NEWS

Follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health policy and obesity

Progress Reported in MASH with Survodutide

February 27, 2024 — Yet another GLP-1 agonist in development for obesity – survodutide – showed promising results yesterday from a phase 2 clinical trial in MASH. In case you missed the notice, MASH is the new acronym for what we used to label as NASH. We also note that MASLD has replaced NAFLD in the nomenclature alphabet soup […]

Pediatric Obesity: Making the Leap from Knowing to Doing

February 26, 2024 — We are in the midst of a great leap forward in pediatric obesity – from knowing to doing what we should in caring for the young persons with this chronic disease. ATPO 2024 at the University of Minnesota Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine (CPOM) last week made this clear. We know much more about how […]

The Tension Between Cynicism, Skepticism, and Pragmatism

February 25, 2024 — Are we cynical? We can surely find excuses to be. Examples of cynicism pop up at every glance. Certainly we see it in politics and public policy. Closer to home at ConscienHealth, people routinely find reasons for cynicism about all kinds of medical research and advice – especially nutrition and obesity. This is a real […]

“Weight Loss Jabs” Instead of Drug Rehab? Hold On, Folks

February 24, 2024 — This sounds like a godsend. “Weight loss jabs could be a more effective and cheaper treatment for drug addiction than rehab, a study suggests.” So says the Telegraph of London. The “weight loss jabs” they’re talking about are liraglutide 3 mg daily injections, also known by the brand name of Saxenda. Sad to say, they […]

Weight Stigma Through the Cultural Lens of the Global South

February 22, 2024 — Scholars have noted that in lower income countries, obesity can be taken as a signal of wealth. This observation in turn fuels a presumption that weight stigma might not be a problem in countries of the Global South. But a new scoping review in Obesity Facts suggests this presumption is likely false. Laura Eggerichs, Oliver […]

Atlantic Diet Study: Benefits from More Than Just a Diet

February 22, 2024 — “Is the Atlantic diet the new Mediterranean miracle?” This headline (and a host of others like it) says a lot about the ultra-processing of nutrition research by consumer media. It takes a fascinating study about the health effects of a traditional pattern for eating called the Atlantic diet and removes all the nuance. The product […]

CDC Leaders Call for Both Obesity Prevention and Care

February 21, 2024 — Should this be surprising? Probably not. It had to come to this. But this is a pleasant bend in a long arc toward a more realistic approach for obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three leaders at CDC write in Health Affairs Forefront that we need both prevention and care to […]

Possible Benefits for Brain Function from Obesity Treatment

February 20, 2024 — The potential for benefits to brain function with effective obesity treatment is becoming difficult to miss. In particular, a new observational study of brain function in a cohort of patients receiving metabolic surgery for treatment of obesity is drawing much attention right now in JAMA Network Open. It suggests the possibility of a lasting benefit […]

The Cost of Broken Global Food Systems: $15 Trillion per Year

February 19, 2024 — Global food systems are a slow-rolling disaster, gaining momentum, and costing the global economy $15 trillion per year. That’s the bad news from a new policy report of the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC). The good news is that we have options, they report, which could produce economic and health benefits adding up to as […]

The Rise of Forced Choices Between Money and Health

February 18, 2024 — Who knew that financial toxicity was a thing? Perhaps like us, you have merely thought of it as the financial burden of healthcare – without assigning it the status of a medical complication that dysfunctional healthcare causes. But recent publications are making it ever more clear that people living with chronic diseases are having to […]