Archive for November, 2021

More Anti-Obesity Medicine Progress with Cagrilintide

November 20, 2021 — Lancet this week published the biggest study yet of cagrilintide – evidence that we’re seeing success in progress with more options for anti-obesity medicines. In a commentary alongside this study, Kishore Gadde and David Allison call this promising news. They point to the advantage of having a new mechanism of action for treating obesity. Also, […]

New Polling: Medicare Lags Behind on Obesity Care

November 19, 2021 — New polling being released today by Morning Consult tells us that Medicare is lagging behind public sentiment on obesity care. Researchers found that 73 percent of the public supports Medicare covering obesity treatment and prevention. What’s more, a similar number (69 percent) says that obesity care should be a top priority for federal healthcare programs. […]

Looking to Adele for Body Positivity?

November 17, 2021 — Adele is back this week, making a big celebrity splash with her music and her body positivity messages. Clearly, she knows how to command attention – with three big stories in the New York Times alone so far this week. All this is just part of building the anticipation for her first new album in […]

Child Obesity Spikes in England During the Pandemic

November 17, 2021 — This was not entirely unexpected, but the jolt is remarkable. New stats are out for the rates of child obesity in England for 2021 and the numbers are up even more than we might have expected. For children aged four to five years, prevalence jumped from 9.9 to 14.4 percent between the 2019/2020 school year […]

American Heart Updates Dietary Guidance – Almost

November 16, 2021 — Dietary bias can be very slow to fade. The American Heart Association updated its dietary guidance for the first time in more than a decade. The new guidance has a lot of good things in it. There’s less emphasis on individual good and bad foods. More emphasis on healthful patterns for eating. The guidance makes […]

Vitamin D and COVID: More Noise Than News

November 15, 2021 — Last year, when we didn’t have many great options for dealing with COVID-19, interest in vitamin D was keen. A number of studies found a correlation between vitamin D levels and COVID risk. So splashy headlines ensued. Even the former president and Tony Fauci told us they were taking it. But in retrospect, those headlines […]

The Hazard of One Size Fits All

November 14, 2021 — It’s hard to miss the zeal that people bring to matters of health, wellness, and fitness. We’re part of it. Believing that health systems should, can, and will do better in helping folks with obesity, we devote silly amounts of time to writing about it daily. The motivation is simply to share information that might […]

Obesity: Can We Blame It on Cheap Gas?

November 13, 2021 — Jeff Colgan and Miriam Hinthorn have a provocative new paper suggesting that cheap gas drives obesity prevalence higher. At first glance, the title of their paper borders on sensational: “Is cheap gasoline killing us?” It worked. They made us look, even though (or perhaps because) the implicit claim of cause and effect is so absurd. […]

Cutting NASH Harms by 88% with Bariatric Surgery

November 12, 2021 — NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) is one of the most serious complications of untreated obesity. It’s very hard to treat. It can lead to liver failure, liver cancer, and death. So when a careful study of bariatric surgery shows an an 88 percent reduction in the risk of NASH progressing, this is big news. JAMA published this […]

Hunting for the Causes of Obesity, and Maybe Solutions

November 11, 2021 — The chronic disease of obesity is tough to wrap our heads around. On one hand, many people consider themselves to be amateur experts. Consumer media – and our spam folder – is full of glib advice about how to “lose belly fat.” Advice about foods that cause weight gain is everywhere. But the truth is […]