Diabetes drugs may be changing cancer in surprising ways

Diabetes is a risk factor for cancer

West China Hospital of Sichuan University

Researchers are taking a closer look at how medications used to treat diabetes may also influence cancer. While diabetes itself has long been associated with higher cancer risk, scientists are now investigating whether diabetes drugs play a direct role beyond controlling blood sugar levels and body weight. 

A recent review examines how widely used treatments such as metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, and GLP-1 receptor agonists may affect cancer growth by changing how cells multiply, how the immune system responds, and how inflammation develops. These insights point to possible new treatment strategies while also highlighting how much remains unknown.

Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM) has been linked to a higher likelihood of developing several types of cancer, including liver, colorectal, and breast cancer. Managing blood glucose and body weight remains essential for people with diabetes, but growing evidence suggests these factors alone do not fully explain the increased cancer risk. 

This has led scientists to explore how diabetes medications themselves might influence cancer, either by reducing risk or, in some cases, creating unintended effects. Understanding this connection could help clarify how diabetes treatments fit into cancer prevention and care, though further research is still needed to unravel the underlying biology.

“Good enough for a battleship, it’s good enough for me,” says Homeland Security chief Kristi Trump-Noem

Trump Cabinet Officials Re-Name Selves

Mitchell Zimmerman 

Secretary of War Pete Trump-Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Trump-Rubio were the first to announce that they were changing their names to honor the president, but they were swiftly followed by the remaining cabinet members.

A rush of orders for new business cards and government I.D.s is expected, but key officials are likely to be the first to see their new names recognized on repainted doors and Trump accoutrements. Priority is expected to be given Attorney General Pam Trump-Bondi, Secretary of the Homeland Security, Kristi Trump-Noem and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Trump-Kennedy Jr.

Although Trump-Hegseth and Trump-Rubio were first out of the box, insiders believe that the changes were prompted by former Secretary Kennedy, who reportedly mused that if the center bearing his uncle’s name was to be called The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, maybe he would change his own name.

Also under consideration, replacing red MAGA hats with
these. Note that FBI Director Kash Patel is NOT wearing
the new hat. He is currently considered the
most likely Cabinet member to be fired.

The renaming of the Performing Arts Center followed a renaming that created the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace and precedes the naming of a proposed group of guided-missile battleships of the United States Navy as the Trump class.

“Kinetically lethal,” said War Secretary Trump-Hegseth.

There have also been legislative proposals, not yet acted upon, to rename or add the Trump name to Dulles International Airport and D.C. Metro, and to place Trump’s likeness on Mount Rushmore and the $100 bill.

Litigation is expected regarding the institutional renamings, and the three liberal justices of the Supreme Court asked the conservative block to recuse themselves on grounds of conflict of interest. Legal observers expect their request will be rejected by Chief Justice John G. Trump-Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Trump-Thomas, Samuel A. Trump-Alito, Neil M. Trump-Gorsuch, Brett M. Trump-Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Trump-Barrett.

Subscriptions to Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman are free at this time. If you find my writing of value, please like, subscribe and recommend Reasoning Together to your friends. Thank you.

You may also be interested in my road-trip novel / social thriller Mississippi Reckoning. Read an excerpt.

12 ways the Trump administration dismantled civil rights law and the foundations of inclusive democracy in its first year

Trump is a stain on Dr. King's legacy

Spencer Overton, George Washington University

Ready to kill all his enemies, foreign and domestic

One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy.

From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they entrenched a racial political majority that lasted for generations.

That began to change in the 1960s. After decades of protest and pressure, Congress enacted laws that prohibited discrimination in employment, education, voting, immigration and housing.

Federal agencies were charged with enforcing those laws, collecting data to identify discrimination and conditioning public funds on compliance. These choices reshaped U.S. demographics and institutions, with the current Congress “the most racially and ethnically diverse in history,” according to the Pew Research Center. The laws did not eliminate racial inequality, but they made exclusion easier to see and harder to defend.

The first year of the second Trump administration marks a sharp reversal.

In a March 2025 speech to Congress, Trump spoke of dismantling DEI programs.

Dr. King’s Warnings Seem More Prescient Than Ever

A year of institutionalized racism

By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words from his “Beyond Vietnam” speech still ring true.

“When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people,” he warned, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Those words, delivered in 1967, still summarize today’s political moment. Instead of putting the lives of working Americans first, our leaders in Congress and the White House have prioritized advancing corporate profits and wealth concentration, slashing government programs meant to advance upward mobility, and deploying military forces across the country, increasing distrust and tension.

