GLP-1 drugs are increasingly moving into gastroenterology conversations—not just for obesity and diabetes, but for conditions like MASLD, GERD, and even inflammatory bowel disease, where some clinicians are observing symptom improvement in select patients. The article raises a broader question: should gastroenterologists begin prescribing GLP-1s themselves, or should these therapies remain primarily managed by primary care and endocrinology? While enthusiasm around the drugs continues to grow, experts also emphasize the need for GI physicians to understand their gastrointestinal side effects, safety considerations, and potential long-term role in GI disease prevention, including possible effects on GI cancer risk.
Author: Abhay Panchal
Dr. Sanket Chauhan, Founder & CEO of Surgical Automations, joined me and co-hosts Dr. Neil Parikh (CIO, Connecticut GI and Chair of Innovation, GI Alliance) and Matt Schwartz(Founder and CEO of Virgo) — and opened the conversation by showing us footage none of us were fully prepared for. Inside a pig’s intestine, a 15mm robot identifies the lumen, reads the walls, and advances — autonomously. No hands on the scope. No physician guiding the tip. Just hardware and software in a closed loop, doing what takes most fellows years to develop feel for. This is ex vivo work. A pig model in a lab. But the engineering underneath…
MASH cirrhosis has traditionally been considered irreversible. However, new data from investigators at Cleveland Clinic, presented at Digestive Disease Week 2026, demonstrate that cirrhosis regression can occur following metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS). In a retrospective cohort of patients with biopsy-proven compensated MASH cirrhosis undergoing MBS, investigators evaluated long-term outcomes using paired liver biopsies obtained at the time of surgery and at follow-up. Among 30 patients with a median follow-up of more than six years, cirrhosis regression, defined as improvement to a less advanced stage of fibrosis, was observed in one-third of patients. “These findings challenge the long-held view that…
A growing paradox is emerging in medical AI: some of the strongest evidence exists for imaging-based AI tools—across colonoscopy, mammography, retinal imaging, CT scans, and pathology—yet many remain poorly integrated into routine clinical care. Eric Topol argues that AI-assisted colonoscopy alone now has evidence from 44 randomized trials showing improved adenoma detection, while retinal AI models can predict risks for cardiovascular, neurologic, and metabolic diseases from routine eye exams. Despite this, implementation has lagged due to reimbursement gaps, workflow challenges, and lack of coordinated deployment. At the same time, generative AI tools like ChatGPT are being rapidly adopted by both…
Gastroenterology hospitalists (GIH) have become an integral to academic inpatient gastroenterology services, however the competencies and skills that distinguish GIH from non-GIH gastroenterologists are not yet well defined. The aim of this study was to compare the comfort level in performing inpatient-focused endoscopy skills by GIH and non-GIH.
A new social media platform exclusively for doctors launched this week. The free platform, called Roon, was founded by Vikram Bhaskaran and Arun Ranganathan, two former Pinterest leaders who serve as CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, as well as neurosurgeon Dr. Rohan Ramakrishna, who serves as the startup’s president. The platform is designed to address a growing gap in the physician community — its lack of a suitable space online to connect, debate and share clinical knowledge, Dr. Ramakrishna said. While AI tools like Anothropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT can do a good job of summarizing published literature, they…
A detailed Commonwealth Fund analysis shows that physician experiences with private equity vary dramatically depending on how deals are structured and whether doctors are treated as partners or employees. Some physicians reported that PE backing helped practices scale, invest in ancillary services, improve payer contracting, expand research participation, and reduce administrative burden. Others described declining compensation, growing management overhead, loss of autonomy, restrictive noncompete clauses, and increasing pressure to meet financial targets after acquisitions. The report highlights that PE-backed consolidation is rapidly expanding across specialties including urology, orthopedics, OB/GYN, anesthesiology, and gastroenterology. While supporters argue these partnerships help independent practices…
Private equity firms are increasingly being forced to rethink their healthcare strategies as scrutiny around physician practice roll-ups and consolidation intensifies. According to investor Matthew Bennett of Invidia Capital Management, many large physician roll-up models struggled because they expanded too aggressively, failed to integrate practices effectively, and could not clearly demonstrate improvements in care quality or cost reduction. As a result, investor sentiment is shifting away from pure consolidation-driven strategies. Instead, firms are becoming more selective and increasingly focused on businesses that can show measurable operational or clinical improvements, particularly through technology, interoperability, workflow efficiency, and lower-cost care delivery. Bennett…
An experimental drug called daraxonrasib is generating major excitement in pancreatic cancer after early trials showed it could significantly extend survival in advanced disease. The drug targets RAS, a protein long considered “undruggable” and mutated in more than 90% of pancreatic cancers. In a Phase 3 study, patients receiving daraxonrasib plus chemotherapy had median survival of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy alone. Earlier-stage data published in the New England Journal of Medicine also showed prolonged disease control and survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer. Researchers and oncologists described the therapy as one of the most significant advances in…
A growing message in gastroenterology is that nutrition should no longer be treated as an “adjunct” to care, but as a core clinical intervention. In a Medscape commentary, gastroenterologist Alicia Muratore, MD, argues that GI specialists already use nutrition therapeutically across conditions like IBD, IBS, MASLD, celiac disease, and gastroparesis—but often fail to fully integrate or “own” those discussions in practice. She highlights growing evidence supporting nutrition-based interventions, including weight loss reversing fibrosis in MASLD and exclusive enteral nutrition matching steroids in pediatric Crohn’s disease.