Weekend Longforms: Obese horses, pollution and the brain, peptides, financing gene therapy, and HPV cancer
June 13, 2026
A. American horses are obese, too
Joshua Moen writes in StatNews that horses in the US are more obese than horses in other developed countries. He points out that they are not lazy and don’t make bad choices, but are fed a diet full of processed, rapidly digested food that disrupts normal metabolic regulation. Just like humans.
B. This is your brain on pollution
Steven Dubner of Freakonomics Radio revisits compelling evidence that air pollution is strongly associated with cognitive impairment. Even baseball umpires make more errors on days with more air pollution.
C. Are peptides the ultimate body hack?
Wendy Zuckerman, the host of Science Vs., reviews the data on peptides sold as supplements, which are not FDA regulated and sometimes contain contaminants like lead or don’t contain the dose on the label. One of interviewees, Dhruv Kullar, MD, wrote an article in the New Yorker article on peptides featured as a longform in April.
D. Gene therapy requires a new financing model
William Padula writes in StatNews that our current health care financing system is not able to take care of $2 million one-time treatments for rare diseases. He suggests that health plans and governments treat these expenses as capital expenses or mortgages, paying them off over the time that they produce value. Padula’s mortgage analogy is useful, though the deeper need may be lowering medication prices and having the largest possible risk pool.
E. Two sisters, one virus: A family devastated by HPV
Liz Szabo writes in CIDRAP of two sisters. One was in the first cohort offered the HPV vaccine; her older sister was not vaccinated, and died of cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine has the potential to prevent most cases of cervical cancer, and can even create herd immunity and prevent cancer in unvaccinated women in communities with high rates of adoption.
Today’s Animal Photo:
Miniature horses on a farm in Carlisle, MA