This historic regression corresponds with a recessionary environment for Black America in particular. That’s what my organization, the Joint Center, found in our report, “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession.”

The economic landscape for Black Americans in 2026 is troubling, with unemployment rates signaling a potential recession. By December 2025, Black unemployment had reached 7.5 percent — a stark contrast to the national rate of 4.4 percent. This disparity highlights the persistent economic inequalities faced by Black communities, which have only been exacerbated by policy shifts that have weakened the labor market. The volatility in Black youth unemployment, which fluctuated dramatically in the latter months of 2025, underscores the precariousness of the situation.

The Trump administration’s executive orders have systematically dismantled structures aimed at promoting racial equality. By targeting programs such as Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity executive order and defunding agencies like the Minority Business Development Agency, the administration has shifted federal support away from disadvantaged businesses.

Alternative dates?

First anniversary of Trump 2.0

What the law says about ICE actions and what Trump says

Tear down this wall!

CRMC finally moves to enforce its own demands

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council has filed a counterclaim against Quidnessett Country Club, seeking court intervention to force the club to take down a rock wall built without permission along its property line three years ago. (Courtesy of Save the Bay)

More than 100 days after state coastal regulators verbally agreed to crack down on Quidnessett Country Club for failing to remove a rock wall from its shoreline, they’re backing up their words with legal action.

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) filed a counterclaim against the North Kingstown country club in Providence County Superior Court Tuesday. It wants a judge to force the country club to remove the 600-foot stone wall built without permission roughly three years ago. The 17-page filing was submitted in response to one of three lawsuits the country club has filed against the coastal panel in the ongoing dispute over how to restore the shoreline of its property — and whether the wall even needs to be taken down.

The country club initially built the buffer to shield the 14th hole of its signature golf course from coastal erosion, defying state coastal rules that prohibit permanent structures in environmentally sensitive areas. After being caught by state regulators in August 2023, the country club initially sought retroactive permission by arguing for less stringent environmental regulations in the area. 

The politically appointed coastal panel denied the request in January 2024, setting off a debate over how Quidnessett should remove the wall and return the shoreline to its preexisting conditions. All seven plans submitted by Quidnessett were rejected by CRMC staff because they failed to meet coastal requirements.

During the back-and-forth with coastal regulators, Quidnessett turned to the courts, with a trio of lawsuits alleging procedural violations and challenging the legitimacy of the agency’s shoreline restoration requirements.

The country club’s most recent complaint, filed Oct. 23 in Providence County Superior Court, asked a judge to reverse the CRMC’s enforcement order, contending that the dispute should be referred to an administrative hearing officer under the agency’s own guidelines, while labeling coastal regulators’ conditions for the location and slope of a natural barrier to replace the rock wall as “arbitrary and capricious.” 

The agency in its counterclaim denied these allegations, instead pointing to Quidnessett’s defiance despite an escalating series of written and verbal warnings and threats of fines.

Nearly 70% of U.S. adults could now be classified as obese

Mass General Brigham recommends change in how we look at obesity

Mass General Brigham

A newly proposed definition of obesity could significantly increase the number of Americans considered to have the condition. According to researchers at Mass General Brigham, applying updated criteria developed earlier this year by the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology Commission raises the estimated obesity rate in the United States from about 40 percent to nearly 70 percent. 

The study examined data from more than 300,000 people and found that the increase was especially pronounced among older adults. The findings also showed that many individuals newly classified under the updated definition face higher risks of serious health problems. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

"We already thought we had an obesity epidemic, but this is astounding," said co-first author Lindsay Fourman, MD, an endocrinologist in the Metabolism Unit in the Endocrinology Division of the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine. "With potentially 70 percent of the adult population now considered to have excess fat, we need to better understand what treatment approaches to prioritize."

Why BMI Alone May Miss Health Risks

For decades, obesity has primarily been defined using body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on height and weight. While BMI offers a simple estimate, it does not capture how fat is distributed throughout the body. Other anthropomorphic measures -- including waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, and waist-to-hip ratio -- can provide additional insight by distinguishing fat mass from muscle and identifying abdominal fat linked to disease risk.

Under the updated framework, obesity is identified in two main ways. Individuals with a high BMI plus at least one elevated anthropometric measure are classified as having obesity, a category the authors call "BMI-plus-anthropometric obesity." People with a normal BMI can also be classified as having obesity if they have at least two elevated anthropometric measures, referred to as "anthropometric-only obesity." 

