• Now, more doctors and educators agree that there may be tangible benefits to training your brain to focus on a meaningful intention, Axios’ Ashley May writes.

💡 The intrigue: The late James Doty, a neurosurgeon and professor at Stanford University, wrote in his 2024 book “Mind Magic” that meditation paired with repetition of messages can change a person’s subconscious.

• Manifesting could look like this: Close your eyes to relax and visualize earning a new job title or mastering the piano.
• Afterward, write the intention on a piece of paper and read it often.

🧘‍♀️ What they’re saying: Manifesting can’t fix all suffering, Doty wrote, but “if there is a possibility of change, using the techniques of manifesting will more likely than not help bring it about.”

• Positive thinking alone doesn’t work, NYU psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen’s research has revealed — but believing you will succeed based on reason can.
• Framing is also important, some argue: Trying to manifest wealth isn’t as helpful as pursuing a life full of meaning.

🧠 How it works: Neuroplasticity — the brain’s lifelong ability to change — is one reason manifesting may work scientifically.

• Through value tagging — how brains prioritize information — goals can become embedded into the deepest levels of the subconscious.
• Visualization is also part of the process.
• Mental imagery triggers the selective attention system, “essentially hypnotizing our minds into recognizing that our intention is important,” Doty wrote. Some athletes use this technique to improve performance.

🪄 Reality check: However you slice it, manifesting reinforces constant, disciplined practice, reminding the brain of an intention over and over and over again.

• Think of manifesting less like magic and more like mental training.

from STAT:

one big number

99%

That’s the percentage of people who have suffered a heart attack, heart failure, or stroke who had at least one of four risk factors for cardiovascular disease beforehand. Even more simply put: These types of serious cardiovascular events don’t come out of nowhere. That’s according to a prospective cohort study published yesterday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. STAT’s Liz Cooney has more details.

Metsera shows promising data, but questions remain on monthly dosing

Metsera, a biotech that is developing obesity treatments and that Pfizer is set to acquire, released some new data yesterday showing that its GLP-1 candidate was highly effective in a mid-stage trial.

In the study, which tested 28 weekly doses of the drug, called MET-097i, patients on the highest dose experienced placebo-adjusted weight loss of 14%.

That’s competitive weight loss compared with the drugs on the market, but the selling point of Metsera’s drugs is supposed to be that they can be dosed monthly. The company has another ongoing Phase 2 trial that will test monthly dosing, but it’s not yet completed.

The tolerability of the drug is not entirely clear from the company’s announcement. In the trial testing weekly doses, patients experience placebo-adjusted rates of nausea ranging from 4% to 23%, and rates of vomiting ranging from 4% to 15%. The company did not disclose absolute rates of side effects, but said that only 3% of participants discontinued.

Shut down threatens telehealth, hospital at home

Congressional leaders are pushing the latest battle over funding the government to the brink, threatening Covid-era policies that expanded telehealth services covered by Medicare and allowing enrollees to receive hospital care in their homes. The flexibilities expire at midnight if Congress doesn’t act to extend them — which won’t happen if lawmakers can’t agree on a bill to fund the government. It’s the third time in less than a year that these policies have been caught up in a funding battle, I report with my colleague John Wilkerson. The policies enjoy bipartisan support and are likely to receive another temporary extension when a deal gets done. So the big question is how long an increasingly likely shutdown will last.

What happens now? CMS issued guidance that patients in hospital at home programs must be discharged or returned to hospital by the end of the day today. Chad Ellimoottil, medical director of virtual care at the University of Michigan Health told me the health system will begin notifying virtual care patients that their appointments are not covered. There’s hope that any deal that happens after would include retroactive reimbursement for telehealth services rendered during any lapse.