Posts Tagged ‘weight loss’

The Overselling of Diet and Exercise for Diabetes Remission

January 27, 2024 — Zeal is thrilling. “The solution is at hand” for type 2 diabetes, says Professor Roy Taylor. “If a person has T2DM, they have become too heavy for their own body.” Losing weight with his very low calorie diet will put that diabetes into remission, he says. “A simple bottom line.” Except that a new study […]

Will 2024 Mark the End of “Diet Season?”

January 4, 2024 — It is beginning to seem like an anachronism. January has long marked the beginning of “diet season.” Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, Atkins, and many other businesses depend on this annual weight loss ritual to rack up their biggest sales of the year. Diet resolutions typically stick for only a few months, though. Some time […]

The Best and Worst of 2023 in Obesity and Health

December 28, 2023 — This was a year of great progress in obesity, and with that progress came frustrations and angst. So finding the best and worst of 2023 in obesity and health is actually quite an easy and interesting task. Let’s dig right in. #1 Best: Cardiovascular Outcomes Benefit Data for Semaglutide Above all else the landmark findings […]

The Big Shift in Lifestyle Programs for Obesity

December 15, 2023 — It’s long been overdue. For as long as we can remember, one presumption has been dominant. The real cure for obesity is (supposed to be) a change in lifestyle. It is the “foundation of obesity treatment” says just about everyone, even today. But the sand underneath that foundation is shifting. So the time has come […]

Health Systems Rigged to Interrupt Obesity Treatment

November 17, 2023 — It’s not easy. Getting access to good obesity care and maintaining it is a challenge that is especially frustrating as we see that the options for care are improving. But it seems that health systems right now are rigged to interrupt obesity treatment. An illustration of this comes from a recent study published in Obesity. […]

Language Betrays Our Understanding of Obesity

October 9, 2023 — Words matter. The language we use to describe and discuss obesity conveys and sometimes betrays our understanding of this complex, chronic disease. It betrays that understanding because our implicit biases about obesity are sometimes at odds with our explicit, rational knowledge of it. With a new paper in Gastroenterology Clinics of North America, Ted Kyle, […]

Digging into Body Composition with Obesity Treatment at EASD

October 4, 2023 — People have “lots of interest” in the effects of GLP-1 treatment for obesity on body composition, reports endocrinologist Daniel Drucker from EASD in Hamburg. Judging from clickbait headlines about semaglutide, we suspect public interest in this question is strong as well. So that makes data presented at EASD from the SURPASS study on muscle composition […]

Weight Loss, Obesity Care, and the Import of Words

October 1, 2023 — Words matter. They convey both facts and feelings and the wrong words create misunderstandings that are sometimes irreparable. Because of this, we notice the imbalance in public discourse about new medicines for obesity that more often casts them as weight loss drugs than as medicines for the care and treatment of obesity. Fortunately, others are […]

HFpEF: Actually Treating Obesity Makes the Difference

August 28, 2023 — On Friday, NEJM published impressive results in an RCT of semaglutide for treating patients who have obesity and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The treatment enabled these people to function better, feel better, and suffer half as many serious adverse events. These are important benefits for people with a very difficult condition. But […]

The Overwhelming Appeal of Simplistic Obesity Thinking

August 24, 2023 — Simplistic thinking about obesity has an overwhelming appeal. Sadly, though, it has a dismal history of letting us down. “Yes, calories in/calories out really is the key to weight loss,” writes Tamar Haspel in the Washington Post. To insure we don’t miss the point, she closes by saying: “It’s the calories, people. It’s the calories.” […]