The guidelines further separate obesity into preclinical and clinical forms, with clinical obesity defined by obesity-related physical impairment or organ dysfunction. The new standards have already been endorsed by at least 76 organizations, including the American Heart Association and The Obesity Society.

Is New England next in Trump's escalating war on blue states?

ICE plans attack on Maine's Somali community.

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

US Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino

Maine Gov. Janet Mills was among the leaders in the state who addressed reports late Wednesday that the Trump administration plans to send federal agents including those with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cities such as Portland and Lewiston, and said unequivocally that the violence masked officers have unleashed on Minneapolis in recent days would not be welcome by residents and officials.

Mills said ICE had refused to confirm the reports that its agents would be in the state and what the basis for the operations would be, but MS Now reported Wednesday that the administration is considering sending federal officers to Maine.

Donald Trump mentioned Maine’s Somali community in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club; Somali people in Minnesota have been a top target of ICE’s activities there.

Maine’s Democratic governor said her administration was “taking proactive steps to prepare.”

While Trump claims Big Pharma is paying YOU for your prescriptions, drug prices continue to climb

Sick of lies about health care costs?

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

Donald Trump in recent months has made ludicrously false claims about his administration slashing prescription drug prices in the US by as much as 600%, which would entail pharmaceutical companies paying people to use their products.

In reality, reported Reuters on Wednesday, drugmakers are planning to raise prices on hundreds of drugs in 2026.

Citing data from healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors, Reuters wrote that at least 350 branded medications are set for price hikes next year, including “vaccines against COVID, RSV, and shingles,” as well as the “blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance.”

The total projected number of drugs seeing price increases next year is significantly higher than in 2025, when 3 Axis Advisors estimated that pharmaceutical companies raised prices on 250 medications.

The median price increase for drugs next year is projected at 4%, roughly the same as in 2025.

Reuters also found that some of the companies raising prices on their drugs are the same ones who struck deals with Trump to lower the costs of a limited number of prescriptions earlier this year, including Novartis, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and GSK.

In announcing the deals with the pharmaceutical companies, Trump declared that “starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world.”

But Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told Reuters that the projected savings for Americans under the Trump deals are a drop in the bucket compared with the continued price hikes on other drugs.

“These deals are being announced as transformative when, in fact, they really just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the US,” Rome explained.

Today, you need a second mortgage to buy
insulin

Merith Basey, CEO of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, a patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on lowering the cost of medications, also said she was unimpressed by Trump’s deals with drugmakers.

“Voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms,” she said earlier this month. “Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them.”

"They really like me."

Where are you, MAGA?

 

Profiting from autism

Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism centers in past decade, study shows

By Juan Siliezar, Associate Director of Media Relations and Leadership Communications, School of Public Health, Brown University

Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers across the U.S. over the past decade, with nearly 80% of acquisitions occurring over a four-year span.

That’s according to a new study from researchers at Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research.

Study author Yashaswini Singh, a health economist at Brown’s School of Public Health, said the work highlights how financial firms are rapidly moving into a sensitive area of health care with little public scrutiny or data on where this is happening or why.

“The big takeaway is that there is yet another segment of health care that has emerged as potentially profitable to private equity investors, and it is very distinct from where we have traditionally known investors to go, so the potential for harm can be a lot more serious,” Singh said. “We're also dealing with children who are largely insured by Medicaid programs, so if private equity increases the intensity of care, what we're looking at are impacts to state Medicaid budgets down the road.”

The Trump Administration’s $3 Meal: ‘A Piece of Chicken, a Piece of Broccoli, Corn Tortilla, and One Other Thing’

Maybe they expect you to add roadkill and lard

Jessica Corbett

The Trump administration was again blasted for grocery prices this week after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins discussed the new federal dietary guidelines during a NewsNation appearance.

“We’ve run over 1,000 simulations,” Rollins said in a clip shared on social media by journalist Aaron Rupar on Wednesday. “It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla, and one other thing.”

“So there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money,” Rollins continued, pushing back against host Connell McShane’s inquiry about whether the new guidelines expect people to spend more money on food.

The Guardian noted that “data from the consumer price index, as referenced by McShane, showed that food prices kept rising in December, increasing by 0.7%, the biggest month-to-month jump since October 2022. Prices for produce rose 0.5%, coffee increased by 1.9%, and beef went up 1% over the month and 16.4% compared with a year earlier.”

Responding to the clip, Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, an author and teacher married to former Democratic Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, said, “Private jets and tax breaks for them and their rich friends, and one piece of broccoli *AND* a tortilla for you!”