Weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy are proving extremely effective and popular, but they're also very, very expensive, with list prices of $900 a month. And they're meant to be taken indefinitely.

This year, an estimated 1.7% of people in the US have been prescribed a medication like Ozempic (originally designed to treat diabetes) and Wegovy. That's a 40-fold increase over the past five years. In a recent survey, 59% of Americans polled said they would be interested in a safe and effective weight loss drug; 45% said they would take the medication even if they just wanted to lose a few pounds.

Not surprisingly, insurance companies are balking at the expanding cost, and clamping down by denying coverage, discouraging doctors from prescribing the drugs or demanding a specified diagnosis from pharmacists before they fill doctor's orders.

Experts say, however, that other so-called GLP-1 drugs may be effective alternatives.

Body of Knowledge

Here are four TV celebrities who are missing all or part of a finger: TV art instructor Bob Ross (severed in a carpentry accident); James Doohan (Scotty from "Star Trek" lost a finger while storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944); Telly Savalas (reason unclear, with lots of speculation, from a grenade mishap to rats); and Matthew Perry of "Friends" (portion of middle finger lost after slammed in car door as child).

Get Me That, Stat!

Here are the youngest and oldest five states, based on median age*:

1. Utah, 31.3 years

2. Washington, D.C., 34.3

3. Alaska, 35

4. Texas, 35

5. North Dakota, 35.2

30. West Virginia, 42.6

31. Vermont, 42.7

32. New Hampshire, 43

33. Puerto Rico, 43.1

34. Maine, 44.7

*Includes the federal district of Washington, D.C. and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Enumeration accounts for ties.

Stories for the Waiting Room

In the movie "Jurassic Park," when filmmakers wanted to create velociraptor sounds, they used recordings of tortoises mating.

Doc Talk

Proctalgia — Literally a pain in the butt, as opposed to cephalalgia, a pain inside the head

Phobia of the Week

Peniaphobia — fear of poverty

Best Medicine

Q: What do you call a heartfelt lie?

A: A fib.

Observation

"I'm a Frisbeetarian. We believe that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and you can't get it down." — Comedian Steve Martin

Medical History

This week in 1936, a team of New York City physicians debuted the first X-ray moving pictures of internal organs at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society. They used a home 16-millimeter camera to record moving X-ray images on a fluoroscopic screen at 16 frames per second. Two seconds' exposure could capture two or three beats of the heart, the act of breathing, movements of the diaphragm or motion of joints. Film clip loops could be projected to show repeating motion.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 1992, the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine went to a team of Japanese scientists at Shiseido Research Center who concluded that people who think they have foot odor do, and those who don't, don't.

Sum Body

Here are 10 notions humans once had (and maybe still do) about things residing within their bodies, according to Mental Floss.

1. Three souls: Immortal (in the head) and mortal (divided into two parts by the diaphragm)

2. Pneuma: a sort of heated air that was the source of both life and spirit

3. Common sense. It was originally believed to be an actual, physical organ, possibly located near the heart.

4. Demons of various persuasions and intent

5. Ghosts. (See demons.)

6. Homunculus: a fully formed human being originating not from an egg, but from an "animalcule"

7. Bosom serpent: a snake, lizard or amphibian that resides within the chest

8. Gut critters: various small animals, insects and invertebrates who lived in the stomach and were occasionally vomited

9. Buluk'sit or "the bulging eye worm" was a kind of large caterpillar that found its way into women's wombs where it drew nourishment and caused infertility.

10. Pokok or "frog" was akin to Buluk'sit, an amphibian implanted by sorcerers into the uteruses of offending women, where it grows to become a malformed, miscarried froglike fetus.

Epitaphs

"Called back." — Headstone of English poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). The two words are also the last words Dickinson penned in a letter to cousins shortly before her death.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Umanoide at Unsplash