Howie and Harlan are joined by Nicholas Christakis, director of Yale&#x27;s Human Nature Lab, to discuss his research on social networks, human connection, and the forces that help societies cooperate and endure. Harlan discusses promising phase 3 results for retatrutide, Eli Lilly&#x27;s experimental &quot;triple G&quot; obesity drug; Howie provides an update on the fast-growing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Show notes: Obesity Drugs &quot;Lilly&#x27;s triple agonist, retatrutide, delivered powerful weight loss in pivotal Phase 3 obesity trial&quot; &quot;Triple–Hormone-Receptor Agonist Retatrutide for Obesity—A Phase 2 Trial&quot; Bariatric surgery Nicholas Christakis Human Nature Lab Nicholas Christakis: Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society Free rider problem Phenotype Stephen Pinker The Enlightenment Nicholas Christakis on YouTube: For the Love of Science Nicholas Christakis: &quot;The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years&quot; Social contagion Altruism Wet lab vs. dry lab Microbiome Communicable vs. non-communicable diseases Nicholas Christakis: &quot;The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network&quot; Nicholas Christakis on YouTube : &quot;Learning in a Time of War&quot; Tymofiy Mylovanov The president of the Kyiv School of Economics, who invited Christakis to lecture in Ukraine. Ebola CDC: Ebola Disease 2026 CDC: Ebola Disease Basics &quot;The Ebola virus spreading in Congo is a rare species with no vaccines or treatments&quot; Hypertension Watch last week&#x27;s episode on YouTube. In the Yale School of Management&#x27;s MBA for Executives program, you&#x27;ll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time. Yale&#x27;s Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Nicholas Christakis: The Science of Human Connection

Health & Veritas

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Health &amp; Veritas

## Transcript

Welcome to Health and Veritas. I'm Harlan Krumholtz. And I'm Howie Foreman. We're physicians and professors at Yale University, and we're trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Nicholas Christakis. But first, we always like to check in on current or hot topics in health and healthcare. Harlan, what do you have today? Well, you know, there's so much going on, Howie, as usual. I thought I'd just take a little bit of time to talk about this retitrutide,

this triple G drug that Lilly's come out with because there was some big news this week. They reported the results of the Triumph 1 study, a phase three trial in adults with obesity and overweight without diabetes. And in this study, in this day, so this is the new drug. You know, you had, when people talk about GLP-1s, well, that was kind of the first generation semaglutide. And then

terzepatide came out with two drugs in it, two G drugs. It was GLP-1s and GIP. And now this is the triple G drug because it adds glucagon. So it's sort of a continuing to add these agents to see if they can get a more powerful effect. And in this one, they assigned the, you know, patients to various doses.

And these are patients, many of whom, you know, were, were quite severely obese. They had a severe obesity. And I, you know, Anya's teaching me how to say this, right. You know, that it, when we think about this as a disease, we want to talk about people with obesity, not people who are obese. And we never say morbidly obese again, you know, because it's, it feels so disrespectful. We're, we're trying to re re

sort of reframe this now, but in this, the people are on the highest dose is 12 milligram dose lost an average of 70 pounds or almost 30% of their body weight over 80 weeks. And, and I think importantly, because people are now talking a lot about variation in response, nearly half of them achieved at least a 30% weight loss. And in a pre-specified extension among participants who had a BMI of at least 35,

and you know, that's pretty, a pretty big number, but among those who tolerated and continued therapy, average weight loss reached 85 pounds or 30% at more than a hundred weeks in. So more than two years, just about two years. And it's important to say what's new here. Redditrutide itself has been sort of tested before we saw a striking phase two stay. Now these phase three stays are larger,

they're regulatory pivotal, they're used for approval of the drug phase two, or kind of a little bit smaller, kind of gaining momentum towards the definitive study. Now that phase two trial was published in the New England Journal of Medicine led by our own Anya Yastrobov, been on the podcast, good friend. She's doing great work. She's also leading this triumph one study. And in that one, it produced a dose dependent weight loss of up to about 25%

at 48 weeks in that 12 milligram group, that group that ...

Nicholas Christakis: The Science of Human Connection

Transcript

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Nicholas Christakis: The Science of Human Connection

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.