August 22, 2020 — An interesting new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association isn’t really getting the attention it deserves. It asks simple questions. What’s the effect of cutting sugar-sweetened drinks? First, does it reduce risk factors for heart disease? Second, does it bring weight loss? Finally, does it lead people to prefer less sweetness? The […]
August 21, 2020 — Trust is fragile. But the fragile currency of trust is the foundation for advancing science in peer-reviewed publications. Ethical journals work hard with authors and reviewers to ensure that their publications are trustworthy. Journals also have a process for correcting errors that slip into publications. Retraction is an option that’s necessary when errors invalidate a […]
August 20, 2020 — This is unfolding today in the New England Journal of Medicine. A fascinating little study of 22 patients is offering up a comparison of apples and scalpels today. The researchers compared metabolic effects of weight loss from very low calorie diets and from bariatric surgery. They found similar effects for similar amounts of weight loss. […]
August 19, 2020 — There’s no way to gloss over this mess. Nor should we. The Journal of Internal Medicine made a terrible mess when they published a paper on the role of physiology in African American women with obesity. That mess exposes the how blind people can be to racism. We are perhaps even more blind to the […]
August 18, 2020 — For the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, this was a relatively easy question. Americans typically consume too much added sugar. So the committee recommends a lower limit. In the 2015, the limit was ten percent of total calories from added sugars. But now the committee says that limit should come down to six. Not so fast, […]
August 17, 2020 — Faced with a threat, humans have remarkable skill for adapting. We learn about the threat. Then we figure out how to deal with it and prosper regardless. But maladaptive responses are also possible, such as denial and rationalization. For both COVID-19 and obesity, we see a bit of those at work. Arguments bubble up saying […]
August 16, 2020 — Who knew that Boris Johnson was a secret fan of Michelle Obama? If imitation is sincere flattery, we see some flattery of her in the new Better Health campaign coming from the NHS. Let’s Move! has become Let’s Do This! So the UK is on a crash course of self-directed weight loss, with a little […]
August 14, 2020 — “Fat deposited in skeletal muscle may be sought after by top-end steakhouses but…” These words bubbled up from an editorial this week in Annals of Internal Medicine. It was about obesity and COVID-19. At best, this is an unfortunate metaphor. A less generous take is that the author – a professor of Medicine at Johns […]
August 13, 2020 — Do you want to take a whack at expert opinions on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines? Then today is your last chance. USDA is accepting comments until midnight tonight. So far, it has a mere received 22,434 comments. Believe it or not, this reflects relatively little controversy. The main headlines from this round are all about […]
August 12, 2020 — Who wants to eat healthy? Roughly nine out of ten of American adults. And at the top of their list for what’s healthy is fiber and whole grains. But somehow, we feel no surprise learning that food labels about healthy whole grains are leaving consumers confused. Because the point of health claims on food labels […]
