Posts Tagged ‘bias’

“Don’t Listen to Those Influencers,” Cries an Influencer

February 16, 2024 — Influencers are not doctors. They can’t understand the science issues with obesity drugs. That’s not what they do. With expressive skill, a leading influencer in the fat acceptance movement put her finger on an important issue in the Washington Post this week. On this, we totally agree. If we listen to many social media influencers, […]

Is This Liver Fatty or Steatotic? Does It Matter?

December 4, 2023 — By the end of this month, we will be seeing lists of what’s in and what’s out for the coming year. For people whose minds drift toward liver disease, we have an entry. Fatty liver is out and steatotic liver is in. NAFLD goes to the dustbin, replaced by MASLD, while MASH takes over from […]

Persistent Confusion About Weight Loss and Obesity Care

October 7, 2023 — We have mixed feelings about a new report in JAMA this week about GLP-1 agonists and the associated risk of gastrointestinal adverse events. On one hand, this is helpful data. It is a reminder that despite all of the sensational reporting about “weight loss miracles,” these drugs are serious medicines that require careful prescribing and […]

Are We Taking Obesity Seriously Yet?

October 2, 2023 — To be sure, we are making progress. Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to ask if we are yet taking the chronic disease of obesity seriously. Or are we just playing at it? Writing in The Lancet, Priya Sumithran, Francis Finucane, and Ricardo Cohen suggest we may still be doing more of the latter: “How we handle obesity […]

Perspective on Bias in Diabetes and Obesity

August 8, 2023 — Folks who have not detected a shift in public discourse about obesity are simply not listening. In that shift, we detect some easing in longstanding bias about this disease. But perspective is difficult. Is the proverbial glass half full with progress to celebrate? Or is the remaining void a reminder that overcoming weight bias and […]

Is Promising Prevention Good Enough for Childhood Obesity?

August 5, 2023 — Back in February, we noted a study documenting the effects of a childhood obesity program that, according to its authors, “shows promise.” Since then, much has happened with this study. Scholars from the School of Public Health at Indiana University in Bloomington took a closer look at the statistics in this paper. The authors corrected […]

Do Non-Nutritive Sweeteners Help with Weight?

July 31, 2023 — The subject of sweeteners stirs emotions almost constantly. The World Health organization has been on a tear lately, suggesting the the sweetener aspartame might be carcinogenic and that non-sugar sweeteners have “deadly long-term consequences.” Some experts will even suggest non-nutritive sweeteners can cause weight gain. So we welcome the appearance of a more balanced view, […]

Digging Deeply in Genetics to Grasp Obesity

June 16, 2023 — At the Boston Course in Obesity Medicine, Sadaf Farooqi received the George L. Blackburn Foundation Award and delivered a masterclass of digging deeply into genetics to fully understand obesity. Simultaneously, she co-authored striking new observations about one dimension of this in the New England Journal of Medicine. All in a day’s work for someone intent […]

A Persistent, Questionable Fear of Whole Milk

June 7, 2023 — Overheated rhetoric in nutrition is nothing new. But the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) set a high bar yesterday. In a press release, the organization rang alarm bells, saying that “big dairy” is on its way to “making school meals less healthy by allowing whole milk.” Oh my. Is the persistent fear of […]

Coming to Terms with the Biology of Desire

June 5, 2023 — O‌‌ne of the neat tricks of semaglutide and tirzepatide is their unexpected ability to shift the frames of bias through which we look at obesity and human behavior. Neuroscience and behavioral psychology have long told us the human desire for food is not purely a matter of choice. Yet in addressing obesity, weight bias and […]