July 21, 2016 — Eisai and Arena Pharmaceuticals announced this week that they received final approval from FDA for once-daily lorcaserin, which will be sold as Belviq XR for long-term obesity treatment. The real question is: what will this mean for the product, the patients who can benefit from it, and for obesity care more broadly? This approval will […]
July 20, 2016 — A new systematic review of clinical studies tells us that it’s time to stop dumping on potatoes. Daniel Borch and colleagues systematically reviewed both intervention and observational studies. They concluded: The identified studies do not provide convincing evidence to suggest an association between intake of potatoes and risks of obesity, T2D, or CVD. French fries […]
July 19, 2016 — There’s nothing subtle about it. When people with obesity seek healthcare, what they receive is second class care – at best. Writing in Vox, physician Farah Naz Khan succinctly describes the situation that people with obesity face: Obese patients often can’t even get standard medical procedures. Health care providers are generally ill-equipped to deal with […]
July 18, 2016 — The lazy days of summer are speeding by and new research is suggesting once again that summer might be a time when some kids have a high risk for developing obesity. Tzu-An Chen and colleagues conducted a careful longitudinal analysis of 1,651 elementary school children from kindergarten to the beginning of fifth grade. They found: Post […]
July 17, 2016 — A fitness culture is spreading around the world that has great potential to promote better health and well-being. But even a small element of shaming can undermine all of that. Look at fashion, look at daily routines everywhere, and the fitness culture is impossible to miss. While much of life has become a sedentary ritual of enslavement to glowing rectangles, […]
July 16, 2016 — If you want some insight into the challenges of gearing up to deliver systematic obesity care, a new publication in Current Obesity Reports is well worth reading. For a full understanding, you will have to read carefully between the lines. Adam Tsai and colleagues give a very thorough description of how Kaiser Permanente invests in […]
July 15, 2016 — Breakfast has been through a lot lately. Skeptics have demoted it from “the most important meal of the day” to the “most marketed meal of the day.” It’s been knocked around by changing nutrition fashion trends on cholesterol, carbs, and protein. It’s been asked to last all day long and prop up flagging sales at McDonald’s. A morning meal was mainly […]
July 14, 2016 — Repeating a pattern that is all too common, researchers at the University of Michigan have trolled through NHANES data and found a correlation between hydration and obesity. They published it in the Annals of Family Practice. They handed out a press release. And voilà! CNN and others are reporting on a “new secret to losing weight.” Never […]
July 13, 2016 — As public interest in concepts of healthy eating and now “clean eating” has grown, health and nutrition professionals have begun recognize that an obsession with healthy eating can become pathological. In 1997, Stephen Bratman first described orthorexia nervosa in Yoga Journal as a “the health food eating disorder.” Unfortunately, almost 20 years later, experts are still struggling […]
July 12, 2016 — Two fascinating new studies in the journal Diabetes provide new evidence for the importance of brain activity in obesity and its treatment. The first study documents significant differences in brain response to drinking sugar between adolescents who have obesity and adolescents who have a lean BMI. The second demonstrates how a new obesity treatment – lorcaserin – alters […]
