Archive for May, 2019

Wisdom and Wishes About Walking to School

May 21, 2019 — Another solution to obesity popped up in the headlines today. “Student Loses 115 Lbs. by Walking to High School Every Day,” says People magazine. That headline happened to coincide with the release of a new study in BMC Public Health. A press release from the University of Cambridge tells us: Children who regularly walk or […]

NCDs, UHC, and Global Presumptions

May 20, 2019 — Today we’re at the WHO for the WHA learning all about NCDs and UHC. Alphabet soup for lunch. Obesity? It was hiding behind the chia seeds at the breakfast buffet. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and universal health coverage (UHC) are big priorities at the 72nd World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva today. But within the global […]

What? A Low-Fat Diet Prevents Breast Cancer?

May 19, 2019 — Low-fat diets are back in the news this week. An impressive and important randomized, controlled clinical trial started way back in 1993 to test the possibility that a low-fat diet might reduce the risk of breast cancer in women after menopause. Needless to say, a lot has changed in 26 years since then. Back then, […]

Severe Teen Obesity: Care Delayed May Be Health Denied

May 18, 2019 — For severe teen obesity there’s only one very effective treatment option – bariatric surgery. But seldom do patients get it while they are still teens. For one thing, only six children’s hospitals have fully accredited bariatric surgery programs in all of the U.S. With six million kids who have severe obesity, the number of centers […]

Told Ya So: It’s the Ultra-Processed Food

May 17, 2019 — Kevin Hall is a bit of a myth buster. In a number of studies, he has put popular ideas about obesity and nutrition under the microscope of objective data. And by doing so, he proved them wrong. But in a new study published yesterday, he proved himself wrong about ultra-processed food. In a carefully controlled […]

Philly Is Taking the Fizz Out of Obesity and Diabetes

May 16, 2019 — Yep. We’re just about done here. Soda taxes are highly effective, and Philly has proved it. Classic economic price-demand curves work, especially in a city with a lot of poverty. If you tax soda and raise the price, sales go down. Philly obesity and diabetes rates will follow. A hot new publication in JAMA proves […]

To Prevent Dementia, Stay Active and Forget the Jellyfish

May 15, 2019 — The prospect of losing your mental edge is scary enough to make people open their wallets for scams. The Luminosity brain training scam earned its marketers a $50-million judgment for false advertising. Right now, FTC is going after scammers selling a jellyfish supplement to keep your brain sharp. But we don’t need the scams to […]

Killing Us Gently with Implicit Weight Bias

May 14, 2019 — We’re making progress. Right? Explicit fat shaming is no longer cool. But then again, we see implicit weight bias on the rise. It’s subtle. It often comes in healthcare – “for your own good.” Yesterday, it smacked us in the face when we read this from a distinguished bariatric surgery program explaining about a new […]

Longer Term Outcomes for the “Accordion” Sleeve

May 13, 2019 — While gastric sleeve procedures became the most common form of bariatric surgery in the U.S., a new and less invasive approach has been coming along. An “Accordion” sleeve procedure shrinks a person’s stomach through an advanced suturing process – no surgical incision required. Later this week, researchers will present the first data on longer term […]

Does Physical Activity and Self-Weighing Prevent Weight Regain?

May 12, 2019 — It’s basic physiology and it’s the bane of obesity care – weight regain. When a person loses weight, homeostasis kicks in. The body protects itself by working really hard to restore its reserves of energy in fat tissue. But the lore of weight loss holds that a person can fight that off with physical activity […]