term exposure at concentrations commonly found indoors (1,000–2,500 ppm) has been linked to reduced cognitive performance and changes in brain activity, though the mechanisms aren’t fully understood.

These new findings highlight a gap in evidence about long-term, real-world CO₂ exposure and human physiology. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t any studies assessing the physiological effects of breathing slightly elevated CO₂ over a lifetime.

This is particularly important for children, who will experience the longest cumulative exposure. And that’s why it’s vital to investigate this area further.

What this means

Our findings are not suggesting people will become suddenly unwell when atmospheric CO₂ reaches a certain level. What the data show is a signal that warrants attention.

If rising atmospheric CO₂ is contributing to gradual shifts in blood chemistry at a population level, then the composition of the atmosphere should be monitored alongside traditional climate indicators as a potential factor in long-term public health.

Reducing CO₂ emissions remains crucial for limiting global warming. Our findings suggest it may also be important for safeguarding aspects of human health that we’re only just beginning to understand.

The post Rising CO₂ levels are reflected in human blood. Scientists don’t know what it means appeared first on MASSIVE News.