Is Lebron James overweight?

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Oct 08, 2024 View in browser   By Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader, Carmen Paun and Erin Schumaker EXAM ROOM James' body-mass index is 26.8. | Getty Images Lebron James needs to lose a few pounds, or grow a few inches, if he wants to get his body mass index into the normal range. At his listed 250 pounds, the star Lakers forward would need to grow three inches — he’s currently six foot nine — or lose 17 pounds to get there. A lack of precision in assessing the weight of muscular people like King James is just one reason many doctors say the body mass index is flawed. There could be a better way. A new piece in JAMA finds keen interest among obesity specialists in a different measure called the body roundness index. What’s that? The BRI attempts to more precisely assess patients’ weight by measuring where they carry it on their bodies. The BMI merely contrasts patients’ weight with their height. The BRI estimates body composition from height and waist circumference — and, optionally, hip circumference. Why it matters: Doctors use the BMI to assess whether patients are at risk of weight-associated illness, from cardiovascular disease to cancer. How they measure patients’ weight and its associated impacts could grow increasingly important with the rise of GLP-1s, a class of drugs that's helping people lose weight. Whether government or private insurers pay for the drugs could depend on how weight-related risk is measured. Even so: Because BMI is integral to many estimates and measures across health care, it could be difficult to replace it without more testing to ensure BRI does a better job. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE New Harbor, Maine | Sam Oates This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, is encouraging young people to leave his country to alleviate high youth unemployment — and also to reduce the size of a skeptical voting bloc that could deny him a new term in 2027, Le Monde reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. IN THE COURTS New York Attorney General Letitia James says addictive TikTok features harm kids. | Bebeto Matthews/AP A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia is suing TikTok, claiming the social media app is harming youth mental and physical health. “TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. The lawsuits, led by James and California’s Rob Bonta, allege that addictive features on TikTok violate both children's privacy laws and consumer protections. The other states filing suits are Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington. Why it matters: There is increasing evidence that social media harms youth mental health and state attorneys general have been aggressively going after social media companies for harming kids. In 2023, some 42 states sued Meta, claiming the platform violated children’s privacy laws and state consumer protections. The case is still pending. Last month, 39 state AGs called on Congress to pass legislation requiring warning labels for social platforms — something Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for in May. Even so: While some states have passed legislation to regulate the platforms, a push in Congress has stalled. In July, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act. Two months later, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced a version of the bill that is miles apart from its Senate counterpart, suggesting it’s unlikely a new law will be enacted this year. TECH MAZE Hinton says AI makers could learn from the developers of medical devices. | AFP via Getty Images One of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in physics says artificial intelligence developers could learn from the innovators behind medical devices. Writing with colleagues in Science earlier this year, British researcher Geoffrey Hinton said that AI developers should do like device makers and show that their products are safe before bringing them to market. He said that would involve: — making structured arguments supported by evidence that identify potential hazards — describing mitigations — showing that systems will not cross certain red lines, and modeling possible outcomes to assess risk. Hinton said he expected that the makers of AI systems will have to take it on themselves to do this in the near term, since “it is unclear whether governments can quickly build the immense expertise needed for reliable technical evaluations of AI capabilities and societal-scale risks.” The backstory: A pioneer in the development of AI, Hinton left a job at Google last year to warn of the risks of artificial intelligence. He called AI’s progress “scary” and warned of a flood of misleading, AI-generated pictures, videos and text online, our Pieter Haeck reports. Hinton shared this year's Nobel prize with John J. Hopfield, a Princeton professor emeritus and pioneer in the study of artificial neural networks.   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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